Tintin Forums

Well done mct16 for getting the Tintin museum to confirm in some detail what we were all pretty certain of i.e. the BBC Correspondent Hughes (who I believe lives in Brussels) had his facts wrong about Peppermans' supposed death.

I have enjoyed finding out about two Boy Scout 'stand ins' for Tintin and have added the story to my 'potted biog; of Herge on my Scouting Personalities pages- part of the Scouting Milestones website.

If anybody should have a copy of the book "Tintin and the World of Hergé" by Benoît Peeters, with the large scale photographs of Herge as a Scout- Peppermans and Dendonker, I would be very pleased to add them to the site- if the originals are from public sources.

It will be interesting to see if the BBC makes comment about the error.

In Scouting

Colin

It's still good to get official confirmation of this. It would not have surprised me if some old codger had faked being Pepermans in a bid for a last moment's 15-minutes-of-fame. There are so many frauds out there it is best to be careful.

I don't think I've contributed so much to a forum before. This particular is subject is becoming a bit of an obsession for me.

Anyway, according to an article at the Le Soir website, other boys who played the part of Tintin in such publicity stunts included: René Boey, for Tintin's return from America on the 13 November 1932; and Charles Stie in Octobre 1935 after the "Blue Lotus". After that it seems, the practice was cancelled.

I can't find any mention of them being scouts. More detective work would be needed on that score.

Here's a link to a good photo of Dendoncker and "the faithful Snowy".

Word now back from Mr. Hughes of the BBC:

Thank you for your emails on my recent piece on Tintin. It's always nice to get feedback from listeners - you're never sure if anyone is paying attention - even if it's to point out an inaccuracy.

My source was a contact at the Tintin museum who explained the whole back-story to Henri Dendoncker - Or Henry Dark as I think he later became known. The rest of what he told me was dead on the money - as my researches at the public records office showed. But it seems he was misinformed about Lucien Peppermen's fate as yes, there he is in Le Figaro (assuming it was the same man of course - but why adopt the identity of someone else?).

Either way he was very lucky to survive the horrors of the Eastern Front.

So apologies for getting that bit wrong. It's a shame as I think it provides a nice contrast to what happened to Mr Dendoncker! But I hope you enjoyed the rest of what is a pretty extraordinary tale.

And thanks again for getting in touch.

Best wishes,

Dominic Hughes

So there it is - it was an unfortunate error based on incorrect information, and M. Peppermans can be assumed to be the gent he said he was in 2000.

ummmm Mr Hughes is a journalist not a historian!
He was half way susceptible to taken in because as he says himself, "It's a shame (that Peppermans didn't die on the Western Front) as I think it provideds a nice contrast ...." Well yes but I don't think you would get Mr and Mrs Peppermans (if he had a wife - if not his mother) to agree on that! Is a good story worth a life?

I won't accuse Mr Hughes of this directly but I think there is a hint in his explanation that he thinks museums and people who earn a salary presenting information are likely know more about their subject than real enthusiasts that are likely to be found on bulletin boards - that he now finds himself having to ever so slightly grovel before!

I guess we forgive him.

Yours in Scouting

Colin

I know what you're saying, but we are just as guilty of this.
You yourself said:

So your reasoning is that getting a contradictory opinion out of the same source somehow is a validation of "real enthusiasts" over journalism? It was our very lack of subject knowledge that led us to do the same thing as Mr Hughes did. Why is he somehow "guilty" of believing what he was told, and we are not? It makes no sense to me to pillory him and applaud ourselves.

Hello all. I'm very pleased that so many of you heard and enjoyed the piece I wrote for From Our Own Correspondent on Henri Dendoncker, although of course dismayed it contained the mistake about Mr Peppermens (am I spelling that correctly?). It was written with the best of intentions and I had no cause to doubt my source who proved to be admirably informed on everything else. It's also possible the mistake was mine alone as I wrote the piece from notes scribbled at the time and there may have been a failure of translation! But for what it's worth I thought I'd add just a couple of things.
First while I'm pleased to see I inadvertently unleashed a wild frenzy of chat room excitement, the main point of the piece was to see if anyone knew of Henri Dendoncker - alive or dead - rather than the fate of Mr Peppermens. I've been unable to find a death certificate or an obituary anywhere - does anyone have any information? I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Dendoncker chose to lead a rather quiet life after his wartime experiences, hence the lack of an obit.
I'm also amused to see that mct16 believes we might employ researchers to prepare our stories for us. (In fact you wrote: What I'd like to know now is what the BBC are going to do to the researcher who informed them that Pepermans died on the Eastern Front). Oh, how I laughed! I'm afraid you have a rather grand view of how the BBC operates - the majority of us make do without bespoke researchers, particularly when working on a piece for FOOC (as it's known in the trade). The fault was mine and mine alone - let no researcher be blamed.
Yours in journalism,
Dominic Hughes
PS Sorry for the delay in joining your discussion, but I was away for most of August.

To all contributors,
If you need photos or information about Tintin and / or Herge, please contact me : alain.de.kuyssche [at] moulinsart.be
I'm currently working for Moulinsart and responsible for tintin.com.
Some precisions : the picture showing Tintin/dendoncker and Herge was taken on the balcony of the newspaper (Le Vingtieme Siecle) building, on the boulevard de Bisschofsheim, and not in the Gare du Nord.
Lucien Pepermans joined the "Legion wallonne" (walloon legion, under command of Leon Degrelle, nicknamed "the Belgian Fuhrer". They fought at Tcherkassy, before fleeing back to Belgium. Some of them were immediately executed; others faced a trial and most of them were condemned to hard labour (in the coal mines, where Belgium needed more and more new workers...); and some of them escaped justice and fled to Spain or Argentina. Pepermans died in 2005. You can see a snapshot of him in his late years, in the book by Jean-Pierre Talbot "J'etais Tintin au cinema" (I was Tintin in the movies). Talbot impersonated Tintin in two sixties movies : "Tintin and the Golden Fleece" and "Tintin and the Blue Oranges". Talbot is alive and well - he signs his book in the Herge Museum, on September 13th, 2009.
Looking forward to hearing from you !

All right, maybe I should have used a term like "informer" or "interviewee" or something. It's just that 100 years or so ago I was watching the popular chat show "Wogan" on the BBC, where Terry Wogan was talking to the investigative journalist Roger Cook. At one stage Wogan remarked that Cook came from Australia whereupon he said he was from New Zealand. Wogan suddenly leaped from his chair and appeared to be walking off. When Cook asked him where he was going Wogan answered that he was going to "strangle some damned researcher's neck" (or words to that effect). That was why I was curious to know what would happen in this case. What is the BBC's policy for dealing with people who give them the wrong facts?

As the son of a journalist I also know how important it is for you to get your facts right. To double-check your sources. So I wonder how you, Dominic, failed to check up more thoroughly on Pepermans?

This is all very well, provided you have two or more sources. Even when there might be two sources, a) you might not be able to get a comment from both, and b) if you do get two comments, how do you know that number two source didn't just get his knowledge from number one, with no further research on their part?

Lots of stories are produced with the credentials of your source being regarded as evidence - a noted historian, academic or researcher being enough - because they are the only people who have the specialist knowledge.

As I mentioned before, you yourself were prepared to accept the word of the person at the Hergé museum on this basis, when they may have been the same person that Mr Hughes asked, and who gave a different answer to him; what did you do to verify it?
You did't do anything, because you took the authority of the source at face value, and why not?

It appears that Dominic went to the same source and got a different answer, which he too accepted in good faith. As it happens, this has proved false, and he has been quite public about accepting this.

It seems to be needlessly niggly to pick the head off the scab again, as it were, especially after two months have elapsed.