I love oddities !
All his life, White remained a wonderful eccentric; in Alderney he used to surprise his guests when, wearing a scarlet toweling dressing-gown like a monk’s habit, he welcomed them to this brightly red-painted kitchen, or when he gave them a meal each day in a different room so as to leave the washing-up behind or when he told them that he had only tinned milk in his tea because his dog didn’t like the milkman! He used to invite people he knew would hate each other in order to watch their reactions. He suddenly stopped paying his bills and opening his letters and dumped them in the back of his car. Stories about White abound; the most widely known is probably his answer to a young American who had knocked at his door in Alderney announcing to White that he was a Jehovah’s witness. White grabbed the collecting box and replied: ‘And I am Jehovah! Hand over the takings!
François Gallix, Letters to a friend.
WOOT!
I love this man ! Seriously !
(I wonder if JKR was inspired by him when she created Dumbledore... *grins*)
EDIT:
White read Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar and was so impressed by the book that he tried to visit all the places where the Roman emperor had been, took photographs, bought reproductions of his statues and even built a small temple dedicated to him in his garden at Alderney.
François Gallix
What do you think of that !!!