John Buchan

John Buchan, first Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield (1935-45) (1875-1940) Scottish historian, 15th Governor General of Canada, Commander-in-Chief of the Dominion of Canada and author of the infamous thriller (that later inspired Alfred Hitchcock's film The 39 Steps) The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915);

The whole story was in the notes—with gaps, you understand, which he would have filled up from his memory. He stuck down his authorities, too, and had an odd trick of giving them all a numerical value and then striking a balance, which stood for the reliability of each stage in the yarn. The four names he had printed were authorities, and there was a man, Ducrosne, who got five out of a possible five; and another fellow, Ammersfoort, who got three. The bare bones of the tale were all that was in the book—these, and one queer phrase which occurred half a dozen times inside brackets. '(Thirty-nine steps)' was the phrase; and at its last time of use it ran—'(Thirty-nine steps, I counted them—high tide 10.17 p.m.)'. I could make nothing of that.--Ch. 4 John Buchan was born at York Place, Perth, Scotland on 26 August 1875 and grew up in the mining town of Pathhead, Fife. He was the eldest son of John Buchan (1847–1911) a jovial and fun-loving Free Church of Scotland minister, and Helen née Masterson, (1857–1937) both of whom would later provide fodder for his fictional characters. Among John's siblings William, Walter and Alistair, his sister Anna Buchan (b.1877) would become the novelist O. Douglas.