This week, I’m stepping back in time – a long way: to 1980 in fact, when I sold my first Rachel Summerson novel, Hearts are Trumps, to Sidgwick & Jackson. The following year, it came out in America, published by St Martin’s Press who renamed it Belgrave Square: A Novel of Society.
Me lecturing at Caerleon Writers’ Holiday, something I enjoy doing.
Continue reading Writing Tips: my First Novel and the Hermione Factor
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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.
Continue reading Elizabeth Hawksley: e-books to go
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Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess (1905) was one of my favourite books as a child. The heroine, Sara Crewe, says early on: ‘Whenever I play I make up stories and tell them to myself.’ I, too, told myself stories, and I knew at once that this would be my sort of book.
Sara was born in India and, as was usual then for health reasons, was sent to England for her education when she was seven. We first meet her with her much loved father in London, being taken to Miss Mitchin’s Select Academy for Young Ladies. She will be a parlour border, that is, she will stay there during the holidays. I, too, was at a Primary boarding school – so that was another thing we shared.
‘Oh, Papa!’ she cried, ‘There is Emily.’
Continue reading Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Little Princess
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I am lucky enough to sleep in a four-poster bed. It dates from around 1850 and is 5 ft 6 ins wide, 6 ft 8 ins long, and nearly 8 ft high. Fortunately, my terraced 1820 house has high ceilings. The bed has a roof canopy, a curtain behind my head, side curtains which remind me of sails on a tea clipper, arched pelmets around three sides at the top, and three lower valances which cover from the bottom of the mattress to the floor. Sleeping in it is like being on board a galleon.
My 1850s four-poster bed
Continue reading Sleeping in a Four-Poster Bed
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This week, while doing some much needed clearing the decks in my study, I discovered a long-lost letter from my teenage daughter (now grown-up and with a family of her own) which brought back a memory which made me smile.
When my son was fifteen and my daughter fourteen, I suggested that now they were teenagers they were surely too old for Christmas stockings. (My daughter had developed an interest in philosophy and was reading Jean-Paul Sartre) They were both most indignant; they liked having Christmas stockings! They knew that Father Christmas didn’t really exist but …
Stripy Christmas knee-high socks
Continue reading Mother Christmas
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Last year, a friend gave me Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes for my birthday. I knew who he was, of course, but although I had seen and enjoyed The Young Victoria, I hadn’t watched Gosford Park because I feared I’d find gaffes which would either infuriate me or make me cringe. Past Imperfect was, therefore, something of a revelation for its wit, acute social observation and terrific storytelling. As I read, I realized, with a sense of shock, that I knew exactly where Julian Fellowes was coming from because the story’s social background, as told by his anonymous narrator, was, in many respects, painfully similar to my own. He didn’t pull his punches and his depiction of the late 1960s amongst what rather too many reviewers patronizingly called the ‘toffs’ was spot on.
‘Past Imperfect’ by Julian Fellowes
Continue reading Episodes in my Life: Then and Now
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When I was about six, my Great-Aunt Eliza gave me this nautilus shell. It was kept on top of a high chest of drawers in the West Room – a big spare room with a four-poster bed so huge that it had to be sold with the house. I wasn’t allowed to have the shell in my own bedroom until I was about eleven, so I only glimpsed it occasionally but the knowledge that it belonged to me always gave me a thrill.
Great Aunt Eliza’s nautilus shell
Continue reading The Beauty of Sea Shells
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A couple of weekends ago I was staying in a cottage on top of a chalk downland hill in Wiltshire. The views are stupendous. Look south on a clear day and you can see the Isle of Wight. I love the wealth of Ancient History here. Wiltshire is criss-crossed by a number of ancient, Prehistoric roads, the most famous being the Ridgeway, on the north side of Salisbury Plain.
The Ridgeway with barley growing on the far side. This ancient road is much wider than a footpath Continue reading Butterflies, Flowers and Figsbury Ring
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Sometimes, things go wrong in life. You lose people you love; someone close to you becomes ill – or you do; things don’t work out at work, and so on. Add a couple of small things, like your kitchen tap developing a persistent drip, or realizing that you still haven’t made that difficult phone call, and, suddenly, you are in a bad place.
This is when you need a personal oasis; a place that’s safe and quiet and not too far away; somewhere you can just be.
Moroccan rose bath oil and scented candle
Continue reading St Martin-in-the-Fields: Oasis for the Soul
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I have posted 101 blogs since I began, rather hesitantly, back in 2016 and, my goodness, was that a steep learning curve. I see that I have covered a lot of subjects – from the frazzled: Dejunking One’s Life: The Cupboard of Doom; and the slightly bonkers: Napoleon’s Toothbrush; to literary criticism: Is Mr Rochester really a Woman in Disguise?; to travels abroad: The Park of Monsters (Italy); and visits to interesting places in and around London: A Visit to Kensal Green Cemetery. There are posts on Jane Austen’s novels: Jane Austen: The Power of Money; and visits to Art Exhibitions: Celebrating Artemisia Gentileschi; as well as posts on simple pleasures: The Rose Beetle (as seen by Gerald Durrell in Corfu, and me in Albania), and: I Love Cambridge Market.
Easter daffodils in my garden
Continue reading A Hundred and One Blogs
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