A Stuart royal wedding, 2nd May 1641

2 May

I’ll admit it, writing historical fiction CAN be a bit of a slog at times no matter how much you love the past in general and the topic you’ve latched onto in particular. However, there are odd moments of pure joy to be had such as the times when you research a historical event and discover that it happened on the exact same date only hundreds of years ago. I love that.

Today’s serendipity comes courtesy of the wedding of Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, the eldest daughter of Charles I and William of Orange which took place in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall on Sunday 2nd of May back in 1641.

I’m really fond of Mary as she sounds like she was quite a character (I’ve given her the idiom of Nancy Mitford’s Linda Radlett in my novel about her youngest sister, Henrietta Anne) and she was also the subject of some of my favourite portraits by Anthony Van Dyke.

What could be more charming than his portrait of Mary and William, painted together in 1641 to mark their wedding?

I also love this portrait of Mary aged about six, which was painted in 1637. It was one of her father Charles I’s favourite paintings (a big deal as he is rightly considered to be one of the greatest collectors of art this country has ever seen) and he hung it in pride of place in his rooms at Hampton Court Palace while under house arrest during the English Civil War. When he made his ill fated escape to the Isle of Wight he left behind instructions that ‘the Originall of My Eldest Daughter [which] hangs in this chamber over the board next the Chimney which you must send to my Lady Aubigny‘. I’ll talk about the beauteous and dashing Lady d’Aubigny later as she’s a BIG HEROINE of mine but suffice to say for now that she took the canvas away with her to the Hague where it was reunited with Mary.

The portrait came into the hands of the great and much lamented art historian Oliver Millar many years later and was recently accepted by the state in lieu of death duties when he died. It’s now hanging back in Hampton Court Palace again, where it hangs in the former apartments of her son, William III. Isn’t art history great.

Back to the royal wedding of 1641, which seems to have had plenty of the drama that all weddings manage to engender. In this case, the bride’s mother, Henrietta Maria was a bit narked that her eldest daughter was being married off to a relatively obscure Dutch princeling, while her father would have preferred her to be married to her cousin, the son of the King of Spain. To add further complications, their nephew, the Prince Palatine, who sounds like a most unpleasant chap and who had none of the famous charm of his mother, Elizabeth of Bohemia or other siblings (which included the heavenly but rather grumpy Prince Rupert), rolled up in the country in a right old sulk because he thought the Princess Mary had been promised to him.

Oh dear. Vivacious Mary herself was nine at the time and appears to have seen nothing wrong with her fifteen year old suitor, who was pretty good looking for a prince if a bit quiet. She was escorted down the aisle of the Chapel Royal by her brothers Charles and James and followed by her watchful governess and an ostentatious troupe of sixteen aristocratic bridesmaids. Her father waited by the altar to give her away, while her mother, sister Princess Elizabeth and grandmother, Marie de Medici watched from behind a curtain at the side.

Mary may well have worn the dress in her wedding portrait by Van Dyke as we are told that it was made of silver tissue embroidered with pearls.

The service was the simple and touching and was followed by a family dinner party before they all walked out to Hyde Park to take the air together and show themselves to the people. Whereas most royal weddings at this time were elaborate affairs with masques, banquets and all sorts of expensive fuss, that of Princess Mary had none of this as the mood in the capital was becoming increasingly sour as the country slid further into rebellion and then war. In fact, Mary’s wedding was to be one of the very last celebrations to be held at the court of Charles I.

That evening, the couple were ceremoniously ‘bedded’ together in the Queen’s state bedchamber at Whitehall. There was all the usual ribaldry although probably tempered by the age of the bride and the presence of her parents who don’t seem to have gone in for the crude japes that had been so popular in the days of her grandparents, James I and Anne of Denmark. William very chastely kissed his bride and then lay beside her on the bed. Court etiquette at the time, which was no stranger to the marriage of children, dictated that the marriage could be considered consummated if their bare legs touched and so Henrietta Maria’s dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson stepped forward with a pair of shears and obligingly ripped the Princess’ nightdress up to the knee. How peculiar.

The marriage was not to be properly consummated for several years but Henrietta Maria travelled with her daughter to the Hague the following year so that she could take up residence with her young husband. We are told that as the Princess and her mother sailed from Dover, Charles I rode along the cliff’s edge on his stallion and waved his feathered hat in farewell to his beloved daughter. They were never to see each other again.

Further reading:

Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s Indomitable Queen

A Royal Passion: The Turbulent Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta Maria

Also, I’m currently gripped by the Dorling Kindersley History Quiz. I really should be writing but there’s loads of them, covering pretty much every bit of history you can think of!

The Rose Garden – Susanna Kearsley

1 May

I know that I said my book reviews were going to go up on Sundays but I was recovering from a seventh birthday party last Sunday and didn’t really feel able to do anything much other than weep, trip over Moshlings and cram left over chocolate fingers into my face.

However! That was then and this is NOW.

Regular readers of this blog may recall that although I really loved Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea (aka Sophia’s Secret. I do wish they’d leave titles alone – do US and UK readers REALLY need different titles?), I wasn’t quite as taken with Mariana because of the ending and also all the explaining about reincarnation. I have NOTHING against the concept of reincarnation or indeed against the concept of having things explained but there seemed like an awful lot of it, which I ultimately ended up skipping just to get to the actual story again.

However, I read Susanna Kearsley’s other book, The Rose Garden last week and really loved it. In contrast to The Winter Sea, which had a writer going into weird trances and remembering the experiences of an ancestor and Mariana, which had a woman tramping around the countryside at night as she revisited the experiences of someone she was reincarnated from, The Rose Garden had ACTUAL TIME TRAVEL back to the eighteenth century. I know, right.

I’ll admit, I had some problems with this at first as it seemed a bit fraught with issues such as accusations of witchcraft, prohibitively low hygiene, salmonella and so forth but it was all okay in the end as the eighteenth century hero, Daniel happened to be a very broad minded, well read, scientifically interested sort of guy who accepted the heroine, Eva’s excuse of ‘Hey, sorry that I just manifested in your bedroom but I am inadvertently time travelling’ with very little question. Phew.

He also happened to be a Cornish smuggler. Cor, I know. Now, I don’t know about you but when I think of Cornish smugglers, I think of something like this:

Not this, which is sort of how I imagined Daniel in The Rose Garden to look:

However, it happens to us all. For instance, in my books about the French Revolution, I imagine my hot French revolutionaries to all look like this:

When in fact rather too many of them had a distressing tendency to look like this:

Anyway. I really enjoyed The Rose Garden – there weren’t huge amounts of suspense but I found it to be a bit of a page turner once it got going a bit. The romance was nicely handled too – I mean it was obvious what was going to happen but Kearsley allowed Eva and Daniel to get to know each other first and be gradually drawn to each other rather than, you know, an instant of shedding of clothes and all that malarkey. In fact, even when they DO get together, you don’t get to see ANY clothes shedding, just a lot of tender snogging.

There is NOTHING in this book that couldn’t read aloud to a ninety year old lady with a weak heart. NOTHING.

I’d definitely recommend this one and look forward to the next!

So, time slip books – are you a fan? Which ones do you recommend? I tried Diana Gabaldon’s books a while ago and couldn’t get into them at all.

I find the construction of them very interesting, in that they tend to have themes in common with each other: a focus on a building; a dilemma from the past that can be fixed by a couple getting together in the present; the heroine being at a crossroads in her life after a traumatic event such as bereavement or divorce; a choice between two men and so on. I’ve also noted that all the time slip books that I’ve read lately have either been written before everyone and their grandmother acquired a mobile phone or have deliberately eschewed such modern technological nonsense, which to my jaded twenty first century eyes makes the ‘modern’ part of these books feel almost as old fashioned as the historical bits.

I also had a fairly uneventful chat on Facebook yesterday with a couple of people who asserted that time slip novels are actually science fiction as opposed to historical fiction. I’m not a fan of science fiction (I find SF books peculiar, too techy and excessively bleak for my tastes) to be honest and will admit that if they were marketed as science fiction, I’d be really put off by that. How about you?

The Rose Garden

Pretty antique collectibles

1 May

I talk a fair bit on here about stuff that reminds me of Marie Antoinette so it’s a rare pleasure to feature the genuine article thanks to the Ruby Lane online antique shop, which is based not too far away in Gloucestershire.

The 1.5 inch engravings depict two separate constitutional depictions, English and French. The English one is a “urne mysterieuse” optical illusion or puzzle. These were very popular during the 18th century. You may think that you are looking at an urn but look carefully at the white negative space. You will also see a profiled silhouette of Queen Charlotte to the left of the middle of the urn and George III to the right hand side. This idea was later known as the Rubin Vase illusion during the 19th century. The urn is hand colored with a sepia tone ink. We see the English crown radiating to the top, the Scottish thistle to the left and the English rose to the right, both surrounded by English Oak leaves. All ordered and resplendent with superb detail considering its miniature form.

The other miniature has a similar optical illusion or figure/ground reversal seen in the negative space. But this scene is much more chaotic. This time silhouette profiles of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI of France. Their images can be seen either side of a ferocious Hydra, a water snake like creature with many heads from Greek mythology. This Hydra has torn through the French monarchy; see the divided crown falling to the floor. The fleur de lys, the famous symbol of the House of Bourbon, France is about to be swallowed! A sword at the bottom of the engraving has sliced through a back scratcher. Possibly a satirical jibe at the French King’s alleged lack of stamina or a slur on the French fashion for huge wigs which with the 18th century poor hygiene were often full of lice!

How amazing! They are a bit out of my price range, alas but I think they are very cool.

I’m also very taken with this gorgeous eighteenth century purple silk muff. How cute and just look at that embroidery.

I can think of quite a few people who’d like to get their mitts on this Charles II coin as well…

There’s lots of pretty collectibles on the Ruby Lane site actually – go and see!

Dating advice from Charles II’s Pimpmaster General…

30 Apr

William Chiffinch (c.1602-1691) was Charles II’s Page and Keeper of the Closet, a role in which he became one of the King’s closest and most trusted servants – and yielded great power and influence. He became “the King’s confidential go-between in every kind of back stairs intrigue” (David Allen) who was even nicknamed the “Pimpmaster General” by the satirists for his role in granting access (or not) to the King’s mistresses.

Crikey.

To go with the simply superb The Wild, The Beautiful and The Damned exhibition at Hampton Court Palace, it is now possible to get advice SEVENTEENTH CENTURY STYLE about your love life from Chiffinch himself.

Tips for royal mistresses; SYPHILIS!!! – spot the tell-tale signs; Make-up tips for women AND men; How to avoid seduction by social climbing women; Sleeping with the King: when’s best for an ambitious woman?… and much more.

We are all familiar with agony aunts and problem pages but can you imagine what advice you would get from the 17th century ‘Pimp-master General’ of Charles II? Well, forget Dear Deidre, from 27 April 2012 you can find out at Ask Chiffinch.

Over the next eight weeks William Chiffinch, infamous for managing the King’s ‘backstairs intrigues’ and known as the ‘Pimp-master General’, will be giving his no-nonsense 17th century responses, not only to the period’s most scandalous character’s dilemmas, but to 21st century dilemmas submitted by the public. What would Chiffinch think about someone cheating on their other half, lusting after an older man or having an illegitimate child?

The 17th century problems will be in the style of a photo-casebook using the characters featured in Hampton Court Palace’s new temporary exhibition ‘The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned’. These include:

Nell Gwyn and Charles II: “I’m the King’s favourite mistress – but is this as good as it gets?” (Chiffinch: “… as royal mistress, it is not the King’s mind you are supposed to stimulate”)

Samuel Pepys: “The Young Bucks at Court get the pick of the girls – does success count for nothing?

Carey Fraser: “HELP! I tried too hard to follow fashion, now my suitor thinks I’m mad.”

This sounds simply too awesome. What are you going to ask Chiffinch? Is ‘What Would Nell Gwynn Do?’ about to overtake ‘What Would Courtney Love Do?’ as the mantra of choice around here? Would it make any difference?

The fear of rejection and why it’s (probably) okay

30 Apr

A photo of me, looking rejected.

As I approach my 10,000th book sale, which is apparently going to happen at some point in the next couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, what it means to me and what my ultimate goal is. I mean, what do I want to get out of this? What is my long term plan and do I even need to have one?

The one thing that keeps popping up in my mind though is my epic fear of rejection and I’ll be honest, it paralyses me. I wouldn’t say that is the main reason that I decided to self publish, but it’s pretty high up on the list. People like to carp on rather a lot about self published authors having ‘run out of agents to submit to’ but that isn’t the case for me as I’ve only submitted work on a couple of occasions and then very unwillingly.

I don’t think my writing is terrible (if I did then I wouldn’t self publish and I probably wouldn’t write this blog either) but I anticipate rejection nonetheless because that’s what writers are conditioned to do. We all know that even the greatest books of all time were probably rejected several times before they attracted an agent or publisher and most of us take heart from that because how can you take it personally when it happens to everyone regardless of the quality of their writing? I still feel that stultifying terrible fear though. I mean, rejection is still REJECTION no matter how much you pretty it up, rationalise it or explain it away. It still means that someone didn’t want you.

I suppose I could analyse myself a bit and determine that my fear of rejection stems from my unhappy childhood but I don’t think we need to go down that unfortunate path. I will, however, tell you a little story about something that recently happened to me. Or didn’t happen, depending on how you look at it. I think there’s a moral to this – there certainly seemed to be when I was turning it over in my mind in the bath just now but it might get lost in all the mimsy and nonsense. We’ll see.

A photo of me almost exactly ten years ago on the VERY NIGHT THAT THIS STORY BEGINS. I met the other two people in this photo for the first time on that night and they are both on speaking terms with me – in fact both were at my wedding several years later so there you go. I don’t know who the man? in the red top is though. He definitely wasn’t at my wedding though.

Once upon a time, many years ago, in fact ten years ago exactly, I met a young man that I am going to refer to as M at a goth festival in a certain town in the north of England. It was probably quite romantic – I don’t really remember much about what happened but he was very nice and kissed me for the first time as we watched the waves crash against Whitby beach in the dead of night and all that sort of thing. We then retreated to the sofa of the cottage I was staying in and had to pretend to be asleep when someone burst in and tried to murder one of my friends. Like I say, it was probably quite romantic.

Anyway, I really liked M and I thought he quite liked me. He used to ring me up drunkenly from pubs and even came up to Nottingham one weekend to visit me, which was probably quite nice although I can only vaguely remember what happened due to copious amounts of GIN. Anyway, I really liked him and hoped we could maybe, you know, go out with each other or something because that’s what people who like each other do.

However. At the time all this gin drinking, snuggling up in pubs and hopeless longing was going on, I’d just had a major relationship breakup and was temping and sleeping on a friend’s sofa while trying to save up to get a place of my own and M wasn’t really in a much better situation a few hundred miles away. The owner of my residential sofa had known me since my very first day at university so was allowed to tell me Home Truths and after meeting M, whom he incidentally liked very much, he delivered unto me a very long lecture about how unsuitable it would be for me to have a relationship with anyone until I’d sorted myself out.

I therefore broke things off with M while we lay on a bed together at a party somewhere in Hertfordshire, which was very, very hard but I believed I was being grown up. I regretted it terribly though. Worse was to come when in a moment of drunken sincerity, I confided something about M that I ought not to have done to someone that I thought I could trust but actually couldn’t. By the time I’d realised that I’d made a mistake though it was too late and M was seeing someone else and by one of those weird quirks of weirdness, I started seeing M’s new amorata’s ex boyfriend and, at the time, arch enemy shortly afterwards which made things more than a little awkward between us.

The years pass. I briefly got engaged to said boyfriend and he ditched me two weeks before our wedding day (I honestly don’t mind any more but I do love to trot that one out as it generally makes people gasp and clutch their pearls a bit) and then got together with Monsieur Guillotine, whom I had also met at the very same goth festival as I’d met M at, only an exact year later. M and I stopped talking at some point in 2005.

Maybe we could all take a leaf out of Bernard Black’s book about how to deal with rejection…

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH REJECTION? I hear you all cry. IS THIS LIKE THE SOFA SCENES AT THE START OF HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER OR SOMETHING? ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GET TO THE POINT OF ALL THIS TIRESOME REMINISCING ABOUT LONG DEAD ANGST AND INIQUITY?

Just let me get to it and all will be revealed! Or possibly not, anyway, let’s get on.

Ten years have now passed since Whitby Beach and I’ll be honest, I haven’t really thought about M all that much in that time. I’ve been busy for one thing and for another, as soon as he started seeing someone else, I didn’t really think of him in a romantic way at all any more. I mean, I’m no angel, but I have some vague principles or something. However, just recently, I’ve found myself wondering ‘I wonder how M is?’ and, more pertinently, ‘I wonder if we could ever be friends? I mean, I really liked him before and he’s always made me laugh. Could we be friends? Or has it been too long?’ Oh and also ‘Why can’t I be like other grown ups and actually be friends with at least ONE of my ex boyfriends or ex not quite boyfriends?’

And then that word appeared. Yes, THAT word. REJECTION.

‘Pah,’ I said to myself but not aloud because that would actually be MADNESS. ‘I can handle rejection.’

We know this isn’t true but let’s ignore that as in full knowledge of this incontrovertible and unpalatable fact, I sent M a message on Facebook of all places to say hello. After several hours he replied in a not entirely unfriendly but certainly rather confused way. ‘Hurray,’ thought I. ‘This isn’t bad at all.’

However, it then became clear from his general lack of replies that he didn’t really want to talk to me at all (I’m one of those people who kind of likes to niggle, I’m afraid, so if someone doesn’t want to talk to me, that just makes me want to talk to them EVEN MORE so you can probably imagine just how this wincingly awkwardly awful one sided conversation went) and a friend request that I blithely sent was pointedly ignored (I was quite pleased about the ignoring to be honest – in the manner of bored Regency gentlemen, my husband and I like to make bets about pretty much everything and I have money riding on M not accepting my friend request) although he did ‘maybe’ an invitation to come to the pub with me next month so who knows what’s going on.

It’s clear though that I have been REJECTED in epic HE JUST ISN’T THAT INTO YOU AT ALL AND IN ANY WAY NO NOT EVEN AS A FRIEND (any more) style. I knew I would be, which is why I did it. Oh no, I’m not some sort of heinous emotional masochist or anything like that. It’s just that like a lot of people I have scabs that I like to pick and feelings that I like to probe and niggle like sore teeth or an aching joint. There’s also the fact that I was raised as a Catholic and, well, I may have lapsed but I still can’t resist a spot of penance or, as this post most excellently demonstrates, the lure of the confessional.

Rejection though. Crikey. You know, like rather too many unpleasant things, it’s every bit as bad as you think it’s going to be no matter how much you brace yourself or tell yourself that it’s all okay and won’t be all that bad. Oh, you poor naive fool. Of course it’s all that bad. It’s like a gigantic bucket of ice cold water right in the face, delivered with a harsh reminder of your own littleness in the general scheme of things and stinging slap that makes you teeter on your suddenly clownishly oversized shoes in front of a po faced audience of everyone you have ever wanted to impress. All of which leaves you raw, red faced and gasping from the sheer awful humiliation and indignity of it all.

Me after I have come to terms with my fear of rejection and poked an IRON FIST into its eye while laughing disdainfully IN ITS FACE. This was actually going to be one of the two photographs I have of M and I being drunk, with M’s face photoshopped out and replaced with something comedic but I then decided that like most things I think up at 2am when I’m suffering from insomnia, this wouldn’t be a very good idea. Also I couldn’t think of anything suitably comedic and yet also unlikely to cause offence to photoshop over his face.

The thing is though that humiliating, awful and heinous though it undoubtedly is to be rejected when you put yourself forward, pop your head above the metaphorical parapet or offer up your hand in friendship, the fact remains that IT DOESN’T ACTUALLY KILL YOU. Unless you have a weak heart and it actually IS teamed with a bucket of ice cold water to the face. Generally though, in these days of soul deadening electronic communication, it won’t be.

I feel pretty dumb right now and also extremely stupid but I can also recognise that it’s OKAY because no one died, because just because one person didn’t want to be friends with me doesn’t mean that no one else does either and because this doesn’t actually say anything at all about my worth as a person.

Maybe it all comes down to numbers in the end – I’d feel a lot happier submitting to an agent now because I’ve got a respectable amount of sales and good reviews under my belt and so when they pass, I can tell myself that it’s all okay and just because they don’t want me doesn’t mean no one else does either and this doesn’t say anything about my worth as a writer or a person. Likewise, I feel pretty fine about offering the hand of inept friendship to people who cross themselves in horror at the mere memory of me because as well as my husband who for some reason has appeared to adore me for almost nine years, I actually have dozens of friends who either don’t think I am awful or accept my awfulness and like me anyway. If there’s one good thing about the misery of rejection, it is that it highlights all the ways that you have NOT been rejected and makes you doubly appreciative of them.

Also, I almost certainly owe M a rejection, don’t I? He’s not exactly talkative so I had no idea at all back then what he thought of me at any point from the time I met him to the point that we stopped talking. I have even less idea now. I made the mistake of assuming that because he never and not once mentioned his feelings to me about any of it then he must obviously just not care. Maybe he didn’t but if he did then clearly a proper apology, which I have now made, was overdue.

Is there a moral to all this? I think there are three: firstly that REJECTION IS HORRIBLE BUT IT’S A FACT OF LIFE and especially so if you want to be a writer, secondly WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER but only if you let it and thirdly that IT’S BETTER TO PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE, to have an open heart, to give things a whirl than never let yourself risk the fear of rejection and so miss out.

Oh and fourthly: don’t ever contact ex not quite boyfriends.

The Ripper novel from Hell…

29 Apr

It’s been a busy week here at Guillotine Towers so apologies to everyone waiting on emails, Facebook messages, reviews and stuff from me as I’m feeling completely overwhelmed right now. It’ll be business as usual next week though!

There’s been a definite Ripperologist buzz here as I started work on what will probably be my fifth novel. The original plan was to write a multi perspective piece exploring the effects of the Ripper murders on women of the era, but this eventually changed to become a time slip novel merging the past and present. Which would explain why I’ve been reading so many time slip books lately in an attempt to work out what I think works and what doesn’t appeal to me at all.

So far, all of the time slip novels that I’ve read have been quite similar in style with milquetoast heroines, a dash of romance and an underlying theme of righting the wrongs of the past in some way that generally seems to involve a couple getting together for an EPIC SMOOCH. I’ve also read different types of time slip that involve reincarnation, trances, possessed artifacts, diaries and actual time travel. It’s been a pretty instructive time actually as I’ve found that there’s more different types of time slip books than I had anticipated and that writing one is actually a lot more complex than just writing two stories in different eras and then neatly tying them together. Or maybe it is?

I’ll talk more about how the time slippage in my Ripper novel will work when I’ve actually managed to get more than a couple of chapters finished, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m pretty excited right now about the whole project.

As part of my initial research, I’ve been delving into the story of my Victorian policeman ancestor, Sergeant David Lee from H Division a lot more with the help of Ripperologist, Neil Bell. Initially we were hampered by the lack of a collar number but then found it in this old newspaper article from 1880, which mentions him…

A body in a coal cellar! How typical. St George’s Chambers seems to have been one of those horrible little lodging houses that provided barely adequate accommodation for many people in the east end during the nineteenth century. In Charles Dickens Jnr’s Dictionary of London (1879), he wrote: ‘About the best sample of this kind of establishment extant will be found at St. George’s chambers, St. George’s-street, London-docks, a thorough poor man’s hotel where a comfortable bed with use of sitting-room, cooking apparatus and fire, and laundry accommodation, soap included, can be had for 4d. a night, all kinds of provisions being obtainable in the bar at proportionate rates. To any one interested in the condition of the London poor, this establishment is well worth a journey to the East-end to visit.‘

As my ancestor was a Sergeant at the time, he wouldn’t have been doing a beat but Neil hasn’t been able to ascertain yet if he was a beat sergeant, who would have checked up on the officers or manning the desk in one of the local stations, possibly Leman Street.

Anyway, now that we are armed with a collar number: 26H, it means that I can start looking for him in photographs of the period. Also, in newspaper articles of the time, collar numbers are often cited rather than names so there’s that too.

I was hoping to find Sergeant David Lee in the best known photograph of H Division, grouped around what is alleged to be Inspector Abberline, but alas he isn’t there. Some people think this photograph was taken just before the 1888 murders but the Sergeant with the 26H collar number shown sitting next to The Alleged Abberline isn’t my ancestor, but rather a certain William Pennett, who is best known in Ripperology circles as the officer who made the grisly discovery of the Pinchin Street torso in September 1889.

Pennett was a plain old bobby at the time but then it appears that he was promoted to Sergeant in 1890 after my ancestor retired and took over his collar number of 26H. This is interesting as it means that the well known photograph of H Division must have been taken AFTER mid 1890 rather than before 1888 as a lot of people suppose and was probably after 1895 as Neil, who is an expert on the policing of the area of the period, tells me that’s when the new uniform tunics were introduced. I’m a bit disappointed, of course, that it isn’t my ancestor in the PRIME POSITION on the front room and next to The Alleged Abberline himself, but I can’t help but be pleased that our little bit of research has helped a bit with the dating of this photograph.

All of this is adding to my plans for a research trip to London next month. I’m planning visits to the Museum of London and Bishopsgate Institute as well as some lengthy mooches around Whitechapel to take photographs and make notes. I’m also going to my favourite pub with some friends. Well, some friends and ‘maybe’ someone who may or may not like me at all! It’s okay, I’m not completely mad – they USED to like me but now they might not. Or maybe they never liked me at all? Who can tell? Anyway, I have a fiver riding on them not turning up so it’s a big deal. Clearly.

Anyway, moving on. Which, I, apparently, find it impossible to do…

In other book news, I’ve now officially commissioned a brand new cover of GORGEOUSNESS for my Marie Antoinette novel: The Secret Diary of a Princess from Lisa Falzon, who painted the lovely cover for Before The Storm. I’ve made a sumptuous Pinterest board in its honour and cannot WAIT to see what she comes up with! I’m planning a bit of a giveaway when the new cover launches…

The making of Harry Potter studio tour, Leavesden

26 Apr

I’m completely shattered for reasons which will quickly become apparent! In a nutshell, today was the once Six Year Old’s seventh birthday, which means that from now on he will be referred to as the Seven Year Old. As he is a bit of a Harry Potter fanatic (I wonder where he gets that from?!), we secretly bought tickets for the all shiny and new Warner Bros studio tour that has just opened near Watford.

I ought to add at this point that if you aren’t a regular reader of this blog and are just here for the low down on the Warner Bros Harry Potter tour at Levesden, then you should skip to the end for some thoughts on this!

We secretly managed to get a day off school for him, which neatly coincided with his class going on a trip to a farm, which meant we got away with getting him to wear normal clothes instead of his uniform. We told him we were giving him a lift to the farm on the outskirts of Bristol but wondered how far we’d get along the M4 before he twigged. Well, I can report that he has definitely inherited my sense of distance as even after TWO HOURS in the car, he still hadn’t realised that he wasn’t actually on his way to the farm which was apparently only a few miles away from our house.

All the subterfuge (we smuggled a picnic, two wands and a Gryffindor robe past him!) was worth it though when we turned into the Studio Tour car park and the boys saw the HUGE hangar with Harry Potter banners hanging outside. The Three Year Old was particularly thrilled.

We had an hour to kill so had lunch and then wandered around the shop, which was quite frankly the most amazing emporium of expensive delights that I have ever entered. Bar possibly Harvey Nichols. I could probably have bought everything in there, but mostly lost my heart to a Ravenclaw T shirt (Pottermore may have sorted me into Gryffindor but we all know that’s not right), fluffy owls and oh crikey, EVERYTHING. There’s all the books on sale, of course, as well as the films as well as costumes (a replica of Hermione’s winter ball gown is particularly striking and not at all Disney Princess cheap and nasty), actual CHOCOLATE FROGS (£6), T shirts, scarves, Lego, EVERYTHING.

Finally it was time to enter the first part of the tour (going past Harry’s cupboard under the stairs) and excitement mounted as we entered a small room to watch a brief introduction to the Harry Potter phenomenon (try and type ‘phenomenon’ without mentally adding ‘doo-doo-dee-doo-doo’) and then went on to a cinema to watch a film about the making of the films presented by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. This was great as it reminded us of all the stunning special effects that we were about to see basically deconstructed and explained.

I won’t ruin what happened next but after this we were able to enter the Great Hall. I’ll admit that I was a bit tearful at this stage – I mean, it’s the HOGWARTS GREAT HALL. Absolutely amazing. This is the last ‘guided’ bit of the exhibition and although you are encouraged to take photos, you are swiftly ushered on to the main bit which comes immediately afterwards.

The Great Hall is stunning though – it really is incredible to see first hand just how much attention to detail went into the production of the Harry Potter films.

It’s lined with costumes from the films, such as Neville’s iconic cardigan!

Snape’s robes!

After this we were let loose to wander around the main exhibition, which was HUGE and starts with some of the set pieces and costumes from the ball in The Goblet of Fire. Poor old Ron having to wear these robes. They aren’t even shabby chic.

The Three Year Old and I, reflected in the Mirror of Erised.

The boys and I, posing in front of the Hogwarts gates.

The Fat Lady who guards the entrance to Gryffindor’s common room. I wonder if she minds being called the ‘Fat Lady’ – that’s always really bothered me.

The Gryffindor common room. This is so incredibly cosy. You could also see the boys’ dormitory with their snug four poster beds.

Costumes worn by Ron, Hermione and Harry – including the invisibility cloak.

Sirius Black’s rather becoming prison garb.

Remus and Tonks. I love them.

Costumes worn by Ron, Hermione and Harry in the last film – looking a bit worse for wear!

The Triwizard cup OF DOOM.

A selection of interesting artifacts, including the Philosophers Stone and Golden Snitch.

The Potions classroom, presided over by Professors Slughorn and Snape.

Dumbledore in his office, complete with Sorting Hat!

There’s a case containing all of the Horcruxes (well, most of them!). I’ve always thought the Ravenclaw Diadem is particularly becoming and wouldn’t mind owning a replica at some point.

I absolutely love the portrait wall – as an Art History graduate, I always notice the paintings hanging in the background of scenes so it was nice to get a closer look at some of them!

I particularly like the witchy Mary Tudor with her wand!

The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

The Weasley’s kitchen. There’s stuff to touch here to get the knife ‘magically’ chopping and dishes being ‘magically’ scrubbed. I could only look on in envy. I think we all want to live in The Burrow though, don’t we?

Hagrid’s motorbike.

After the display of rather excitingly steampunk props such as Remus Lupin’s self packing suitcase and a prop broomstick with lots of gears and pistons and so on, it was time to join the rather big queue for the broomstick rides! I decided not to have a go (although as predicted, I’m regretting this now) but the boys were both game and each had a turn at riding the broomstick against a green screen, which of course was magically transformed into a daring dash through London traffic and then across the lake at Hogwarts. They thought it was amazing. You can buy photographs afterwards, which I was faintly worried about but it wasn’t too bad – £12 for one or £15 for two.

Death Eater masks. Boo hiss etc.

A gang of baddies.

Costume worn by Helen McCrory as Narcissa Malfoy.

Costume worn by Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange.

Hurray, it’s The Hot Snatcher aka Scabior, who is played by Nick Moran.

The Ministry of Magic’s ‘Magic is Might’ statue is a really oppressively horrible piece of work. In an immensely impressive way.

The Ministry of Magic.

A selection of Dolores Umbridge’s lovely pink costumes. It’s all very Jackie Kennedy chic isn’t it? Or maybe not.

Just look at her office though! I’m sorting out my home office at the moment and am thinking I could definitely take some decorating tips from Ms Umbridge. Except for the cat plates perhaps.

The Black family tree complete with burnt out Sirius. Poor sod.

There followed some displays of some excellent art work and props, including sweet packets, the Marauders’ Map and an OWL examination paper.

It was time to venture outside into the rain next but we didn’t mind because, look!, it’s the KNIGHT BUS in all its purple glory! They let you pose on the back of the bus, which was excellent. You can also sit inside the Weasley’s feral car and Hagrids motorbike and sidecar.

There’s a Starbucks stand outside as well as a stall next door selling butter beer for £2.95 a half. As expected, butter beer tasted like ice cream soda with an additional ‘head’ of creamy vanilla stuff. It’s pretty nice actually!

Also outside is the Riddle family tomb, which looked suitably eerie in the rain.

You can also pose on the doorstep of the Dursley’s miserable house on Privet Drive and then discuss whether they are actually as middle class as they think they are.

There’s also a part of the Hogwarts bridge.

The house at Godric’s Hollow.

It was time to head indoors again after this for a look at more props and how they were made and animated.

John Cleese’s head.

A wall of goblins.

Dead Dumbledore.

What really lies underneath a Dementor’s cloaks.

Thestrals.

After this it was time for Diagon Alley, which was simply amazing – it’s so rickety and old fashioned and quirky. It was just fabulous.

It’s such a weird but magical experience – you can walk along Diagon Alley and peer into all of the windows. There’s almost TOO MUCH to look at to be honest but it was a real high point for me.

After this it was on to the art department. I got a copy of Harry Potter: Page to Screen for Christmas and was completely blown away by how much work went on in the art department with some amazing paintings and drawings being produced of the sets and scenes. Much of it is actually detailed and beautifully presented enough to be on display on a gallery and so it was a real treat to see much of it hanging here.

Hogwarts in ruins.

I was very taken with this picture of the Weasley’s car and the Whomping Willow. If they’d sold a poster of this, I would totally have bought one.

The escape from Gringotts Bank.

Azkaban.

Durmstrang’s ship.

There was music playing everywhere in the studios but it was never intrusive and in fact very often well chosen. I thought I’d find it annoying eventually but it really wasn’t. It reached a soaring crescendo though when we entered the next room and I became really weepy as we all moved en masse towards the giant (and I mean GIANT) model of Hogwarts Castle. I mean, come on, IT’S HOGWARTS.

The lighting changed constantly to show the castle throughout the course of a day – this is Hogwarts at night, which shows how the windows were lit up from within.

Hogwarts in the morning.

Hogwarts at sunset.

Dusk.

Words can’t express what an awe inspiring sight this is – it’s just massive and so incredibly detailed. I can’t even begin to imagine how many hours of work went into creating something so wonderful.

After this it was on to a room stacked high with wand boxes, each one bearing the name of someone who worked on the film. I didn’t even try to find Daniel Radcliffe’s box (or my favourites – David Thewlis and Nick Moran) but I found a couple of names that I recognised…

After this it was on to the shop again, where I bought my Ravenclaw T shirt (£21.99), yet another Lego Harry Potter set for the birthday boy (we’ve only got the Hogwarts Express set left to get now – eek) and some other bits and bobs before we went home, exhausted but thrilled by our day.

The low down:

How much? I thought that the tickets (£28 each adult and £21 for children aged 5-15) were really good value considering how much stuff there was to see and how much thought had gone into the presentation.

The shop was pricey – there wasn’t much that was ‘pocket money’ priced but I think they’d decided to make it a high quality emporium of gorgeousness. Any Harry Potter fan would be in heaven here though – I want to go back and buy one of the school jumpers they had. T shirts were £21.99, fluffy owl toys about £12 and so on, so it wasn’t all massively spendy. Just don’t expect, I dunno, 50p rubbers and pencils and stuff, that’s all.

The photos of broomstick antics were £12 for one and £15 for two, which I didn’t mind paying.

The café was reasonably priced from what I saw. There’s also a Starbucks stand in the entrance hall and in the outdoor area which sold hot drinks for standard Starbucks prices (about £2 for a coffee my husband tells me), sandwiches for £3-£5 and juice drinks. Butterbeer was £2.95 for a half pint.

How long? We spent four hours in there but could easily have stayed in for longer. The Three Year Old was getting restless though.

There’s almost TOO MUCH STUFF in here though. I mean, I’ve posted a lot of photographs but the things I’ve shown you on this here blog post just scrapes the surface really of how much they have on show. It’s a HUGE space and filled to the brim with Harry Potter stuff.

Is it easy to get around? It’s very easy to get around. I didn’t notice any stairs at all and there were lots of people in wheelchairs or with pushchairs in the building.

The people staffing the exhibition were really lovely too and deserve multitudes of praise for being unfailingly sweet natured, cheerful and friendly. The Three Year Old had an epic meltdown on Diagon Alley and one of the girls working in there came over to make sure everything was okay and he wasn’t scared and then stayed to chat to both boys as we walked up the ‘street’, which was immensely helpful as he calmed right down once he had a new person to exclaim! at.

Comestibles? I can’t comment on the sandwiches as we brought our own and ate them in true British style while sitting in our car in the middle of torrential rain.

What else? There’s a cash point (free) and cloakroom (also free) in the entrance hall. There’s also spacious loos at about three points in the tour.

In summary, the Harry Potter studio tour is a magical experience that would thrill fans of both books and films, no matter what age they may be. It really is utterly incredible and a superb memorial to the series – you can’t help but be moved by the obvious amounts of loving care that went into each and every object, no matter how small, that was on display and as a writer, I found myself in sheer awe of the extent and depth of JK Rowling’s vision and imagination. It felt like a real privilege to be able to experience it all for myself.

Further reading:

Harry Potter: Page to Screen

The London of Jack the Ripper: Then and Now – Robert Clack & Philip Hutchinson

22 Apr

As pretty much anyone who reads this blog on even an irregular basis will already know, I’ve been a committed and occasionally committable Ripperologist for well over twenty years now and recently made the eerie discovery that great x 3 grandfather was in H Division in 1888 and most likely living in the Whitechapel police station on Commercial Street at the time of the murders.

I say eerie but actually it’s not that much of a coincidence really – my interest in Jack the Ripper is down to my grandmother, who raised me. She came from the east end of London and was a scion of one of those sprawling Cockney clans with their gangsters, strange vaudeville songs of interminable pointlessness, rhyming slang, music hall relatives, affection for EELS, insane ADORATION of West Ham football club (when my great grandmother died, the club sent a, hopefully appropriately coloured, wreath to her funeral – do they do that for everyone, I wonder?) and horror stories about the Blitz. As a result, despite being born in Scotland and very far from the bells of St Mary-le-Bow, I’ve pretty much always considered myself to be culturally a Cockney because that’s what I grew up with. When we moved from Scotland to Essex, it felt like we were almost home. Almost but not quite…

I’m only partially joking when I tell people that the Hitcher from The Mighty Boosh is my ideal man.

Oh no, wait, EELS!

Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either…

I should make that my motto.

I will now use this unusually insightful Mighty Boosh quote to clumsily lead on to the main CRUX of this already tiresomely rambling post, while simultaneously saving face by pretending that this is some sort of post modern meta conceit. Or something.

Due to all of the above, I couldn’t resist reading a book about Jack the Ripper’s London – especially as I am currently supposed to be writing a novel set in that time of dank misery and pea souper fogs but don’t get me started on that or I’ll get all angsty and you wouldn’t like that. Being the innovator that I clearly am, I decided to give it a whirl on my Kindle despite it having illustrations, which is something I have hitherto failed to encounter in a Kindle book.

The Ten Bells pub on the corner of Hanbury Street. To be honest, the Ten Bells has undergone quite a transformation in the many years since I first saw it.

To my surprise, the pictures were still clear and easy to look at although I suspect they are somewhat smaller than the printed versions and also in black in white whereas I think some of the printed ones may be in colour?

Whitechapel today – elements of the past and future that actually, to my eyes, look pretty good together. I’m irreverent and love the element of surprise though.

Anyway, mechanics aside, this is a great little book and one that anyone interested in the Ripper murders would find pretty fascinating not least because it doesn’t just cover the so called Canonical Five but also features several other murders that have on occasion been ascribed to the Ripper including Emma Smith, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles and the Pinchin Street Torso.

Hawksmoor’s Christ Church looming over Commercial Street.

While there is a very basic explanation of the crimes and a brief biography of each victim, the real emphasis is on the area itself with fascinating photographs of the crime scenes and places (some rather obscure) associated with the murders as they were in Victorian times and how they appear now.

I was completely enthralled by this but moved too as just as the Ripper murders themselves open an unusually vivid and detailed window into the lives of abandoned women in Victorian times, comparing photographs of the east end as it was in 1888 and how it is now is an eye opening experience when you realise that whole streets have been swept away like so much detritus not just in the aftermath of the Blitz but as the result of urban planning. Saddest of all, I suppose is the demise of Dorset Street, dubbed the ‘Worst Street in London’ and considered so terrible a locale that it was demolished and replaced by well, nothing much at all.

View from the top of White’s Row car park looking down at what used to be Dorset Street and the approximate spot of the entrance to Miller’s Court. Mere moments before taking this photograph I accidentally smacked my car door on a concrete post while opening it and enraged my husband so much that there was almost another murder on that site…

Maybe I’m just annoyed because all of the development in Spitalfields makes it more difficult for me to imagine what it must have been like in 1888 when my ancestor was on his beat or the 1930s when my great grandfather worked at Truman’s on Brick Lane. It’s not all bad though as it is still possible to catch the odd glimpse of the old Whitechapel – just take a stroll down Artillery Lane, Hanbury Street or Gunthorpe Street at night.

Artillery Lane.

In summary therefore, I’d recommend this book not just to those who want to know more about the Ripper murders but also anyone interested in the changing face of London.

Check it out:

The London of Jack the Ripper: Then and Now — a bargain at £2.87 if you have a Kindle.

The Worst Street in London: Foreword by Peter Ackroyd — a SUPERB book if you’re interested in the social history of London’s east end and now available for Kindle for £5.93.

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