A charming little tidbit from England:
At the instigation of "Wymondham historian, author and cinema buff Philip Yaxley", a room at the Millennium Library in Norwich has been named after the famous ragtime-era dancer Vernon Castle, who was born Vernon Blyth in Norwich in 1887. The website of the Norwich Evening News has a nice article by Derek James that does a reasonable job of summing up Vernon's life with an emphasis on his connections to his hometown. The campaign for the honor seems to have kicked off in 2012, per another James article at the Eastern Daily Press.
The article includes an interesting little slideshow with high-quality images pulled from Yaxley's collection. They include not merely the familiar posed dance shots of Vernon and his wife Irene but also photos of related sites in Norwich (his childhood home, the street where he was born), an adorable childhood picture of him in school clothes, and an advertising broadside for a Norwich showing of the Castles' pseudo-biographical 1915 film The Whirl of Life.
I don't know anything about Yaxley except that he has published a few books on the area's history and, unless Norwich is well-populated by men of that name, appears to have died last year. I wonder if his collection is still together?
The library hosts the county Heritage Centre, which, per yet another article, is gathering material for an exhibition on the Castles next month.
(Edited 5/29/2015 to add: it looks like the exhibit is on, but only for the month of May -- anyone in that part of England, hurry to get there before it closes!)
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