(Note: This is not written by the webmaster, but by a frequent contributor to this group, Charles "Trip" Morgan.)

            On Saturday October 4, 2003 I dialed a number that had taken me seemingly a lifetime to find...Let me explain, In 1970-71 when I was 13, I wrote a letter to Whitman Books asking for the address of Charles Spain Verral and/or George Wyatt.  They wrote a letter back that said that they were both no longer with us, but that they had loved hearing from boys and girls about their work.  I was crushed.  Because there had not been a new Brains Benton book in about ten years, I figured that both of them had passed away.

            With that in mind, my search for the authors ended.  It wasn’t until about two years ago that I did an Internet search and found out that Mr. Verral had died on April 1, 1990.  I was disappointed and a little ticked off at the missed opportunity.  In April of this year, through Dylan's Brains Benton web site, I joined this group and learned some things that I did not know before about Brains Benton.  I had the chance to meet people with the same passion as I had.  Through discussions with them, I decided that Mr. Verral must have written all six of the books in the series, something that I had suspected for a long while.  I believed that there was no George Wyatt.

            During this time, as a Private Investigator, I had tried to help Dylan out by finding who owned the rights to Brains Benton.  Earlier in 2003 the producers of the movie “Stuart Little” had contacted him wondering if anybody had that information.

            I called book publishers and printing houses, all of then leading me into a big fat dead end.

            Then one day Seth from our group and 3I fame e-mailed me.  He wanted to know if I was interested in some scanned copies of old “Yellowback” issues pertaining to Brains Benton.  I happily said yes.  As I read the articles late one night with the TV on in the background, my eyes fell upon something.  Mr. Verral had a son.  His name was Charles Spain Verral, Jr.  Finally, I had something to go on!  And it should have been so stinking obvious to me to try that, that I should have spent the rest of the night kicking myself for my stupidity.  Instead I did a little detective work and found an address and phone number for one Charles Spain Verral, Jr.  The next day I dialed the number.

            The phone rang...Then I got a busy signal.  I tried again, and again after two rings, a busy signal rudely interrupted my anticipation.  After trying different phones and different long distance services, I gave up.  I kept getting that busy signal after two rings.

            A day later I found another phone number.  This time my ring would be answered. Next time, my conversation with Mr. Verral.  I've got some interesting information, including what Charles Spain Verral really wanted to call the “Case of the Missing Message.”

Until then...

C

            As my conversation began I was immediately relaxed because Charles Spain Verral, Jr. did not dismiss me out of hand.  He was warm and friendly.  Something that I believe he inherited from his dad.  He told me how his father would always spend time with his fans.  He said that it was too bad that I hadn’t been able to get in touch with his father way back when, because Charles Spain Verral would always personally respond to each letter with one of his own.  Usually it would be at least one page in length.

            Mr. Verral, Jr. has moved back and now lives in the same house that his parents own.  He is taking care of his mother who is now 98 years old and needs around the clock care.  It was in this setting, with me at my home seated at my breakfast bar pen in hand, that we started our conversation about Brains Benton. 

            Charles Spain Verral wrote the “Case of the Missing Message” in 1959.  He wrote it for his son Charlie, who was then 13 years old.  He had gotten the idea for the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency from Charlie and his friend Randy who tried their hand at their own detective agency.  In fact “The Case of the Missing Message” is dedicated “To Charlie and Randy for inspiration.”  It is the only Brains Benton book with a dedication. 

            The vision of the book for Mr. Verral had his son as Brains Benton.  He in turn had envisioned himself as the average, athletic, narrator Jimmy Carson.  This is a fantasy that as a father of two sons, is something that I must admit has crossed my mind.  How great would it be to be friends with my boy if we were the same age?  It is form this premise that the characters developed.

            Interestingly, before Charles Spain Verral wrote the book, he created the town of Crestwood.  He came up with a street map to use as a resource for all of the action.  When I told his son that I had tried to map out Crestwood when I was a kid, and that that map is on the web site, he told me that he would look for the map and send me a copy.  (If I get it, I can assure you that I will post it.)  Apparently, according to him, both Verrals are pack rats.  Mr. Verral, Jr. has a ton of old things belonging to his father, including all of those old fan letters that we’ve talked about.

            When Charles Spain Verral submitted the book to Golden Press, he had a different tittle for it.  He wanted it to be “The Case of the Twisted Ear.”  (See page 179 if you want to know why.)  The editor did not like the title.  She felt that it was too hardcore sounding for a kid’s book.  It was she who countered with the current tittle.  Charles Spain Verral, being a nice guy, didn’t fight it.

            An example of his kindness and humor was then told to me.  Once, when one of his books had just been published, Charles Spain Verral’s name on the cover had been misspelled.  It had been printed with two Ls in the last name instead of one.  The editor called him on the phone and apologized about the situation after informing him about the error.  She was worried and afraid that they would have to recall and reprint all of the books.  Charles Spain Verral simply replied, “What the L?” and let it go.

            “The Case of the Missing Message” was not originally meant to be a series.  It was meant to be a stand-alone story.  However Golden Press liked it so much that they decided to make it into just that, a boy's detective series.  By the time they had made that decision, Mr. Verral had moved on and had landed a job with “Reader’s Digest” writing a series of books on a variety of subjects such as art, warfare, and how to books, to name but a few.

            So it was arranged that he would write the outline for the plots, and then he recommend writers to write the stories.  Mr. Verral, Jr. isn’t sure, but he thinks that two or three writers contributed to the series.  What he is sure about is this; his father hated, I mean hated, what they had done.  He just despised their finished product.  So Charles Spain Verral, with the help of his wife as his editor, rewrote the stories.  Unfortunately (and this pains me to say) he was never happy with the series.

            I asked Mr. Verral why the Brains Benton series had come to an end.  He said that he really wasn’t sure why, but that he knew his dad was tired of rewriting the stories.  He was doing a lot of work at that time and wanted to move on.  When I questioned him as to his favorite story, he said that it was definitely “The Case of the Missing Message.”  He informed me how his father never liked to talk about his story ideas to his editors.  He said that a year or two latter an editor would come back to him and think that they were the one who had come up with the idea in the first place.  However, Charles Spain Verral did like to talk about his ideas and his stories’ progress at home.  His wife was a good and trusted editor, and his son of course, was an enthusiastic listener.  What made “The Case of the Missing Message” special, was that Charlie had no idea that it was being written.  It had never been discussed at home.  He said it just came out of the blue and was presented to him as a gift.

            I Then asked Charlie (by the way, his father went by Chuck) the question that had been in the back of my mind for some thirty years.  I had even had occasional dreams about it at night.  In my sleep, I would dream that I was in some old used bookstore.  I would then find some unknown seventh Brain Benton book.  I now took a breath and asked, “Are there any unpublished Brains Benton stories or plot outlines?”

            The answer expected, but still disappointing was “No.” 

            By that time in the late 1950’ early 1960’s, Mr. Verral was only writing projects that he knew would be published.  He did not waste his time on “maybe” projects.  He had to pay the bills.

            For the most part this ended our conversation about Brains Benton.  During the more than hour-long conversation I had with him, I learned many things.  Some don’t need to be published on the Internet, but some are interesting on their own.  For example, Charles Spain Verral worked hard at his craft.  He was truly a craftsman.  However, writing did not come easily for him.  He labored hard over and over on his work.  For much of his life he wrote 10 typed publishable pages a day.  He did it with a pounding two-fingered typewriter style.  He would write many things including short stories for his son.  Sometimes, he would get frustrated.  Once threw his typewriter out of the window.  Then embarrassed, he went to retrieve it in front of his gawking neighbors.  Another time he tossed the mechanical contraption into the fireplace’s burning infernal.  As I said, writing did not come easily for Charles Spain Verral.

            Mr. Verral had a varied career as a writer.  Among the many things that he did was write a comic called “Hap Hopper” based on Drew Pearson a Washington corespondent.  He wrote scripts for the syndicated radio show called “Mandrake the Magician” that ran in the early 1940s.  What he is most remembered for though, according to his son, is his Bill Barnes Aviator pulp stories.  Mr. Verral, Jr. said that this is the character that his father received the most fan mail about and it still continues to this day.  Besides Brains Benton, Verral created another boys’ series called Frenchy Beamont.  It was a family focused adventure series about a boy playing different sports.  It has six tittles published between 1953 – 1956.

            Another interesting fact is that family lore has it that the Verral family is descended from Shakespeare.  A pretty heady pedigree I think.

            Throughout the conversation I had with Charles Spain Verral, Jr. he had been very gracious, open, and charming to me.  He promised me that he would dig into his fathers Brains Benton things and let me know what he finds.  I in turn told him about Dylan’s Brains Benton web site as well as our yahoo discussion group.  He told me that he would look into both of them.  He found it amazing that such places existed. 

            The final thing I wanted to discuss with Charles Spain Verral, Jr. now came up.  It was the ownership of the Brains Benton rights that had started my journey to him to begin with.  He said he would have his lawyer look into it.  He believes that the Verral estate has at least 50% ownership of those rights.  A movie, good or bad would certainly bring attention to the Brains Benton series and that would be great.  However, I hope he owns the rights for another reason.  Not so much for the movie, but because after talking to Charlie Verral, it would make my heart feel good to know that once again Charles Spain Verral would be taking care of his wife after all of these years.  I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.  I must of read too many Brains Benton Books when I was a kid.

C. E. Morgan, III

Copyright 10/6/03

            These are other things that came out in my conversations with Mr. Verral.  (11/15/03)

            Charles Spain Verral was indeed a Sherlock Holmes fan.  In fact he rewrote (edited) some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories for children. An interesting sidelight to this, one of stories that Verral edited got hung up and not printed because the copyright was still enforce in England.

            A quick scan of Addall used books revealed the following versions of the book(s).  This list is by no means inclusive.

            In 1956, 1957, and 1963, Golden Press published the book(s).  Paperback as well as hardback versions were issued.

            Simon & Schuster also printed some of these “especially edited and abridged for the Golden Picture Classics” books in the late 1950s and in 1967.

                In 1956-57, Nestle’s Quik gave away a 96 page paperback book as a premium.  Golden Press was the publisher.

When I asked if Brains and Jimmy were younger versions of Holmes and Watson, CSV, Jr. said that he had never thought of it that way.  He had always thought of them as a merge of Holmes, the Hardy Boys, and the times.

            I asked if he knew where Randy his childhood friend was?  Charlie said that he hadn’t seen him since about the ninth grade.

            I then asked him, because of the detail of his father’s map, if Crestwood was a real place?  He said no, that his father had made up the whole place.  I then asked him if there was an inspiration for Lake Carmine.  Charlie said that his father had as a boy spent time at a certain lake.  In fact he had taken his family there many times as an adult.  The lake was Lake Simcoe in Ontario Canada.  If there is a Lake Carmine, Charlie says that it is Lake Simcoe.  Go to http://www.lsrca.on.ca/mpshed2.html to see the map.

            I learned these facts about the lake.

The Lake is approximately 30 miles Easterly/Westerly and 18 miles North/South.  (This is bigger yet similar to Lake Carmine’s 20 mile E-W ands 10 mile N-S dimensions.)  Lake Simcoe is situated between Lake Ontario and the arm of Lake Huron (Georgian Bay), with the water flowing into the lake to the east via the Trent Canal and flowing out to Lake Couchiching and the Severn River to Georgian Bay.  The place where Charles Spain Verral stayed was a place called Jackson’s point.

            I hope to add more information from Mr. Verral in the future.  I again thank him for his graciousness in time spent and in sharing.