Smachtai: Is there a reason you want to set it in England rather than Germany?

This question will haunt more than one person that tried to provide me with sorces in another forum post. Lazy me just didn't answer it yet. In my manner of loosing focus and stray away from the original post I will try to answer is in a new post.

Actually I think of it more like 'A Victorian Adventure.'

If the adventure happens in England it will be more of an adventure for me, than placing it in the German countryside. For me research is part of the story. To provide you a small look in how I think, here is an example. You might know the song
The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond

When I first heard it, a female was singing it, then later I read if was about a male warrior amenting about his girlfriend and his execution. The low road mentioned is the realm of the dead. In short I no longer liked the song wihen it was sung by a female. For me to like it, it needs a male artist now.

If you now say Moody is weird, you are probably right. I admit it, you even are allowed to quote me.

The story happens about 150 year ago and I assume that I won't know a lot more of Germany in 1850AD than about England in 1850AD. My resources for Germany are probably better than for England but I still hope this will be countered by people being more lenient with minor inaccuracies.

How would you react if I placed it in Austria and tell you Baron Schwartz drove down the road on the left side. I am sure some Austrians would point out that Baron Schwartz would be a wrong-way driver. In Austria cars like in Germany drive on the right side of the streets, but in the 19th century people in Austria drove on the left side of the road Since I wanted to know why the English are fixated on driving on the left side. I learned that the French caused us to use the right side. I think in Austria it might have been the Nazis to make them switch sides.
(i) when I was little someone told me the English transferred nautical rules to street traffic. Starboard is where the rudder is and the steering wheel of a car is there as well. (Sounded logical to me)
(ii) then I learned it's now assumed that the reason is that most people are right handed and this allows you to more easily (effectively) to smash the head of everyone that comes from the front
Castles take it into account too. Did you ever wondered why the stairs leading up the keep turn left if you head upstairs. Since normally the defenders build the castle it put the attacker at a disadvantage whenever he wants to swing his weapon he hits the wall. At least that is the explanation I got while sightseeing a German castle when I was in 3rd grade.

There's one castle in Scotland where the spiral stairs twist in the opposite direction - because the chieftain it was built for, and his sons, were all left-handed!

There's evidence that driving on the left has been standard since the Roman Empire - wheel-ruts in Roman roads leading to ancient quarries are deeper on the left side of the road leaving the quarry, than they are on the right, because the carts leaving would be laden with stone and so much heavier than the empty carts arriving at the quarry.

@ myrkassi

It's interesting how much of an effect right handed people had on our culture.
My god-mother got regularly caned on her left hand, especially when she dared to use it to write. As you can guess I wasn't there to witness it, but I got ears to hear it when she and her siblings, my mother included, talked about the good old times. Actually the first explanation I got was "That are British" Why didn't I believe it? With google at my disposal I got the handed explanation and the information about Austria. I think there I got the remark that When Hitler annexed Austria they had to change to the right side of the road. With swords and blunted weapons being obsolete it didn't matter anymore anyway.

How faithful are the Scottish? Over the weekend I came across a Scott that lives in Malaysia and likes German comedy a lot especially Brexit themed. He for sure isn't a Brexiteer.

Hi Moody. i hope you didn't mind me asking the question. I asked ,simply because all my stories are based, loosely, on my own experience. I cannot imagine trying to research another country in a distant past, but well done for your efforts, i hope to get to read it someday.

Yes I knew about the castles stairs. We have one close by. I too am left handed. I went to school in the 50's 60's so they had stopped punishing students for being left handed. But it is harder to write left handed anyway. In first class, 6 or 7 yrs old, we started to write with ink. We made our own ink and int was olaced in a well in our desk. And we used a nib held in a wooden holder. The problem arose , being left handed, that I would drag my hand through the wet ink as I wrote. So that when I got to the end of the line I had a long streak of ink and a blue hand. That always earned me two slaps with the leather strap. (Using a Biro pen would have solved the problem but we were not allowed use such pens.)

Later in life I had a friend, born early sixties,, who was brought up in Germany, near Hannover. She doesn't remember being slapped in school at that time but she does remember getting letters home to her parents and being spanked by them for any misbehaviour and for failure at lessons. When did schools in Germany stopped corporal punishment?

@ Smachtai

Why should I be offended by your question, you are most likely not the only one with question marks above his/her/its head.

About the stairs I learned while in elementary school when we visited a castle near Wuppertal which is less than a hour from Cologne. Living clos to a castle doesn't mean you have to know. I live in the summer castle road and didn't know. In an archeological article I read it was a wooden castle used over the summer only far back in time. The city itself has the ruins of a real castle. Since the knight residing there were not very nice people the met a less than nice fate. they got wheeled and quartered and the castle grinded.

In 1970 the cane was banned from allo German schools. Bavaria already banished it by 1946 but the next year the CSU got in power and it was reintroduced in Bavaria. The CSU is the Bavarian part of the CDU. Since it's advantageous in parliament they keep two separate parties. The CDU doesn't run for office in Bavaria and the CSU only runs for office in Bavaria. Bavaria is sometimes called the Texas of Germany.

I started school in 1970. In the religious lessons year 3 and 4 we had a priest in learning who had absolutely no authority. We boys build obstacle courses in the back and did (PE). The worst that happened was that we had to leave the classroom. Outside you kept a low profile in fear of such a letter and a possible retaliation of your parents, father especially.In 4th year on a school trip I remember turning around while procaiming where is the cabbage and came face to face with his smiling face.
his church title was Kaplan and we called him Kappes (cabbage). His only retaliation was a smile and a kind word. If it had been England and not Germany I guess sitting would have been a rare pleasure. You enter school at age 6 she probably wasat school when the cane was already outdated. I still remember the school yard talks past 1980 when parents were told you can't slap children anymoreanc even psychological threats wouldn't be allowed. We imagined parents discussing with their offspring their latest misdeed. Like Don't pee at the tree on the market place.l