 First edition | |
| Author | Phil Whitaker |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Picador |
Publication date | 1999 |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 978-0-312-20599-7 |
Triangulation is the second novel by English author Phil Whitaker it won the 2000 Encore Award, linked to the title of a love triangle between three young people's lives.
The frame story is set in 1997. After retirement from the Ordnance Survey, John Hopkins travels from his home in Southampton to Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire (thought to be the geographical centre of Britain) where his old flame Helen Gardner lives. The journey takes him over a day via train and then bus as he brings with him letters from his from his first job starting in 1957 working for the Directorate of Overseas Surveys at Tolworth in South West London. His colleague Laurance Wallace joined at the same time but was shortly sent out to Africa to help survey the landscape using theodolites and later tellurometers. John remained as a map curator in the Records Section and later the assistant of Brigadier Martin Hotine, where he found great satisfaction in his work.
Two years later Helen Gardner joins the organisation as a trainee cartographer and starts a low-level affair with John, but Helen wants more excitement in her life. Laurance's letters to John show the reality of his experiences in Africa so John shows Helen the letters from Laurance to tell her that life in Africa is a struggle. Helen finds that Laurance's stories capture her imagination; as using a stereoplotter she finds one of the locations frequented by Laurance. Every Summer, Laurance returns to live with John but then the relationship between Helen and John becomes strained as Helen and Laurance's relationship blossoms. In the end Helen travels to Africa to be with Laurance where they marry.
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered to include novels composed of documents even if they do not include letters at all. More recently, epistolaries may include electronic documents such as recordings and radio, blog posts, and e-mails. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή, epistolē, meaning a letter . In German, this type of novel is known as a Briefroman.
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A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they are generally known as trigonometrical stations or triangulation stations in North America, trig points in the United Kingdom, trig pillars in Ireland, trig stations or trig points in Australia and New Zealand, and trig beacons in South Africa.
Triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to it from known points.
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Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose, which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was also a more general and nationwide need in light of the potential threat of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. Since 1 April 2015, Ordnance Survey has operated as Ordnance Survey Ltd, a government-owned company, 100% in public ownership. The Ordnance Survey Board remains accountable to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. It was also a member of the Public Data Group.
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The Ordnance Survey International or Ordnance Survey Overseas Directorate its predecessors built an archive of air photography, map and survey records for the United Kingdom from 1946 to 1999. The Ordnance Survey International Collection held mapping records that were acquired outside the UK.
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James Gardner was an English surveyor, lithographer, cartographer, engraver and publisher who played an active role in the trigonometrical survey of Great Britain. His career spanned the years 1808 to 1840.
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