The other day, my husband was at one of his poker games (he’s a poker FIEND and takes part in tournaments and stuff) and someone asked him ‘What does your wife do?’ Without pause, he replied: ‘She’s a writer’ and then apparently reflected for a while on how nice it was to be able to say that.

I’m very touched by this, as I have found that the angst I felt as I wondered ‘Am I a writer?’ was nothing compared to that of my nearest and dearest, who’d apparently been thinking ‘Is she a writer now?’ Typically, I suppose the turning point for him came when I started making more money from my books than my day job as a researcher, which I am now optimistic about being able to leave at some point. And there was me, thinking it was all about being CREATIVE when actually, like seemingly everything else, it’s about MONEY.

I’m now selling around a thousand books a month, which is apparently pretty good for a self publisher and especially one like myself who does barely any promotion. I do sometimes wonder what I could achieve if I had an actual publisher behind me and therefore marginally more klout (hey, I might have sold over 3,000 books now but there’s still people out there who are VERY keen to let me know that I’m not writing ‘real books’ because they are e-books and that I’m not a ‘proper writer’ because I don’t have an agent or a publisher they have heard of, which isn’t technically true as they’ve heard of ME, haven’t they?) in the publishing world but, well, if it’s meant to happen it will and I’m not losing sleep over it in the meantime.

People have started asking if publishers are approaching me now that both my blog and my books are taking off – they are definitely not and nor do I expect them to. My blog gets over 3,000 views a day now, which is jolly nice but I don’t think there’s enough of a cohesive theme to the whole thing to make it of interest to them. I HAVE been approached by a very nice agent though (hello!) and am sending chapters of my Minette novel along to her as I write so she can help me improve them. I’m enjoying this immensely actually as I’ve been thinking for a while now that I wish I had someone who knows what they are doing to tell me what to do and help me with plot tangles and stuff.

I don’t know what will happen once the book is finished but either way, it will almost certainly be a better book for this precious input. It’s also changed the way that I write as, I’ll be honest, I used to try my best to forget that the book was going to be read by other people once I’d finished it. In fact Before the Storm is the first book that I’ve written with the express and full intention of publication. Now though I’m constantly aware that it is being read, nay SCRUTINISED, and that’s keeping me both writing (I can be lazy – it amazes me that people think I am prolific) and also on my toes somewhat.

Anyway, Minette is going very well – I’m writing the fifth chapter at the moment and am enjoying it immensely. Charles I is dead, Henrietta Maria is keen to marry Minette off to her cousin Louis XIV and Mademoiselle de Montpensier is keen to put as many spanners in the works as it takes to prevent that from happening.

Here’s some Writing Tips that I have picked up so far during this book’s conception:

1. You can’t ‘hiss’ a sentence that doesn’t have any ‘s’ in it. Think about it.

2. If you are battling terrible writer’s block, it can be immensely helpful to sit back, listen to music and mentally put together a stonking film trailer for your book that incorporates all the most dramatic or whatever scenes (written or not) that you think really encapsulate your book. For example, for Minette, I have a trailer worked out against the background of What The Water Gave Me by Florence and the Machine and it involves lots of running down corridors, screaming in carriages, floating on a lake while sunlight dapples through the trees overhead and cross looks at masked balls. And that’s my book. Um, okay.

For Whitechapel aka The Secret Keeper, I have worked out trailers to Before I Die by Kidney Thieves and Let The Record Show by Emilie Autumn (did I mention that I am seeing her again in March? I did? Oh well.), which involves um staggering down an alleyway in the dark, cross looks over a dinner table, the flash of a knife, a very painted up girl singing on a music hall stage and um possibly some snogging. Already, you can see that it is a very different sort of book.

Here’s one someone else made earlier cunningly combining Let the Record Show and Sweeney Todd. Obviously, if anyone ever unwisely makes a film from any of my books they have to star Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter (and Aidan Turner, Tom Hardy and Eva Green) or I’m signing NOTHING.

There was a number 3 but I can’t remember what it was. Oh wait, I know:

3. This isn’t a tip, but a response to a question I’ve been asked a hundred times recently – I have no IMMEDIATE plans to write a sequel to the Marie Antoinette novel but if one does emerge it will be rather different from its predecessor and may have a totally different narrator added to the mix, one that I can have a bit of fun with. To be honest, I wrote The Secret Diary of a Princess about four years ago now and am a bit staggered by how successful it has been as it was just a bit of fun and never actually intended for publication. There might also be a short story sequel to both Blood Sisters and Before the Storm as I’ve had a lot of questions about the fate of the main characters…

Anyway, it’s now almost a month since Before the Storm was launched and people have been very kind about it! I think it’s my best work to date and it’s nice that the first few readers seem to have enjoyed it so much…

‘I really enjoyed this book. After reading so many historical romances that circle tightly around the hero and heroine, and where it’s easy to tell who’s going to have a happy ending with whom at the end of the first chapter, it was a breath of fresh air to read about the strong ensemble cast and not to know what was going to happen next. All the settings come to life so vividly, from Bath to London to Versailles to Paris (especially Paris!) I also loved the homages to Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers. Highly recommended!‘

‘Many historical novels set against such a huge backdrop of revolutionary France can lose their way, but Melanie’s skill is to weave together the stories of the main protagonists while zooming in to focus on their intensely passionate (in every sense) relationships. I read a review elsewhere that this author’s greatest achievement is to write so honestly about the way women treat each other – I certainly agree. Here we see women as silly girls, blooming into women or becoming embittered by the vagaries life throws at them; women as sisters, friends and bitter rivals; women supporting or stabbing each other in the back.‘

‘I devoured this book in one sitting. Elegantly written with fascinating, finely drawn characters and a beautifully paced narrative. Recommended to all lovers of historical fiction – and anyone who likes a good yarn!‘

‘Having recently read Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, I can say that this is a wonderful homage to that novel, which manages the rare feat of being a pleasure to read in its own right. Set in the years leading up to the French Revolution gives this reworking an added urgency. In spite of the precarious situation the heroines often find themselves in, this is a joyful and luscious novel. Melanie Clegg is particularly adept at painting the settings and costumes of the period in technicolour. Sometimes Clegg is in danger of getting *too* carried away with period details, but the excitement and obvious passion she has for the epoque is communicative, so she can be forgiven!‘

Ah, thank you so much! Before the Storm costs less than a decent gin and tonic, an aspirational magazine or a trip to Paris and is available from all good Amazon UK and Amazon US.

If you have enjoyed my books, please please consider leaving a review, no matter how short on Amazon and/or Goodreads (where you can get away with just rating with stars without actually saying ANYTHING, which is a bonus if you hate actually WRITING reviews) to let people know. It really helps and I would love you so much if you did, which may be a threat or a promise. Who can tell?

I’m off now anyway to write, do a little bit of work and also read about St Petersburg as we’re thinking about going either there or Venice for a few days this spring. Have any of you been? What did you think?

Chemise allegedly worn by Mary, Queen of Scots at her execution on the 8th of February, 1587. It is on display at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, the family seat of the loyal English Catholic family, the Throckmortons and has clearly been revered as something of a relic of the dead Queen.

I’m seeing a teeny tiny problem with this provenance though.

I’m not exactly Mary, Queen of Scots biggest fan but my grandparents ADORED her and I spent a considerable amount of my formative years being dragged around Scotland and Northern England to spots of varying degrees of obscurity that were associated with the tragic Scottish Queen. It was at Bolton Castle, scene of one of her imprisonments that I started my illicit collection of Small Stones Stolen From Historic Buildings, which I kept labelled in a box under my bed and which is now sadly lost. In this I was inspired partially by my own faintly anarchic spirit (ask my husband to tell you about my past issues with keeping the fake food in National Trust property kitchens from slipping into my pockets) and also by the reverence with which Mary Stuart’s many and various relics are treated. I must have seen enough rosaries belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots to furnish a whole Vatican’s worth of nuns and enough of her needlework to make a patchwork version of the Bayeux Tapestry twenty times over…

I may not be Mary’s biggest fan but she has no need of me as she’s always had her loyal and devoted champions and I think I’m going to let one of the most ardent, a certain Miss Jane Austen have the last word today on the anniversary of her execution…

‘But oh! how blinded such Writers & such Readers must be to true Merit, to Merit despised, neglected & defamed, if they can persist in such opinions when they reflect that these Men, these boasted Men were such Scandals to their Country & their Sex as to allow & assist their Queen in confining for the space of nineteen Years, a Woman who if the claims of Relationship & Merit were of no avail, yet as a Queen & as one who condescended to place confidence in her, had every reason to expect Assistance & protection; and at length in allowing Elizabeth to bring this amiable Woman to an untimely, unmerited, and scandalous Death.

And yet could you Reader have beleived it possible that some hardened & zealous Protestants have even abused her for that Steadfastness in the Catholic Religion which reflected on her so much credit? But this is a striking proof of their narrow souls & prejudiced Judgements who accuse her. She was executed in the Great Hall at Fotheringay Castle (sacred Place!) on Wednesday the 8th of February — 1586 —— to the everlasting Reproach of Elizabeth, her Ministers, and of England in general. It may not be unnecessary before I entirely conclude my account of this ill-fated Queen, to observe that she had been accused of several crimes during the time of her reigning in Scotland, of which I now most seriously do assure my Reader that she was entirely innocent; having never been guilty of anything more than Imprudencies into which she was betrayed by the openness of her Heart, her Youth, & her Education.‘ — Jane Austen in her History of England, 1791.

I’ve had this book, a copy of Harrington by Maria Edgeworth, for as long as I can remember, having pinched it from my grandparents’ bookshelves when I was a very little girl. I’ve never actually read the book itself but the writing inside, echoes of an earlier time, has always fascinated me.

In fact, I know this is sacrilege to many of you, but I often like to write in my own books (only the reasonably impressive ones) in the hopes that one day in the future someone will find them and wonder about me just as much I have wondered about Isabella and George.

George McHattie, Bishopmill, Elgin, January 2nd 1863.

Victorian maths!

Apparently the tilework was started in 1848?

This book belongs to George McHattie, 30 West High St, Bishopmill, 1863. Yes, of course I have had a look on Google Maps! Sadly, it looks like the original house has long since vanished to be replaced by a rather ugly bungalow. What a shame.

The back page.

Isabella Fraser, Lochside, Gilworth?, by Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland, March 14th 1859 is always modest. I’ve had a look for Lochside on Google Maps and suspect it might be a farm out in the sticks. In fact, I have a feeling that Lochside is where the book originated before it fell into the clutches of my family.

George McHattie, Bishopmill, Elgin, March 14th 1859, the moments fly a minutes gone.

We may learn two lessons – that time for self improvement may always be found and that true genius is always modest.

–

The moments fly, a minutes gone, the minutes pass – an hour has run, the day is fled – the night is here, thus flies a week, a month, a year.

–

Then let us present hours improve, and bear in mind how fast they move for if we now neglect to learn, the time we lose will never return.

More Victorian maths!

It would be lovely if it turned out they had married each other, but a very brief bit of research reveals that the most likely George McHattie and Isabella Fraser in Elgin during this period married other people. I need to look into it more thoroughly though so who knows?

I wonder if they ever read the book? Harrington is by all accounts a rather depressing tome, written from the point of view of a former and repentent anti-semite, about the ill treatment of Jewish people in England and apparently contains the first sympathetic Jewish character in English literature, which is a bit jaw dropping, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, my six year old has decided that this book is actually Tom Riddle’s Diary so to save it from an untimely demise by basilisk tooth, I’m going to have to hide it away!

Many years ago, I had to spend a week in Rome as part of my degree course. I know, such a TERRIBLE hardship. It was an odd week, really, of churches, tombs and photobombing with the high point being the evening I sat surrounded by the ruins of Tiberius’ palace, reading Suetonius as a purple dusk fell across the ancient stones.

One of our excursions took us to the Palazzo Barberini and it was there that I came face to face with the portrait above. I was immediately intrigued by the sitter’s melancholy yet somewhat jaunty demeanour and determined to find out more. Later on, I would discover that Shelley had seen the exact same portrait in the Palazzo Colonna and had been sufficiently inspired by it to write a poem about the sitter.

‘There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features; she seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness … The lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which her suffering has not repressed … Her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic.’ – Shelley.

The portrait allegedly depicts a long dead noblewoman by the name of Beatrice Cenci, who was born in her family’s Palazzo in Rome on this day, 6th of February in the year 1577. She was dead before the age of twenty three, executed with her step mother and elder brother in front of an immense silent crowd on the 11th of September 1599, while her younger brother was forced to watch.

Beatrice was the only daughter of Count Francesco Cenci, a Roman nobleman who was well known for his terrible temper, occasional bouts of violence and general disagreeableness. Unfortunately for his long suffering family, he was as much a tartar at home as he was abroad and we are informed that he beat his wife, Lucrezia and children, forced them to perform humiliating acts like holding his chamber pot while he used it and possibly also sexually abused the young Beatrice, although this particular charge was not mentioned in contemporary reports of the trial so may have been a later embellishment to the tale as a means of underlining just how awful Count Francesco was and making it clear that he deserved his grisly fate.

Everyone in the upper crust Roman circles that the family frequented knew about the miserable home life of the Cenci family but as is all too often the case, eyes were turned away and no one wanted to get involved. Beatrice even appealed to the authorities for assistance but it was made clear that none was forthcoming due to her father’s great wealth and status in the city.

Shortly after Beatrice had tried to report her father, he decided to pack his family off to his country pile – the old castle of La Rocca, which stood on a steep crag above the village of La Petrella del Salto. There has been a suggestion due to studies of a clause in Beatrice’s will that bestowed a very large sum of money (1,000 scudi) on a small boy being raised by a certain Madonna Catarina de Santis, that the true reason for the Cenci family’s exile to the provinces was to conceal the birth of an illegitimate child, but the truth will probably never be known.

Whatever had taken the family out of Rome, they clearly came to the conclusion that Francesco’s tyranny must be brought to an end and so a plot was hatched to get rid of him. Possibly they would have been safer had they acted alone, but two loyal servants, one of whom, Olimpio Calvetti was the lover of Beatrice were brought in on the scheme and agreed to do the deed itself.

The murder of Francesco Cenci was carried out in the early hours of the 9th of September 1598. Madonna Lucrezia Cenci had given her husband a sleeping draught the night before but it wore off before the assassins could accomplish their terrible deed and instead of a slumbering, supine victim they were forced to fight their target, holding him down forcefully as they battered his head then, horribly, hammered a metal spike into his skull before throwing him out of the window.

Chaos ensued as Lucrezia broke down into hysterics, while Beatrice is said to have gazed dispassionately out of the window at the crowd of locals who, alerted by the screams and fuss, arrived to rescue the Count’s body, which had fallen almost thirteen feet into the castle’s rubbish tip. Although an attempt had been made to make the murder appear like an accident, it quickly became apparent that this was murder and the Cenci family were promptly arrested and taken back to Rome.

The sensational trial that ensued lasted for a year but the actual hands on murderers were already dead before it had finished. Olimpio managed to escape but was beheaded by one of the terrifying Italian bounty hunters of the period, while his accomplice died during torture. Despite their aristocratic status, the rest of the Cenci family were also tortured, with the elder boy, Giacomo spilling all the beans in consequence while Beatrice, who was revealed by her brother to be the driving force behind the conspiracy, remaining stoically and completely silent.

As the awfulness of Count Francesco and the miserable plight of his family were well known, there were loud calls for clemency from the populace of Rome. However, with aristocratic murders becoming something of an embarrassing problem during this period (much to the later glee of the Restoration tragedy writers like Webster), Pope Clement was in no mood to give way and Lucrezia, Beatrice and her elder brother were all duly sentenced to death. The younger Cenci brother, twelve year old Bernardino was spared death but sentenced to work as a galley slave for the rest of his days. It has been asserted that the Cenci family’s huge fortune was confiscated by the Pope (and that furthermore, he had agreed to the executions with an eye to increasing the already over flowing coffers of his family) but the existence of a will for Beatrice at least, suggests that this was not actually the case although it’s likely that a huge fine was paid by Bernardino.

The sentence of beheading was carried out at dawn outside the Castel St Angelo, with Beatrice showing enormous calm and courage on the makeshift scaffold as she passed into legend. Her mortal remains were displayed in the Piazza St Angelo until nightfall then buried after a torchlit procession in the elegant church of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, which was fittingly commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to mark what was believed to be the site of the martyrdom of Saint Peter. It is said that her ghost, with head tucked under the arm, continues to visit the site of her execution on its anniversary every year.

It’s not known for certain if the Guido Reni painting in the Palazzo Barberini actually depicts the unfortunate Beatrice Cenci. The identification as such dates from the late 18th century and it is now impossible to trace it any further back. The legend goes that, rather like Charlotte Corday before her own execution on the guillotine in July 1793, Cenci had posed for the portrait before her death, leaving behind a moving, tangible testament to her fate. It’s a nice if somewhat unlikely story that adds to the legend of the pure young Roman maiden so assailed by her awful father that she felt she had no option but to murder him, but whatever the truth of the matter, the portrait and sad story of Beatrice Cenci has inspired writers and artists for centuries and will probably continue to do so…

Amongst all the portraits that claim to depict the ill fated Tudor Queen, Anne Boleyn, I would say that this is the least in favour, probably because her supporters (of which there are many so I’d better watch my tongue really) don’t think it is sufficiently glamourous or flattering.

However, it is clear from the chronicles of the period that Anne Boleyn was more attractive than the outright dazzling beauty, and that a lot of her charm was probably due to a certain intelligent winsomeness of manner and an ability to use her fine dark eyes and cloud of raven black hair to full effect. Neither of which even a master like Holbein could effectively convey via the medium of pencil or brush.

In contrast, the alleged Holbein sketch of Anne Boleyn depicts a not unattractive woman in a frumpy headdress that hides her hair, with a long face, emphasised by a slight double chin and a certain melancholy manner. Perhaps I am alone though in discerning a slight smile behind her downcast dark eyes and nudging the corners of her full pink lips. However, this is perhaps not the sort of face that one could imagine ensnaring Henry VIII. I’m reminded though of the recent incident when Russell Brand rather unwisely Tweeted a photo of his wife Katy Brand in bed without make up on and looking almost unrecognisable…

The eighteenth century ‘Anna Bollein Queen’ inscription on the sketch, as with the other Holbein sketches in the Royal Colection, is due to an earlier identification by Edward VI’s tutor, Sir John Cheke, who knew most of the sitters and can surely be relied upon to be able to identify a portrait of someone so significant to the Tudor court.

Although the identification as Anne Boleyn has fallen out of favour somewhat in recent decades thanks to the work of Eric Ives amongst others, I was really interested to see that the Royal Collection website now proudly proclaims that this is indeed the portrait of Anne Boleyn – this definite identification being based on Cheke’s authority on the matter, a study by art historian, Bendor Grosvenor in the book ‘Lost Faces’ and also the efforts of Professor Maria Hayward to analyse the garment worn by the sitter and identify it as a fur lined nightgown presented to Anne Boleyn by her husband, Henry VIII.

A source at the Royal Collection has informed me that based on all these factors, they made the decision to positively identify the sketch as being a portrait of Anne Boleyn in the recent exhibition about Henry VIII and have stuck to this ever since. They acknowledge that we will probably never know the truth of the matter but the evidence pointing to this indeed being a depiction of Henry VIII’s second wife is compelling enough for it to be the most likely identification.

They also pointed out that the lack of glamour and clear informality of the image, which has led many to doubt that it could possibly be a portrait of the apparently very fashion and image conscious Anne Boleyn is actually a point in its favour as who else but the Queen could be comfortably depicted in such an informal and natural way?

Is it too soon to be thinking about Valentine’s Day? I’m vaguely thinking about it at the moment because I am chronically disorganised and need a good fortnight’s advance notice if I am going to be required to produce presents and a card for an occasion. I like to think of myself as being spontaneous but actually I’m just a bit lazy with a very tenuous grasp on sense of occasion.

My husband puts me to shame though – he likes to PRETEND that he’s above all that sort of nonsense, but he’s extremely thoughtful and a bit romantic when it comes to present giving so I’ve had to step my game up a bit to compete. All of my exes were RUBBISH at special occasions (high points were an inflatable hammer WITH A HOLE IN IT for my eighteenth birthday; a Playstation 2 when actually I wanted A BLOODY TIARA WITH SPIDERS ON and hate games consoles one Christmas and a Blood Bowl team (unpainted) when I hate all that Games Workshop nonsense but, hey, he got it free because he worked for them so THAT’S okay for my twentieth birthday) so I got away with being rubbish too – well NO MORE. Those days are OVER. Those days are GONE.

You all seemed a bit keen on my Dark Victorian guide to Christmas present giving, so let’s have a bit more of That Sort Of Thing for a Valentine’s Day with a difference shall we?

Ah, I love cards like this one from Pretty Girl Postcards. Also check out Tokyo Milk’s selection of cards, like the one at the top of this post.

I also love this Madame de Pompadour envelope and paper from Evolution Handmade. It’s perfect for scrawling romantic nonsenses…

A Victorian styled pearl and hematite necklace by the House of D. Perfect for adding a bit of glamour to whatever your idea of a seductive ensemble might be.

A Steampunk styled 1888 print by BiloxHousewife.

A Jack the Ripper Victorian penny pendant from Hoolala. I’m on the constant lookout for one of these with an 1888 penny.

Suffrage pour les femmes – a fab pendant from Ms Mutiny. This made me think of SO MANY people!

Marie Antoinette print by Once Tattered. I love this sort of thing – it’s so quirky and yet pretty.

Brewing Stars with Little Bear by Lisa Falzon, who designed the beautiful cover for my latest book, Before the Storm.

Lady Luck print from Madame Talbot’s Victorian and Gothic Lowbrow. I have the amazing Jack the Ripper print from this store and am planning to buy several more as I think they are amazing pieces.

Too good not to be featured twice – brothel tokens from The Hand of Fatima. I LOVE these. Oh so much.

Bearded Lady pendant by The Mymble’s Daughter, who do fabulous Victorian styled pieces inspired by Alice in Wonderland, freak shows and fairytales.

Tainted Love perfume by Tokyo Milk. One day, when I am rich, I am going to make an IMMENSE order to Tokyo Milk for all sorts of things.

Count and Countess mugs from Burke and Hare, who have an amazing store full of weird and wonderful curios. I was hoping to feature the similar Wishing Thorn store too but they are down at the moment, which is a shame.

Oh it’s almost Mother’s Day too isn’t it? Here in the UK anyway. I think I may be getting one of these Lizzie Borden cards for my mother (don’t worry, she’ll definitely appreciate the tenuous dark humour behind it – she’s a social worker, after all…)

Lizzie Borden Mother’s Day card from Pixxxie Pie and Posie.

I hope you like the various trinkets I have picked out but ultimately I really hope this serves as an inspiration to have a look on Etsy and other such places for lovely presents instead of shamefacedly handing over an unhappy looking bear holding a felt ‘I LOVE YOU’ garland of hearts. Oh crikey, and that reminds me of the ex boyfriend who bought me such a bear and PULLED THE GARLAND OFF IT AND THREW IT AWAY IN FRONT OF ME WHILE SAYING ‘IT’S A BIT SOON FOR THAT SORT OF THING, BUT HAVE THE BEAR ANYWAY.’ Twonk klaxon going off!

I got yet another email last night accusing me of being ‘un-feminist’ because of my interest in Jack the Ripper and suggesting that I am contributing to the glamourising of what were clearly horrific crimes against women and subsequent fetishising of the victims. I say ‘yet another email’ as this isn’t actually the first time I have been accused of something along these lines and probably won’t be the last so I thought I’d publicly address it here or at least thrash it out in the open where you can all bear witness to my torturous thought processes and lack of any intellectual rigour.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say ‘I’m a feminist’ because I don’t happen to think that’s how these things should work. I mean, I don’t have a very clear idea about what feminism is but I do have definite ideas about what it ISN’T. Or maybe I don’t. It’s all so NEBULOUS, you see. And also PERSONAL. All I know is that I am one. I suppose I’d feel the same sort of uncertain inarticulate mental stultification if someone asked me ‘Why are you a woman?’ I DON’T KNOW WHY. I JUST AM.

For the record, I also believe that not every woman is a feminist and that not all feminists are women. Make of that what you will.

However, unlike seemingly a lot of other people, feminism itself holds no fears for me. As I may have mentioned before, I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom grew up during the second world war and had, shall we say, rather NOVEL ideas about child rearing and, more crucially, femininity or rather the role of women. my grandmother was very fond of lecturing me about my ‘duty’ to any future husband (if I was lucky enough to ensnare one with my frankly limited charms because don’t forget I was ALSO getting regular bulletins about how unloveable I am too) and how I had to be at the beck and call of this draconian imaginary complacent entitled fuckwit and have his sodding dinner on the table when he got home from his bloody work and all sorts of nonsense like that.

However, luckily for me, my mother, whom I did see from time to time (although in a charmingly Catherine Cookson twist, I was raised to think that she was my sister – which gives me excellent fodder for my books as you can imagine) was what I consider to be Old School Feminist which served as an excellent antidote.

I love the way that whenever I feel stressed and unhappy, it is my grandmother’s voice I hear inside my head (not literally – I’m not certifiable), ordering me to clean and be obedient and subservient but when I’m feeling pretty good, it is my mother who inspires me. She’s pretty awesome and a great role model actually but I’ll talk about that some other time.

Now, before I go on, I did once upon a time announce that I wasn’t a feminist but in my defence it was said to someone who is not only as thick as mince but also well known for being a pompous buffoon fond of dreary, badly spelt self righteous pontificating and dismal condescending twaddle. They were spoiling for a fight and I was in a sufficiently bad mood to oblige. I felt bad though. I felt even worse when one of my very dearest friends jumped in to defend me against the inevitable attack. I am a bad person.

I’m not going to do that now though. Well, clearly I’m not.

The question about Ripperology and feminism does interest me though because it is something that makes me feel vaguely uneasy at times. I know that feminist groups have protested in the past about the Ripper exhibit at the London Dungeons and moved to have the name of the Ten Bells changed back again when it was briefly called the Jack the Ripper and that makes me wonder – am I the Enemy here? Am I the one using these horrible murders for entertainment and a bit of seedy gratuitous thrill seeking? Should someone be trying to stop ME?

I mean, I am not an academic and have no useful, official or sensible purpose to my interest in the Ripper case so does that mean I am being titillated by it in some way? Is this one of those situations where if you don’t have a good reason for being there, then you shouldn’t be there at all? I don’t think so – but then, for a start, I don’t see it as a game of whodunnit. As I have explained here before, I am not actually all that interested in unmasking the Ripper. Beyond a belief that he was a random nutcase and not the product of some macabre, internecine, Hollywood friendly conspiracy, I have very little interest in him at all. But even if I DID, would that mean that I am fundamentally some sort of raving misogynist? I don’t think so.

What I am actually interested in are his victims and their lives as they offer a snapshot into existences that ordinarily would be hidden from view in their own time and then lost to history. What happened to them was dreadful beyond all comprehension and I suppose I see it as my own personal mission not to forget them and to make sure other people don’t either. I also have a more underhand agenda of using their unhappy stories of relationship breakdown, dependancy, poverty and addiction to remind people of why we NEED welfare in this country. I’m always saying that I judge societies by the way they treat their weakest members and I’m afraid, based on the lives of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman et al, I’m judging YOU, Victorian England, VERY HARSHLY INDEED.

Do I fetishise them? Well, I’d like to think that I don’t. The definition of fetishising is to hold an intense, excessive and irrational devotion to something. I don’t think that’s the case here. However, yes, I do refer to myself as a Victorian Prostitute Re-enactor and, yes, I am writing a book about the Ripper murders. The re-enactment is a sort of in-joke based on my previous experiences of re-enactment in my less creaky youth and also because one of my friends and I thought it would be fun to dress up in Victorian rags and hang around Whitechapel at night. I suppose there’s an element of reclaiming the streets there and also a nod to the fact that most re-enactment appears to involve men with long hair recreating past wars, bloodshed and hideous conflict so why shouldn’t we, as women, dress up to recall to mind our own bloody history or to show a bit of across the centuries solidarity with our unfortunate nineteenth century sisters?

I also like to dress in Victorian clothes and as I’m a bit scruffy, that’s always going to veer towards the more bohemian and down at heel styling, I’m afraid.

As to the book, well, it seems that what I like to write about are women, their relationships with each other and how they are affected by traumatic events. I’ll own up now that if you are expecting a big fat whodunnit and a dramatic unmasking at the end of my Ripper book, you’ll be sadly disappointed as the book isn’t really about him – it’s about the effect his actions have on the lives of a trio of fairly different young women and, in essence, explores more fully the ideas that I don’t really have the space or energy to expound in full in this here blog post.

In a nutshell then, I don’t believe that, done properly, Ripperology is intrinsically ‘un-feminist’ or women hating or misogynistic or using murder victims as some sort of bizarre historical snuff porn. Not all Ripperologists are the same though – some enjoy the thrill of the chase and get really, really excited about each and every new theory about the Ripper’s identity; others are in it because they like the whole ambience of gaslit, foggy streets (I’m pretty appreciative of this sort of thing) and others, like me, are interested in the social history and can barely bring themselves to look at the mortuary photographs of the victims. I’m ALL OVER maps and contemporary photographs of the actual area though.

I’m not being all holier than thou, though. Although I will tend to avoid most documentaries on the Ripper case, the deeply flawed From Hell is one of my all time favourite films. I don’t feel obliged to wholeheartedly LOVE everything about it though – the prettying up of what, and I say this as someone who has absolute respect for them, was a group of rather unlovely women makes me wince rather a lot and makes me wonder if it is more disrespectful to make someone more attractive than they were in reality than it is to show them in all their toothless, grimy, warts n all glory?

I think I’ve said enough. What do you think? Have you been grinding your teeth for months wondering if I am the sort of misguided female who writes love letters to serial killers on death row (I’m really REALLY not but as to whether there should even BE a death row, ah well, that’s a whole new rant really, isn’t it?) or if I have ANY IDEA how rampagingly misogynistic I am being by flouncing about the place rambling on about GIN and alleyways?

Anyway, I have other thoughts but my RSI wrist is telling me stop plus this is getting a bit epic now and is rapidly spiralling out of control. As always, I am reminded of the scene in Father Ted, where he accepts an award and gives the longest speech ever, being interrupted at the point where he says: ‘And now, moving on to LIARS…’ What do you think, anyway? Let’s have a chat about it. Or not. We could talk about something else if you like? Like the snow or what happened at the end of the last episode of Sherlock or how much the Daily Mail pay journalists to watch award ceremonies and premieres and look out for tan lines/price stickers on the bottom of shoes/bags under the eyes/spinach between the teeth…

I think it’s probably very well known by now that I am a MASSIVE fan of the ITV series Whitechapel as evidenced by capering around like some sort of idiot at the premiere of the last series and also my first and last foray into fan fiction, which I will probably regret linking to here.

The thing is that I don’t just love Whitechapel because it panders to my immense love of historical crime – I mostly just love it because it is set in my favourite place or at least the one where I feel the most at home because my family have been kicking their heels up around Spitalfields for generations so it feels like home to me as well. It makes me feel absurdly happy to see little snippets of local life in the series, from pissed off hipsters hanging about all night bagel bakeries to skittish Jack the Ripper tours walking the streets in search of a bit of authentic gloom to pie and mash shops with their interesting aroma of brine, sour tea and parsley. Or at least that’s how they always smelt to me when I was growing up. If I ever become so famous that someone gets me to make a perfume, that’s what it is going to smell of, plus a dash of GIN. I’ll call it Eau de 1888 and no one will like it except me.

Anyway, moving on! I’ve been so excited all bloody week about the fact that the third series of Whitechapel was starting to tonight and crikey it didn’t disappoint! I like to keep my reviews relatively spoiler free so I won’t go on about it but from the first mis-step in the draper’s shop onwards, I knew it was going to be awesome stuff.

Tonight’s episode was the first of two (out of a six part series) based on the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811. I guessed as soon as the new series was announced last year that this would feature this time around and was a bit nervous that there might be infanticide involved (I can’t bear to watch or read anything that involves harm to small children) but if you are anything like me then you will be no doubt reassured to hear that although the series is based on those famous slayings, the choice of victim is quite different. It’s still savage, horrible stuff although not so bad as the first series about a Jack the Ripper copycat on the loose on the streets of the east end.

There’s always been something faintly X Files almost about Whitechapel with more than a vague nod at the supernatural and down right weird, both in terms of ambience and plot. This was quite marked in the first series but rather less so in the second, despite all its talk of ‘the legend of the Krays’. In the third series though, they seem to have really gone for it and it is even more creepy than ever with the tension effectively heightened by the gloomy colour palette, speeded up camera work and general fandango and trickery which is borrowed more from the film version of From Hell than the ITV’s most famous cop show, The Bill.

There’s also an underlying wry sense of humour too, or maybe it’s just me who chortled at the nods to Rupert Penry Jones fan girling (like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, he has a cow eyed girl in a lab coat fawning over him in a hopeful manner), the ‘ARE YOU GAY’ conversation between Miles and Chandler and other stuff. I also did a bit of ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!’ when they were talking about getting a historical police advisor person in.

Scoffers can scoff, but I think this series might be the best yet. I’m wondering what they have planned for the other four episodes though – maybe the Pinchin Street torso or is that just too macabre?

‘As we have it the bust of Nefertiti is artistically and ritualistically complete, exalted, harsh and alien… This is the least consoling of great art works. Its popularity is based on misunderstanding and suppression of its unique features. The proper response to the Nefertiti bust is fear‘ — Camille Paglia (my mother’s heroine), Sexual Personae; art and decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990).

Almost unbelievably beautiful, her head balanced like an elegant flower upon a slender neck, the iconic bust of Nefertiti represents to the modern mind all the esoteric mysticism, beauty and glamour of ancient Egypt. Despite the fullness of her lips and heaviness of eyelids, there is nothing winsome or sensual about Nefertiti’s beauty, instead its symmetry has an almost chilling, unnerving effect that keeps us at a respectful distance.

According to the official accounts, the bust was discovered by a local workman attached to the team of German archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt on the afternoon of the 6th December 1912, while they were excavating the remains of the deserted ancient city of Amarna, once the capital of the so called heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen, Nefertiti.

The find was made while they were excavating the remains of the house and studio workshop of the sculptor, Tuthmosis, who was responsible for some of the most important sculptures of the Amarna royal family. When the city was abandoned, he had left behind some unfinished, broken or unimportant pieces and it was amongst these that the bust of Nefertiti was allegedly discovered.

We can only imagine the excitement when the bust was brought to the surface and gently cleaned so that its beauty could be seen again for the first time in thousands of years. It must have been immediately clear that here was a piece of enormous significance. As Borchardt himself wrote in his diary afterwards: ‘Suddenly we had in our hands the most alive Egyptian artwork. You cannot describe it with words. You must see it.‘

What happened next is open to some debate – according to the rules of the dig, all artefacts found on the site were supposed to be divided between the French run Egyptian museum service and the excavator but, oddly, the French site inspector took a painted relief of the Royal family instead of the bust, which was clearly the star piece of the dig. There is some speculation about how this came to pass with many people theorising that the German archaeologist team had somehow contrived to conceal the value of their find, either by hiding its existence, taking an unflattering photograph that was shown to the inspector or covering it with mud so that Nefertiti’s radiance was dimmed and it looked like just yet another unimportant royal statue.

Whatever happened, the bust was duly presented to James Simon, the backer of the expedition to Amarna and didn’t go on public display until 1924 in the New Museum in Berlin – its existence having been kept secret at the insistence of Borchardt until a year earlier. The tomb of Nefertiti’s son in law, Tutankhamen had been discovered two years earlier in the Valley of the Kings and the world was still in the grip of a furious obsession with ancient Egypt when the bust went on display to a rapturous reception and went on to become the museum’s star exhibit.

Feeling somewhat hoodwinked, the Egyptian authorities demanded the piece be returned to them, which the Germans refused to comply with – only backing down when two equally celebrated pieces from the Cairo collection were offered in exchange. However, the exchange never took place, probably because of protests from the German people.

It was at this point that the story of the bust took a somewhat sinister turn, when it was hailed in the 1930s by the German press as one of the finest art treasures of Prussian Germany and a symbol of German national identity. It was, in short, their Empress. Hitler himself was completely enamoured with Nefertiti’s aloof, austere beauty, regarding her as one of his favourite works of art and describing her as ‘a unique masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure‘ and befitting an entire new museum which would have her as its centrepiece – ‘in the middle, this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned, … I will never relinquish the head of the Queen.‘ There was clearly no way that the precious bust was ever going to be leaving Berlin.

During the war, the museums of Berlin were emptied of their treasures, which were hidden in shelters for safekeeping. Nefertiti was moved three times – to the cellar of a bank, the tower of a Berlin bunker and then finally to a salt mine in Thuringia, where she was later found by US troops.

After the war, the bust was moved several times before finally being returned to the Neues Museum in Berlin when it was reopened in 2009, where she is one of the most important and best loved exhibits. The Egyptian authorities make regular attempts to have the piece returned to them, but it doesn’t look like it will ever happen as by now Nefertiti has a strong and certain place in the cultural identity of the German people.

Controversy will probably always surround the bust of Nefertiti – as well as debate about the circumstances of its discovery and then new residence in Germany, there have also been rumours that the bust is in fact an elaborate fake, either by Borchardt, who used his wife as a model for the piece or by Hitler, to hide the fact that the original sculpture had been destroyed during the war.

These allegations are extremely unlikely to be true as a CT scan has revealed that beneath the smooth, austere perfection of Nefertiti’s face there lies another face, of an older woman with wrinkles and a prominent bump on the bridge of the nose. It’s also been revealed that the pigments used on the piece are those employed by ancient Egyptian artisans.

It is believed that the bust was created in the Amarna workshop of Thutmose in around 1345 BC. It was carved from limestone and then coated with a carefully applied layer of gypsum plaster before being painted. There are no inscriptions to identify the sitter but it wears a flat topped blue crown that is usually associated with Nefertiti, whose name, fittingly, means ‘The beautiful woman returns’.

The bust is usually shown in profile, which both displays the elegance of that long slender neck and also conceals the unnerving fact that one of the Queen’s dark eyes is missing. After its discovery, Borchardt searched the studio for the missing eye but was unable to find anything and indeed it looks like the eye was never actually in place which suggests either it a disease or that the piece was unfinished or used to train novice sculptors in the application of inlaid crystal eyes.

It always strikes me as quite funny that a sculpture so revered throughout the world as a depiction of ‘perfect’ female beauty should be missing an eye and I like to imagine unwary tourists approaching it in a reverent hush in its case in Berlin and then jumping back in horrified revulsion when the truth is revealed to them.

To me, however, the beauty of Nefertiti is diminished not one whit or iota by her missing eye. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it makes her more approachable or anything like that, but I do like to think that there is something universal and international about her allure, in which case a missing eye just adds to her all encompassing charm.

‘The portraits of other queens of romance, such as Cleopatra and Mary of Scotland, are apt to leave one wondering where the charm came in about which all men raved, but no one could question for a moment the beauty of Nefertiti. Features of exquisite modelling and delicacy, the long graceful neck of an Italian princess of the Renaissance, and an expression of gentleness not untouched with melancholy, make up the presentation of a royal lady about whom we should like to know a great deal and actually know almost nothing.‘ — J Baikie, The Amarna Age: a study of the crisis of the ancient world (1926).

If you want to know more about Nefertiti and her enigmatic life story, I really recommend Nefertiti: Unlocking the Mystery Surrounding Egypt’s Most Famous and Beautiful Queen by Joyce Tyldesley.

I found out last night that I have now sold over three thousand books! I know that this is the merest BAGATELLE to quite a few of you but I am feeling jolly pleased with myself right now.

I don’t often like to talk about my childhood and upbringing as they are more fitting for the pages of a Misery Memoir than what is supposed to be quite an uplifting and pretty blog, but suffice to say that I was brought up by my grandmother to consider myself very very stupid and untalented indeed while any belief in ‘specialness’ was literally beaten out of me. Attempts to talk about my ambition to become a writer were greeted with derision and mockery so it wasn’t something that I ever thought within my grasp and I duly filed it away as something that other, more fortunate, people did.

As is often the case with people who have had miserable childhoods and have zilch family support or interest, I did myself no favours at all and completely lost my marbles while doing my A Levels which resulted in my becoming pregnant in the middle of my second year at sixth form, effectively dropping out and completely putting paid to any lofty plans I may have had for my future. Thus PLAYING INTO THEIR HANDS.

With the benefit of hindsight I can see now that my grandmother was motivated by jealousy and feelings of inadequacy as well as purest personal dislike for the grandchild that had been foisted on her at just a few months old. That doesn’t stop me occasionally rolling her spiteful words around in my head when I am feeling low – ‘You’d be lucky if someone hired you as a cleaner’, ‘You’ll never amount to anything’, ‘NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU.’ It’s toxic and wrong, but I can’t help myself.

Anyway! It’s taken a long, long time but FINALLY I feel a little bit able to feel proud of myself. I’ve spent most of my life feeling really stupid and as if I don’t have any discernible talent, but at last it looks like I might actually be a bit good at something and that feels weird but nice. I ought to thank my husband for a lot of this actually as he is the first person I have ever met who made me feel like I could actually achieve something with my life and wasn’t actually stupid and hopeless at all thus breaking a cycle of picking boyfriends who treated me in the same way as my grandmother did and doing their best to cut me down. He’s been amazing.

I was terrified when I first published a book by myself – I was so sure that everyone would hate it and I’d be an object of ridicule but people have, mostly, been so very kind about it and I appreciate that SO MUCH. I am honestly SO grateful to everyone that has bought a copy and read it and even gone to the trouble to leave a review. It’s just brilliant of you.

Anyway, that’s enough of all that! There’s going to be a bit of a gap before my next book comes out but I’m working away on it! Progress is a bit impeded right now by the fact that my children are going through particularly demanding phases (this blog post has taken quite a few hours to write thanks to the continual interruptions – my writing fares even worse as they have the happy knack of waiting until I’m finally feeling my imagination soar before they interrupt and bring me crashing back down to earth again) and that due to personal and Boring Day Job reasons, my writing time is not exactly plentiful and I’m having to very sadly weigh up between Paid Work and unpaid writing. I’m doing the best that I can though and slowly but surely the word counts are ticking upwards…

I’m stressed though. Seriously stressed. I’m assured it will all be worth it in the end though.

In other news, lots of you have been asking if there’s any chance that I will be bringing my books out in a form other than Kindle. This is something I would like to do but only if I can produce books that aren’t heinously expensive for you to buy. If I can find a way to do it that means that you don’t pay more than you would ordinarily fork out for a paperback novel then I’ll get on with that.

Seeing as the children have momentarily stopped demanding things and appear to be happily watching a Harry Potter film, I’d best go and do some writing now, hadn’t I?

Thanks again! You’re all ace.