Talk:Margaret Durrell

Fair use rationale for Image:Margotdurrell.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Margotdurrell.jpg

Image:Margotdurrell.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 00:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Does this deserve to be an article?

In light of an AFD vote on Leslie Durrell - the article was turned into a redirect to Durrell Family because of his extreme non-notability - I thought I'd raise the same question here: Does Margo deserve an article? I'd say no; siblings of notable people are not notable, and her posthumous autobiography is a slim reed on which to hang this article. Still, the question isn't quite the slam-dunk that Leslie was. Any thoughts? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, nobody has responded to this - which I'll take as votes that the current situation is fine with them. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, David. Good point. This is definitely an article we should think of merging into Durrell family somewhere down the future. While Leslie's article is surely grounds for AfD, Margo's article's claim to notability hinges on three things:

• Appearance in the trilogy, and aaccompanying adaptations (also true for Leslie)
• Helping GD during initial years of setting up zoo (not really a bullet point)
• The autobiography

I think a good index to whether merge or not would be to see if she had obit s in papers outside the Jersey Post. But how would one go about finding that ? ray (talk) 14:46, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the points of notability raised by Pradiptaray above. Though Margo is not extremely notable, she is certainly more significant than Leslie. What I think is this: Keep the article for now, work on it, clean it up, then eventually consider merging it with the Durrell Family page. Perhaps we could expand that page so that it contained a larger history of the family (i.e., more on Lawrence Samuel, etc.). Yes, I don't think it is terribly important for Margaret to have an article, but I don't think there's any reason to go about deleting it anytime soon. Let's see how things work out. - I.M.S. (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Michael Haag

@Websurfer2: Michael Haag is not a very reliable source. For example, he claims that Louisa Durrell was born in 1887 (actual year: 1886), and Lawrence Durrell, in 1911 (correct year: 1912). Also, although he correctly points out that Gerald Durrell's Corfu trilogy is largely fiction, he quotes entire pages from it. So you better double-check his statements, using Douglas Botting's Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography or other reliable sources. Thanks. P.S. I changed the references to Haag with throughout the article. Taurus Littrow (talk) 21:23, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Taurus Littrow: Thanks for the heads-up about Haag. There are inconsistencies in the birth dates between the various Durrell WP articles. Most of the birth dates and birth places come from Find A Grave, which is itself problematic. Margo's article was over 90% identical to her Find A Grave article, though I think the later was copied from Wikipedia based upon the date it was created. Find A Grave claims most of the siblings were born in Punjab, even though the family lived in Bengal. It makes no sense that Louisa would travel 1,800 km to Punjab for each birth (and I haven't seen a source asserting that she did).

As for Jack Breeze, he may have joined the RAF, but he was a commercial flight engineer when he met Margo. The previous assertion that he was an RAF pilot stationed on Corfu when they met made no sense since the RAF didn't have any bases in Greece. The story of their first son being born in Ethiopia is backed by newspaper interviews with her grandchildren.

Haag may not be 100% accurate (no biographer is), but he did interview family members who gave him access to unpublished papers. He is no more or less accurate than the memoirs and authorized biographies that most of the family WP articles appear to be based upon. Authorized biographies are just memoirs written by a third party where the subject or their family has editorial rights over the content. A review of Haag's book in The Guardian complains about what Haag included/excluded, not the accuracy of the book itself, and points out problems in the memoirs and othe biographies.Websurfer2 (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for your detailed reply. I'd say, you're being too mild with Haag; his book is truly awful in my opinion. I've read the review by The Guardian (very scathing indeed, and rightly so), and if they didn't complain about the inaccuracies, it doesn't mean there are none. Like I pointed out above, Haag makes two blatant mistakes at the very beginning of the book as far as the birth years of two members of the Durrell family are concerned (also, for some reason, he failed to mention when Lawrence Samuel was born; I'd say, this is a serious omission). How can we be sure there are no other mistakes throughout the book? The problem with Haag is that he is a sloppy writer (and very boring to boot). Read Amazon reviews to his other books: the guy is notorious for making factual mistakes, like wrong years or even names (see some examples below). So yes, he might have had access to exclusive material, but it didn't prevent him from making horrible factual mistakes. Besides, some of his info is contradictory; for example, in one place he quotes a large fragment from My Family describing how Gerald met Kosti the convict, but elsewhere he writes that it was Leslie who actually met Kosti. And frankly, there is very little new information in his book; most of it had already been published by others. Also, a large part of his book consists of stuff copypasted from My Family, which I wouldn't call exclusive either. One way or another, Botting's biography is by far more superior, and much better written, too. No way one can put Haag on the same level with Botting. Frankly, it would have been better to republish Botting than publish Haag. It looks to me the publishers opted for Haag because his book is much shorter than Botting's, and people don't read large books today anymore.
• Fragments from Amazon reviews to The Templars:

• "At one point the author credits 'James Smith' [correct name: Joseph Smith] as founder of the Mormon Church. If you can not get a simple fact like that right how am I supposed to believe anything else you have written? This is a sloppy book with a clear agenda which wouldn't be so bad if it was just not too boring. I have read dozens of books about the Templars and this one by far seems the least informed and least entertaining. Avoid at all costs."
• "The author started out with saying the Assyrians took the Israelites to Babylon in586 bc. The Assyrians took Israel (minus the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi) about 720 by. The Babylonians defeated the Assyrians and later attacked Jerusalem in 586 bc and took them to Babylon. The Medes and Persians took Babylon intact and dominated the whole area until Alexander the Great defeated them. Starting out with historical errors turned me off, so I don’t know how accurate the rest of the book is."
• "Poorly written, poorly organized. Reads like it was cranked out over a long-weekend, lifting material from other sources. Saving grace is the book is not exhaustively-detailed, so if you're looking for a quick overview of the subject, this'll work in that sense."
• "I didn't even understand how the book structure went. Seemed to be a collection of footnote-type paragraphs. Gave up, possibly before it changed format."
• "I read about 40 pages into the book and came across several items that didn't seem to be correct. I couldn't find footnotes, aside from some general Bible references which didn't always correlate with the statements. Since there were not enough definitive references within the book, I decided that it was best to put it away. I wasn't certain enough that I would be receiving valid information if I continued reading." Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:00, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

• By the way, I didn't dispute the info on Jack Breeze. I just replaced all the references to Haag with "citation needed". A guy who doesn't know when Lawrence Durrell was born is quite unreliable. You can add the reference to the interviews with Margo's grandchildren or some other sources. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)