Daily writing prompt

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

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The character would be Marian Maudsley from L.P Hartley’s ‘The Go-Between’. You can read the background to the story in my blog ‘Marian and Ted’ from April 8th 2025 here. It is a book that has also been made into a film, once in 1971, and again in 2015. I’ve never watched the 2015 version because I prefer to stay with the original.

If I were Marian I’d be back in Victorian times living the life of luxury as one of those upper class ladies who spend their days playing croquet on their vast expanses of lawn, being read to by chinless wonders as they lie in hammocks in the shade, or dressing in spectacular gowns that swish along the floor as they are escorted to dinner by Viscount This or Earl That. I’d never need to cook a meal in my entire life.

It’s the luxury I’d go for, not for the rough and tumble with the tenant farmer, Ted Burgess, who lives next door. Marian needs to marry Viscount Trimingham, because that’s what upper class ladies do. Ted, played by Alan Bates in the 1971 film, is a bit of rough to be sure, but I think given the choice I’d stick with the Viscount, played by Edward Fox. Viscount Trimingham is a perfect gentleman and assures young Leo Colston (the go-between) that nothing is ever a lady’s fault!

It must have been wonderful to be so rich and so blameless. Marian can do what she likes and not one word is ever said about the consequences of her actions.