We had really no idea that our site would develop as it has, from that first exchange; but as each comment by Melangell was posted, with new and spiteful ‘edge’, we became more outraged. Although it was never our intention to become this far involved we were horrified by the lying repetition (as we saw it) and by the extra salacious material in Jim Perrin’s book West. Quite apart from the waspish comments posted on The Guardian by this ‘Melangell’ — a name we were convinced was an alias used by Jim Perrin, and irked by the censorship which we had experienced when our own honest and retaliatory comments were deleted, we decided on the advice of friends to create our own site. As we wrote in our introduction we had only one wish, which was ‘to set the record straight’.
From the beginning the ‘person to person’ style of ‘Melangell’ (who seemed to claim a preternatural knowledge of our family) led us to believe that this was, in essence, a pseudonymous correspondent and we were nearly certain that we knew the ‘author’ of these particular comments. We said this in a comment of our own (ref. the comment thread following Sir Andrew Motion’s review, 24/07/2010) — it was denied — ‘not so’ said ‘Melangell’ (JP)?
Recently, however, on re-reading the very long response which ‘Melangell’ made to the not entirely favourable review by Sir Andrew Motion (ref. as above), we are more than ever certain that this is in fact a ‘Jim Perrin Production’ — and orchestrated by himself.
We are aware that there is indeed a person named ‘Melangell’ known to Jim Perrin and we do not mean to disparage them when we say it is our belief that, unbeknown to them, he has used their name; that it is ‘his’ voice, and that he is, essentially, sailing under false colours.
Jac’s sisters.