Life of Byron

Yes, not Brian!
Between bouts of head torture I listened to a BBC Podcast about Lord Byron.  It was a real delight to have these four very educated people talk about something they knew thoroughly.  I had no idea what a challenged childhood he had.  His mother had been a rich heiress who was wooed into marrying a reckless Naval man who used all her money to pay of some of his debts and then died, leaving her almost destitue.  She moved back to Aberdeen and the young Byron went to Grammer school, until, suddenly and unexpectedly, he became Lord at the age of 11.  He was sent off to boarding school and he and his mother moved to nearby his inherited estate.  (They were not able to live in the house as it was falling down).  Anyway, off he went to University.  He was not allowed to take his beloved dog with him (rules), but he got a bear to live with him instead as he discovered that it was not in the rules to have a bear!
I had no idea that when he went on his grand tour of Europe, he spent some time with Shelley and Mrs Shelley and they sat inside during a wet summer and compsoed gruesom tales to each other.  Frankenstein and Count Dracula both came from this time.
He was a liberal.  He was against overindustrialisation of the weaving factories, saying it took work away from the people.  He denounced Lord Elgin for defacing the Greek monuments by removing them to England.
Anyway, he was the first 'celebrity writer', a complicated man, who loved swimming and was mostly vegetarian. He played a large part in the liberation of Greece from the Ottoman Empire.
His childhood would make a great movie....