Talk:Phyllis Pearsall

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:AtoZ00.png

message: Phyllis Pearsall: Myth vs. Truth
This contribution is entirely aimed at making improvements in the current wiki essay about Phyllis Pearsall and provides specific sources for introducing such changes. We're pleased to see in your "Talk" section the beginnings of a controversy around the alleged exploits of Phyllis Pearsall Gross, especially since we are in a position to shed a great deal more light on this matter. 
Who are we?  Phyllis's closest surviving blood relatives, whom the author and editors of her purported bio consulted insufficiently or not at all.  I'm Alexander Gross (Jr.), her American half-brother, and you will also be hearing from her niece Mary West (Gross) and her nephew Jean-Pierre Gross, both British subjects and children of my half-brother the artist Anthony Gross.
The indisputable fact of this matter is that the current wikipedia essay about Phyllis contains so many errors that it must be totally withdrawn and rewritten. There is not only ample evidence proving this to be the case, but this ample evidence has been fully available on the web for the past four years for anyone who might have cared to take a look. The web addresses provided here should be included in your External Sources.
This evidence was first posted by ourselves in 2014 as a corrective to the then imminent Phyllis "musical," for fear that this musical might take off and spread all the fables about Phyllis even further.  The journalist and blogger Peter Watts praised it on his website "The Great Wen:" 
https://greatwen.com/2014/01/06/phyllis-pearsall-and-searching-for-truth-in-the-a-z/
and it also led to an article presenting our views in a major London newspaper, I believe it was "The Telegraph." You can also see the contributions of my (and also Phyllis') niece and nephew Mary West Gross and Jean-Pierre Gross, which clearly support most of the conclusions presented in these other sections, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/family.htm#top
The problem all along has been that the alleged bio of Phyllis contained a remarkable number of errors and actually added new errors of its own, which even its author described as invented.  This book further relied almost exclusively for its facts and interpretation on an extremely faulty source: my sister's two highly subjective, self-published attempts at autobiography. Throughout her adult life my sister Phyllis, though competent and highly skilled in many ways, enjoyed a somewhat delicate relationship with the truth.
Feel free at any time to begin your search for the many aspects of the real story behind the A-Z Atlas of London here:
www.untoldsixties.net/a_to_z.htm
For instance, if you would like more information about the many errors in the supposed bio of my sister, look here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/journey.htm#top
For more information about the errors in my sister's family autobiography "Fleet Street Tite Street Queer Street," look here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/fleetite.htm#top
Or the further errors in her book "From Bedsitter to Household Name--The Personal Story of A-Z Maps":
http://www.untoldsixties.net/bedsit.htm#top
There are lots of other sections on this page you may find of interest, all of them adding up to the incontrovertible truth that wikipedia's story currently available on line about my sister is highly questionable.
Curious about our father? You can read something far closer to the truth here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/papa.htm#top
Or about my own intimate experiences with my sister Phyllis over several decades, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/phyllis.htm#top
About the 2014 Phyllis musical and our family's reactions at the time, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/musical.htm#top
About my correspondence with the publishers of the bio claiming to represent Phyllis, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/sands.htm
How critics and the public described this bio, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/litcrit.htm#top
Reactions to the book from cartographers (plus my own experiences walking US streets in order to map them), here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/mapcrit.htm#top
You can also see the contributions of my (and also Phyllis') niece and nephew Mary West Gross and Jean-Pierre Gross, which clearly support most of the conclusions presented in these other sections, here:
http://www.untoldsixties.net/family.htm#top
More recently my niece Mary West Gross has added the following observation: "Phyllis continues to be  talked about  over here in connection to the A to Z Guide to London, still in publication  and displayed in book shops and stalls.  However, as  the young generation only use the maps in their IPHONES [Apple] and do not buy guides anymore, Geographers' Map Co. has had to reduce in size as sales have decreased. The reason Phyllis was one of the few early women to achieve fame as a successful business  woman in the UK until her death in 1996, was because of her talent at publicity, as well as her very good business sense and dedication. That is, I am sure, why she will not be forgotten."
And many other sections, all of them adding up to the conclusion that Peter Watts was entirely correct on his website "The Great Wen" when he called the whole Phyllis/A-Z story an "Urban Legend."
So no, as one of your contributors pointed out, my sister Phyllis never walked 3,000 nor 35,000 miles to map London. This--along with a great deal else--simply never happened. The contours for most London streets were perfectly available at various borough and county offices. Here's how Peter Watts quotes Peter Barber, until recently chief curator for cartography at the British Library: ‘The Phyllis Pearsall story is complete rubbish. There is no evidence she did it and if she did do it, she didn’t need to.'
Alex gross (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phyllis Pearsall--Myth vs. Truth 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018)