A letter from HogPro All-Pro Jeremy:
Just a bit of fun, John: I came across these links to House of the Binns at AboutBritain.com and the National Trust for Scotland!
My interest in Prof Binns arose following your post last week about the importance of 1692, the Seekers and the Muggletonians. I have always supposed the fact only Hermione (standing in for JKR) was interested in history, and that this subject was taught in the most boring way possible at Hogwarts, pointed to something.
In UK schools the number of students taking history has been in decline and maybe JKR felt that this very important subject deserved better teachers and teaching methods ? And for some reason humans never seem able to learn from history!
Or maybe once again JKR was feeding us a false trail about the importance of history (“Who needs it? It is so boring…”) to keep readers from seeing how wizard history would be crucial to the storyline — or how much wizard history mirrors real history?
Who knows?
Best wishes to you and your family,
Jeremy
Thank you, Jeremy, for sending me these. Who knew that ‘Binns’ wasn’t just a garbage can and ‘has been’ joke? Not me. Imagine living in a ‘house’ that your family had lived in without interruption for more than four centuries. Its proximity to Edinburgh suggests, too, that Ms. Rowling may have visited.
It’s items like this, though not really my area of interest (or expertise, certainly), that help me understand why readers would want a copy of Steve Vander Ark’s In Search of Harry Potter. I bet the House of Binns is in there.
Speak Your Mind