#It did also make me think of James Purefoy from Fisherman's Friends ngl

[renaultphile]

What Charm school did Ralph go to?

Been speculating for a while about how Ralph got so skilled with the ladies whilst also researching his religious background.

I wonder if he was roped in to 'recruiting' converts as a child/young man?

For some reason this snippet from 'Father and Son' by Edmund Gosse, describing the origins of his father's Plymouth Brethren chapter, made me think of Ralph:

"A few years before we came, a crew of Cornish fishermen, quite unknown to the villagers, were driven by stress of weather into the haven under the cliff. They landed, and, instead of going to a public-house, they looked about for a room where they could hold a prayer- meeting. They were devout Wesleyans; they had come from the open sea, they were far from home, and they had been starved by lack of their customary religious privileges. As they stood about in the street before their meeting, they challenged the respectable girls who came out to stare at them, with the question, 'Do you love the Lord Jesus, my maid?' Receiving dubious answers, they pressed the inhabitants to come in and pray with them, which several did......They were finely-built young men, with black beards and shining eyes, and I do not question that some flash of sex unconsciously mingled with the curious episode, although their behaviour was in all respects discreet. It was, perhaps, not wholly a coincidence that almost all those particular girls remained unmarried to the end of their lives. After two or three days, the fishermen went off to sea again. They prayed and sailed away, and the girls, who had not even asked their names, never heard of them again. But several of the young women were definitely converted."