A century and a half ago James Lucas was a celebrity, known throughout the country as the Mad Hermit of Redcoats Green. As his fame grew, people of all sorts came to gaze at him or to talk with him through the barred window of his room. He relished conversation!
In Tony Phillips’ play Lucas receives a rather distinguished visitor...
“James Lucas was an amiable, well-educated landowner. On his mother’s death, in 1849, he inherited the family estate near Hitchin - but he also developed a paranoid fear of his relatives. He locked himself in his mansion and allowed nothing in the building to be touched. It sank into a dilapidated and decaying condition. He lived solely in the kitchen, sleeping on a bed of ashes and soot. He went naked except for a blanket, enveloped in which he used to appear at his windows. He never washed and his hair grew to waist length. He lived on bread, cheese, eggs, red herrings and gin.
“Lucas communicated with the world only through an iron grille and employed two armed watchmen who lived in a nearby hut. He was, however, quite willing to receive visitors, mostly tramps and children but increasingly the well-to-do who came to engage him in conversation. Charles Dickens visited him and described him as “Mr Mopes” in his essay ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’, published in the 1861 Christmas Edition of his magazine ‘All The Year Round’.
“Lucas died of apoplexy in 1874, having hoarded a considerable sum of money in his living room. After his death 17 cartloads of dirt and ashes were removed from the house.”
— adapted from Wikipedia
This link will take you to the Hosiprog store: http://1drv.ms/1ohFbiS
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