Elizabeth

Elizabeth Hawksley: e-books to go

Lockdown does strange things. I’d been thinking for a long time about getting my back list of 10 novels into e-books but, somehow, it’s remained at the thinking stage. Should I edit and re-write my early novels – I could see where they needed work – or I should operate on the ‘sod it’ principle and, after altering any spelling mistakes or obvious errors, publish them as they originally were. I’d begin with my first Elizabeth Hawksley: Lysander’s Lady, and put them into e-books sequentially, ending with my most recent novel, Highland Summer.

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Ireland: A Walk on the Wild Side

In June last year, I was at Streedagh strand in Co Sligo, on Ireland’s west coast, on one of Auriel Robinson’s wonderful SeaTrails walks. The walk covered a huge amount: local geology dating back 350 million years; prehistory, we examined an interesting Bronze Age Wedge tomb; 16th century history, hearing the story of the shipwrecks of three ships from the Spanish Armada which sank here in 1588; botany, walking over the machair grassland with its profusion of wild flowers; marine geology: marvelling at the fossilized corals, sea lilies and other creatures strewn in profusion along the shore; and 20th century history, seeing Mullaghmore harbour where the tragic murder of Lord Mountbatten, and three other people, two of them children, took place in 1979.

Murraghmore: looking towards Benbulben

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Arthur Mee’s ‘1000 Beautiful Things’

Arthur Mee (1875-1943) was one of the most successful children’s non-fiction writers of the first four decades of the 20^th century. His name is now almost forgotten but, in his time, I think it is fair to say that everybody knew him. He was the literary editor of Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail from 1903 until his death in 1943 and he collaborated with Harmsworth on a number of publications like The Self-Educator (1905-7), and The History of the World (1907-9). Perhaps his greatest talent was his ability to organize a huge and diverse amount of general knowledge and disseminate it to the general public (in particular, children) in ways which stimulated their imaginations and kept them coming back for more.

Arthur Mee at his desk with ‘The Children’s Newspaper’, courtesy of Wikipedia

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The Curious Story of ‘Dirty Dick’ (1735-1809)

The story of Nathaniel Bentley, otherwise known as ‘Dirty Dick’ is a curious one. He was born in 1735, or thereabouts, into a well-to-do City of London merchant’s family. His father owned a successful hardware business with a house, a shop and a well-stocked warehouse in Leadenhall St in Bishopsgate, and he saw to it that his son was given a good education, as befitted his status as a gentleman. Mr Bentley, senior, died in 1760, when Nathaniel was about twenty-five-years old, leaving his son a successful business.

Nathaniel Bentley, also known as ‘Dirty Dick’

So far, so good.

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Must it be ‘Happy Birthday’?

Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice after washing one’s hands, even sung silently, must be one of the most uninspiring Government directives ever given. OK, I can understand why they chose it – everyone knows it and it offends nobody, but all the same, you must admit that it’s dull.

A Tudor kitchen

I was thinking of this, when a sentence in a Tudor recipe sudden;y popped into my head: ‘Stir for as long as it takes to say a paternoster.’ Pater noster is Our Father in Latin and it means, of course, The Lord’s Prayer. How long does it take to say, I wondered, so I took off my watch and timed it. Continue reading Must it be ‘Happy Birthday’?

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The 1822 Herb Garret, St Thomas’s Hospital

The Herb Garret, part of St Thomas’s Hospital which was founded in 1552 after the Reformation by King Henry VIII, (it had once been part of an Augustine Monastery) is one of the capital’s most unusual small museums. It is tucked away behind London Bridge station and not easy to find. You enter by a discreet wooden door, climb a steep spiral staircase, remember to duck your head at the top to avoid a low door frame, and eventually find yourself inside what looks like a large attic.

Dried opium poppies hand from the rafters

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Jane Austen: Emotion in the Shrubbery

In the early 19^th century, every house of consequence had a shrubbery. Sometimes it was a simple grassy area with shrubs and a few trees; sometimes there was an attractive bench beside a winding gravel path where a young lady could sit and enjoy nature; and it could be as large or small as the owner wanted. In essence, it was the antithesis of the more formal parterres, geometrical shapes and clipped box hedges at the front of the house which proclaimed the owner’s status and control over Nature.

Formal gardens proclaimed the owner’s status

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Georgette Heyer: Lord Damerel

Georgette Heyer’s Venetia was first published in 1958 and it is one of the books I turn to when things are difficult. It was one of Georgette Heyer’s own favourites, she called it (and The Unknown Ajax) ‘the best of my later works’. Lord Damerel’s journey from a cynical rake, gambler, drinker and profligate to a man who is worthy of the heroine, Venetia, is a long, thorny path with many twists and turns. He had had a difficult childhood with cold, censorious, unloving parents which turned him into dissolute libertine and a man who allows himself to be cast as a villain by others. It takes him much of the book to realize that its a role he’s outgrown.

Cover by Arthur Barbosa for ‘Venetia’ by Georgette Heyer, 1958

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In the Footsteps of St Patrick

March 17^th is St Patrick’s Day, the patron saint of Ireland and, this week, I’m looking at a couple of places in Northern Ireland which he visited. St Patrick, whose family was Romano-British, was born in about AD 370, somewhere in Western England between the Severn and the Clyde. His father, a Christian, was a man of some standing in his community and owned a small estate. When he was about sixteen, Patrick was captured by pirates, taken to Ireland, sold as a slave and became a shepherd. Six years later, he escaped and, eventually, found a ship to take him home.

St Patrick’s Protestant Cathedral, Downpatrick. The poet John Betjeman declared it Britain’s loveliest small cathedral.

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Princess Charlotte and Claremont

Princess Charlotte (1796-1817), the only child of George, Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent and, later still, George IV) and his wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, had a short but tempestuous life. She was the only child of her parents’ unhappy and short-lived marriage, and heir presumptive to the throne. Sadly, she was destined to become a pawn in the breakdown of her parents’ disastrous marriage.

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796-1817) by George Dawe, Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

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