We humans have a universal, innate love of flowers, and go to great lengths to satisfy this desire. The worldwide flower growing industry is worth billions of pounds, and impressively fine-tuned to deliver these delicate products to us within days. Most of the cut flower varieties we currently buy were grown in England until just thirty years ago, when domestic production declined due to competition from the huge expansion of the flower industry in Holland, much of it in highly controlled artificial greenhouse conditions.

In recent times, much flower production has moved to warmer climates in the global south, but environmental concerns mean that British grown flowers are increasingly undergoing a renaissance. Our cooler climate is suitable for many commercially grown flowers such as gladioli, stocks, sunflowers, Sweet Williams, peonies, asters and alstroemeria, as well as the ever-popular spring bulbs.

The Joys of Spring

Twenty years ago, I moved from London to the traditional flower growing area of Cornwall. As I write it is early February and spring is about to arrive. Plants do well in the mild, wet climate of south west England, and many are already showing their colours. Dark indigo Iris reticulata peek out of pots by my front door, and hyacinths push their flower shoots above the soil. Narcissi are flowering, as is a glossy-leaved, pink-flowered camellia. In a month or two, the beautiful Japanese cherry tree which I planted in my garden will burst into flower, filling the air with its sweet, clean scent. The flowering of the cherry blossom is a highlight of my year, reminding me of the much-loved Prunus yedoensis which grew in the garden of my childhood home in southern New Zealand. In common with many others, the plants in my garden are full of memories which connect me to my family history and the people and places I love.

Blossom photograph

When I look out of my window, I see a field of daffodils which has been steadily harvested over the last few weeks, a sight familiar in this area for over a century. Daffodils and narcissi have been grown commercially in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for almost 150 years, and Cornwall is now the world’s largest producer of daffodils, with a harvest of around 900 million daffodil stems annually along with 15,000 tonnes of bulbs. Decades of research have resulted in the development of many new breeds and scientific advances. Daffodils contain galantamine – a compound known to slow the progression of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Daffodil crops grown 1,000 feet above sea level are used in the pharmaceutical industry as they produce more galantamine than daffodils grown anywhere else due to the altitude.

The native daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissius, was celebrated by Shakespeare as ‘the flower which comes before the swallows dare.’ Once abundant, this wildflower is now much rarer, having declined during the 19th century as a result of habitat loss.

In later spring, when the beech trees open in the woods which line the banks of the River Fal and its creeks, the ground is covered with native bluebells and wood anemones, a sign of ancient and undisturbed woodland. Thick patches of enchanter’s nightshade and dog’s mercury thrive in the damp edges of the woodland in the beautiful, dappled light, and fallow and roe deer, sometimes glimpsed like smoke in the shadows, leave narrow paths of trodden flowers where they have passed by.

A Family Legacy

Flowers have underpinned the fortunes of my family for three generations. My Australian grandmother, Minnie, began her flower growing and floristry business in Brisbane, Australia, in the 1930s in order to provide for her growing family after my grandfather, Matie, lost his railway job during the Great Depression. My mother and many of her family members worked in the business alongside Minnie, the space under their raised wooden villa transformed into a bustling, sweltering workshop.

In the far south of 1950s New Zealand, my father was due to begin a teacher training course when a summer holiday job as a driver for a floristry business changed his plans, and much to his family’s surprise he decided to dedicate himself to a life of flowers. Within a few short years, he became the owner of one of New Zealand’s oldest floristry businesses, Miss Reid the Florist in Dunedin, New Zealand. After time spent working in Highgate, London for Geoffrey and Anne Lewis, founder members of Interflora, he became president of Interflora New Zealand and, in later years, of the organisation’s Pacific Unit. As Minnie’s business was also a member of Interflora, it was only a matter of time before my parents met at an Interflora conference in the 1960s.

Growing up, I spent much of my time working in the family business and in our large garden, where my parents grew flowers and foliage to supplement the commercially grown flowers bought daily at a wholesale market. Inevitably, I worked as a florist myself when I first moved to London in 1992.

Despite the loveliness of the bouquets and arrangements produced by florists, it is a rather grubby, gruelling occupation requiring long hours worked in the cool and sometimes cold conditions which keep flowers in prime condition. But it has its upsides: floristry took me to places I would never otherwise have gone – inside the residences of famous movie stars filming on location in London, in private elevators to the penthouses of media magnates and captains of industry, into the sumptuous interiors of London Guildhalls and the banqueting hall of the Lord Mayor of London’s residence, the Mansion House, to deliver arrangements for dinners attended by the great and the good. Intrigue abounded in the hush-hush bouquets which rock stars sent to their mistresses and, a few days later, to their furious wives.

My experiences as a florist have taught me that flowers speak for us above and beyond our words. They express our feelings and accompany us at times of happiness and great sadness. They lift our spirits and console us, their colours, shapes, and scents conveying emotions and embodying memories. They move through the seasons and the years beside us, reflecting our own life cycles and journey through time and the seasons of our lives.  

Being in the company of plants and flowers in our homes and gardens improves our wellbeing, lowering our heart rate and cortisol levels, calming us. Far from being frivolous decorations or showy lifestyle choices, plants are essential providers of the air we breathe and the food we eat. This world would be a far less delightful place – indeed one in which we could not live – without them.

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Norfolk folklore is roaring with monstrous mayhem and mischief. Legends of mighty beasts and curious creatures are handed down over time to enchant, delight and oh yes…fright! Dangerous dragons breathe fire and chaos. Depictions of the dragon from St George and the Dragon can be seen throughout Norwich from a wall painting in St Gregory’s Church Pottergate to a medieval dragon residing in a beam of Dragon Hall, King’s Street. You can almost hear them roar!

Tales are told of Black Shuck, a ghoulish deadly dog with furious fangs and flashing eyes who prowled the East Anglian countryside hunting for trouble.

Even animals we see today have been historically imbued with mythic qualities, crystallized in our collective memory as symbols of power or ancient wisdom to be revered. Legend tells of an animal favoured by a brave Iron Age warrior, Boudica, who led the Iceni tribe as they rebelled against Roman rule. Boudica is said to have sent a hare onto the battlefield to guide her before the fight, the little creature was believed to hold mystical charm.

Just what is our historic fascination with all things fantastical? As a storyteller I speculate that one reason may simply be because these stories are tremendous fun. However there may be more to these frightful fiends and bonkers beasts than first meets the eye. Monsters serve a meaningful purpose for humans, particularly in our early years.

Children’s stories are a vital part of our development, our first encounters with this world, baffling, bemusing and wild. These stories are a gentle introduction to the complexities and challenges of life, from the comfort of our beds it is safe to explore dark woods where wicked wolves lurk. Fairy tales once served a practical purpose, they cautioned children about the dangers of straying from the path into the unknown.

Monsters prepare us for conflicts and obstacles yet to be overcome, instilling courage and resilience. Perhaps more profound, monsters may help us to build character, reminding us of the more difficult aspects within ourselves: selfishness, greed, and jealousy that we may wrestle with as we grow. Having grown up with imaginative tales of monsters from J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit to Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes I was keen to find out more about Norfolk’s own fang-tastic history.

Norfolk did not fail to bite!

At Norfolk Heritage Centre, on the second floor of Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library I discovered an astonishing medieval book. The book provided intriguing insight into the innovation and creativity of medieval minds. The crinkly old pages captured and chronicled pictures of peculiar creatures. After all, the medieval world was full of natural phenomena that needed to be explained. How better to make sense of it it then through pictures of strange fish with supernatural powers, of giant birds with spectacular killer beaks, of twisted hybrid creatures that merged both man and serpent?

Thankfully, these days we have science to explain natural phenomena and the unpredictability of the elements. Natural history documents the wondrous creatures of this earth throughout the ages. Unsettling mysteries, pervasive peculiarities, things that go bump in the night can be explained through facts, reason and rationale. We can rest assured that there is no need to worry, no need to check the cupboard before bedtime, monsters never did and absolutely do not exist. No chance. No chance at all. Right?

Reviews of Emelia Moorgrim and the Medieval Monsters of Norfolk:

“Emelia Moorgrim and the Medieval Monsters of Norfolk brings the region’s history to life — quite literally — as a cavalcade of fantastical creatures leaps from the pages of an old medieval manuscript to wreak havoc through time. Emelia’s knockabout adventures are fast paced and told with energy and humour. Each chapter is embroidered with period details and ends with a bitesize summary that puts Emelia’s shenanigans in their historical context. A light, zany romp which also manages to make a case for the importance of storytelling and imagination in communicating history to future generations.”

Ben Manley, award-winning children’s author

The post Medieval monsters appeared first on The History Press.

Let us take, as a random example, the invasion of England by Prince Louis of France in 1216–17, and the actions of the English barons who either supported or opposed him. In the case of William de Warenne, earl of Surrey, we know three things for definite, because they are documented in official records: he was on King John’s side in 1215, he defected to Louis in 1216, and then he returned to the English royalist party in 1217. But further than that we do not know. Why did Warenne vacillate? At what exact point did he make these decisions, and what were his motivations? How are we to fill in the blanks?

The writer of historical non-fiction might speculate a little, but can effectively only note the matters of record and then add ‘but we don’t know why’. The historical novelist, of course, can make it up – but only in a manner which is plausible. To find out what was plausible we can read around the subject: to discover, for example, what lands and honours Warenne held, how he might have been advantaged or disadvantaged by siding with either party, who his relatives were, who his friends and allies were, and so on. We can do this not only by reading secondary works (that is, books and articles written by modern historians), but also primary ones: official records of the time, and chronicles and other works written by contemporaries. Once we have a grasp of all this, we can insert our fictional characters and our fictional ideas to make up a story about what happened.

The glaring problem with all of the above is that most of the primary sources tend to talk about those who were at the top end of the social scale: what we might now call the one per cent. And history is not only about the kings, queens and nobles – it’s about the ordinary people who were just trying to live their lives, to work in their fields or their shops, and to do the best they could for their families. How do we find out about them?

Here the records can be more difficult to find. Sometimes we strike lucky, such as with the surviving medieval court rolls of Conisbrough, which tell us of real individuals who were fined by their manor court for brewing sour ale or letting their pigs run loose. The novelist’s imagination can seize on some long-ago, long-forgotten incident and weave a story around it.

There are other, more practical ways in which we can find out how people lived their everyday lives. Want to know how hard it was to sew by hand, by candlelight, before electricity was available? Try it yourself. Want to know what it feels like to wear a claustrophobic great helm? Find a friendly re-enactor and try it. Having that experience makes you much more able to write about it. Of course, this is not a solution for every situation: don’t try starving through the winter because your crops failed, and please don’t try being run through with a sword on a battlefield to see what it feels like!

Objects and places can also be very evocative for the historical novelist, as any wander around a castle will tell you. We are fortunate in the survival of many artefacts from the Middle Ages, and the shoe discarded in a river can be just as useful for research as a jewelled crown in a museum – indeed, more so if you happen to be writing about a character who wore shoes but would never get near a crown.

The most important thing, though, is to get under the skin of your characters in order to make them real, living, breathing people of their time. It’s tempting, if your characters are historical, to make them empathetic to a modern audience by giving them modern thoughts and opinions. But this is a lazy shortcut: it might make your characters superficially attractive to readers, but what you end up with isn’t credible historical people, it’s modern people dropped into a historical setting.

So how do we fill in these rather more nebulous blanks? The answer, once again, is to go back to primary sources. This enables us to find out what people were saying and what their opinions were at the time in question. And by primary sources, I don’t just mean grants and charters, or even chronicles: reading contemporary literature – the fiction of its own day – is just as important, and finding out what people thought of as a good story, or who they considered to be heroes and villains, can tell us as much about their lives as the information we might consider more ‘factual’.

The post Medieval England: Filling in the blanks appeared first on The History Press.

Norfolk has a dazzling and delightful history of theatrical wonders, the Georgian Theatre Royal of Norwich, the Edwardian Circus of Great Yarmouth, the popular fairground entertainment of King’s Lynn. The theatre is a very powerful place for bringing people together and this links beautifully with Norfolk’s warm sense of community. 

In Tudor times, Norwich welcomed the Strangers, talented weavers from countries overseas, though they didn’t stay strangers for long and became friends in the community. They stayed at the museum we know as Strangers’ Hall. In 1578, Queen Elizabeth 1st met the Strangers and congratulated them on their weaving skills. Her Majesty’s visit was an occasion of great pomp and theatricality – people gathered together on the streets to watch the Queen ride a horse through St Stephen’s Gate on to St Stephen’s Street, playing the role of the mighty monarch for this sensational scene.

In Georgian times, The Theatre Royal was an exciting time for people from all walks of life to visit for such musicals and comedies as ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ and ‘Wit’s Last Stake.’ Needless to say it was a very lively, noisy place where drinks and merriment flowed.

In Victorian times, the arrival of the railways made Great Yarmouth a popular place for families to visit for seaside fun and entertainment attractions. One such venue was the Hippodrome on St George’s Road, built for the showman George Gilbert in Edwardian times, the Hippodrome hosted a feast of spell-binding circus shows with music and magic spilling out from the doors on to the streets.

The Savage Brothers of King’s Lynn designed popular fairground designs in Victorian times. Elegant fairground horses known as ‘Gallopers’ made for a fun family day out at The Mart. And of course, it just wouldn’t be Norfolk history without a mention of…dragons! Norfolk is famous for these mythical creatures that decorate signs and historic buildings throughout the region. At Dragon Hall, Norwich, a medieval dragon can be seen to this day in a spandrel in the beams. During medieval times, it would have been one of many dragons that decorated the room. The Great Hall was a trading hall for a successful merchant and the decorative dragons were perhaps used as a sign of magnificence to impress customers. On a busy day, the trading hall was packed with visitors buying cloth and spices and the merchant would, no doubt, have made some smooth sales whilst the dragons watched over them all. Such events and entertainments are the heart of Norwich’s very unique and fascinating history of bringing people together.

For all the dragons, fairgrounds and circus fun we might explore as inspiration for fictional children’s stories, it is of course, evident and important to note that history is interweaved with difficult and complicated times. Magnificent venues and intriguing objects are one thing but it’s the people that really interest us as writers. Ordinary people, muddling through, finding themselves in all sorts of circumstances – the extraordinary, exciting, difficult, troublesome, challenging – life throws all such situations our way and we do our best to navigate.

That’s where writers step in and make up stories about imaginary characters, overcoming obstacles, usually with a little help from their friends, so that the reader can look back in time and relate. It’s the small, every-day objects that are perhaps the most interesting as they bring to mind the real lives of people in days gone by. A copy of The Norfolk Chronicle, a newspaper from the Georgian era, advertises a show at The Theatre Royal and one wonders who would have read it? Did they attend the show? Did they go with friends? Did they enjoy it? Was it their cup of tea? Such questions are vital to us writers for conjuring up ideas and characters and from such seemingly trivial objects, we discover the magic in the mundane. Throughout history, love and friendship keep us connected and I think, in Norfolk’s rich history of theatrical wonders, love and friendship take centre stage.

The post Norfolk in the spotlight: Theatres, fairgrounds, and family fun appeared first on The History Press.

During my school days, I first encountered the exquisite stories of New Zealand modernist short story writer Katherine Mansfield. I’ve always found short fiction odd, varied and intriguing; one book of stories contains so many different glimpses of characters and lives. The best linger long in the mind and become more than the sum of their parts.

I began writing short stories because my writing time was limited by my personal circumstances. My first story was published in 2010 and in 2011 my stories won two awards: the Tom-Gallon Trust Award and SWWJ Theodora Roscoe/Vera Brittain Award. I’ve since had a pamphlet and short story collection published by small presses; a second collection is also on its way.

A short story can range in length from Hemingway’s famous six word story – For sale: baby shoes. Never worn – up to 20,000 words. In my experience, most literary journals look for stories of between 2,000 to 6,000 words as well as flash fiction of under 1,000 words. All of them will have submission guidelines on their website which are worth reading carefully. Your first chance to impress an editor is to show that you have absorbed and adhered to their rules, even if they seem a little odd. By doing so, you greatly increase your chances of having your work accepted for publication.

A large number of literary journals, magazines and anthologies are currently looking for new and exciting voices to fill their pages in print or online. Short stories also appeal to readers with limited time and, as we’re increasingly told, shorter attention spans in this digital world. Because of the popularity of short story collections in America, commercial publishers in the UK are considering submissions of short story collections in the hope of selling overseas rights.

Short stories are also a way of honing writing techniques used in longer work. Although they are made from the same elements as all fiction, the power of many short stories lies in what’s left unsaid. While there are countless approaches to writing them, there is also something a bit magical about a successful short story, some inner tension which holds a few thousand words together, rather like a little universe which you can’t add anything more to, or take anything away from, without it collapsing.

Short story competitions certainly helped me to see my stories published in book form. Some, like the Tom-Gallon Trust Award run by the Society of Authors, are free to enter. Others with high entry fees should be approached with caution. Presses who publish short story collections will want writers to have a track record of publication by literary journals and competition wins or placings alongside an involvement in the world of writing. Taking opportunities to read your work aloud to an audience at a local live literature event and taking part in literary festivals will add weight to any submission you make to publishers and agents.

It’s seven years since my first short story was published and the opportunities keep coming. I’ve been invited to be a reader for short story prize, have given talks and readings at literary festivals, attended some excellent events and met many other writers. I’d encourage anyone who is serious about writing to try this form and see where short stories take them.

The post Why short stories matter appeared first on The History Press.

The places he lived led to the development of the fictional world of Middle-earth, the setting for his famous stories The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955). These books, written later in his life while living in Oxford, were destined to change English literature in the later part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. They have spawned a vast world of fantasy fiction such as that represented by Harry Potter, DiscWorld and Star Wars and on into the world of computer games.

In a recent estimate, The Hobbit had sold over 75 million copies and The Lord of the Rings over 100 million worldwide, and has been translated into thirty-eight languages. With the release of the Lord of the Rings films millions more all over the world have discovered Tolkien’s fictional world of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Dragons, Wizards and Men. It is amazing to think that in recreating Tolkien’s fictional worlds on film New Line Cinema went 12,000 miles from England to New Zealand and probably used more computing power than a space agency to produce what Tolkien must have seen in his mind’s eye when he was writing the books.

Birmingham may appear to be a strange place for the roots of some of the greatest fantasy works of the twentieth century, but, with its industrial heart and sleepy rural surroundings, all within a short walk or tram-ride of each another, this area did play an important part in the creation of Middle-earth. The time period of Tolkien’s early life was one of great change: it began in late Victorian times and moved through the Edwardian period to finish in the great tragedy of the First World War and the Battle of the Somme, in which Tolkien and many of his school friends fought.

The city of Birmingham in the early 1900s was full of people from all over the world and had steam-driven trams, trains and engines and levels of pollution that we could only imagine in our worst nightmares. The rural edges of Birmingham, in the counties of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, had horse-drawn carts and ploughs, blacksmiths’ shops, watermills, timber-framed buildings and meadows full of wild flowers.

In a rare interview in 1966, reproduced in The Guardian newspaper in 1991, Tolkien described how important the little hamlet of Sarehole on the rural edge of Birmingham had been in the development of his fictional vision:

It was a kind of lost paradise… There was an old mill that really did grind corn with two millers, a great big pond with swans on it, a sandpit, a wonderful dell with flowers, a few old-fashioned village houses and, further away, a stream with another mill…

J.R.R. Tolkien

Further on in the article he re-emphasizes the importance of his childhood memories of the area:

I could draw you a map of every inch of it. I loved it with an (intense) love… I was brought up in considerable poverty, but I was happy running about in that country. I took the idea of the Hobbits from the village people and children…

This idea of a simple life was very much to Tolkien’s liking and when writing about the heroes of the books, the Hobbits, he said:

For they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water mill, or a handloom, though they were skilful with tools.

This is on the very first page of the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings written many years after his childhood days in the little hamlet of Sarehole on the edge of Birmingham.

Some of these same places exist today and are like walking through one of Tolkien’s manuscripts; one or two of the pages are missing and some of the pages are at other locations, but by a miracle much has survived to this day. Other places and events, of course, also played their part in Tolkien’s fictional world but places and people from his time in Birmingham are scattered throughout the pages of his writing.

Extracted from The Roots of Tolkien’s Middle Earth by Robert S. Blackham

The post The origins of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth appeared first on The History Press.

Since its publication, his novel Dracula, originally intended to be published as The Un-Dead, has been translated into numerous languages and has been portrayed in every media form possible, including pantomime, stage shows, television series, radio plays – and of course films, commencing with the Gothic classic Nosferatu, starring Max Shrecke, in 1922. The word ‘Nosferatu’ translates in Latin as nos, we, fera, wild animal, and tu, you (roughly speaking, ‘we are all wild animals’, though there have been various other interpretations and explanations).

The word appears in Dracula on a number of occasions, including one entry that gives its own ungrammatical explanation: ‘The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he stings once. He is only stronger, and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil.’ It has been claimed that Bram Stoker stayed at a number of boarding houses in the town over the years; however, it is known for certain that he spent at least some of his early vacations at the home of seaside landlady Fanny Harker and her husband William: indeed, the Harker and the Stoker families became firm friends, so much so that he promised to use their surname and address in his future novel. True to his word, their home at 7 Royal Crescent Avenue (now Crescent Avenue) appeared in the story as ‘7 The Crescent’, and the Harker name became an integral part of the Dracula story.

The Real Dracula

This use of real names, places and people was not unusual in Stoker’s novels, and Dracula proved no exception. For instance, Professor Vambery of the Budapest University of Languages is said to have inspired the character of Professor Van Helsing, whilst it is widely accepted that the main character, Dracula, is based on Count Vladimir Tepes (pronounced Tse-pesh), whose name is often contracted to ‘Vlad Drac III’.

The surname Tepes translates as ‘Impaler’, and refers to the tyrant’s favourite method of punishing prisoners and law-breakers. Vlad III was, like his father before him, a member of an elite group of European Catholic princes who had vowed to defend Europe against the onslaught of the Ottaman Turks. The group was known as the Order of the Dragon. The Romanian word for dragon (and incidentally, also the word for Devil) is drac, whilst the suffix ula means ‘son of ’. Thus the name Dracula actually means ‘son of the dragon’ as well as ‘son of the Devil’, depending on the user’s point of view.

One story that has survived to illustrate the historical Drac III’s reputation for total intolerance of law breaking amongst his subjects concerns a solid gold cup that he ordered should be secretly laced with poisoned wine. In the dead of night the cup was placed in the central square of the town of Tirgoviste to tempt thieves. Such was the fear of retribution from Vlad Drac that it is said that not a single person attempted to steal the cup or even tried to drink from it. This episode illustrates well the ruler’s disturbed and distinctively cruel nature, a fact that has been confirmed in both Russian and German documents. In one notable case, diplomats from both countries had arrived at Vlad’s court for a political meeting. Despite being titled Prince, the envoys did not recognise him as a true Royal sovereign and refused to remove their hats in his presence as instructed. The outraged Vlad is said to have flown into a rage at this snub and ordered that their hats should be nailed to their heads as a demonstration of his disapproval, a punishment that was duly carried out.

The feared leader’s reign of terror ended with his death in December 1476, by which time he was considered a tyrant by some and a religious saviour by others. Despite his evil deeds, his body was buried within the grounds of Snagov monastery, where it lay undisturbed for about three years until officials ordered his remains to be disinterred. Strangely, when his coffin was opened it was found to be completely empty, a sign for some that he was a kind of Messiah and had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. The superstitious peasant population of Transylvania and Wallachia, however, was now convinced that Dracula had become a vampire. As such, his undead corpse was destined to travel the earth for eternity, seeking out the innocent victims in order to feed the Count’s blood lust.

Though his descendants are poorly documented, the real-life Dracula’s bloodline has certainly continued through to modern times. Following her death in Paris aged seventy-six on 14 May 1997, newspapers revealed that the Romanian Princess Catherine Caradja, otherwise known as Caradja-Kretzulesco, was in fact a direct descendent of Prince Vlad the Impaler. The princess had formerly fled from Bucharest to France to escape Communist rule in 1947. In contrast to her ancestor’s life of evil, she had become an active charity worker in her later years, collecting money in aid of Romanian citizens after the country’s political overthrow in 1989.

Stoker’s Dracula

Bram Stoker, though a well-balanced and pleasant individual with a definite sense of humour, was said to be unavoidably attracted to the study of ‘all things dark’. It has been acknowledged that as well as being a Freemason he was almost certainly a member of the Golden Dawn, an influential occult society that attracted Victorian academics, spies, university professors and diplomats who, it is said, gathered in secret to discuss and explore a wide range of mystical and taboo subjects.

It is also said that before writing his novel, Stoker spent seven years studying European folklore, especially the vampire stories from the region of Transylvania, having had his interest sparked by an 1885 essay entitled ‘Transylvania Superstitions’ written by Emily Gerard, the wife of the influential Chevalier Miecislas de Laszowski. Laszowski was a cavalry officer who, together with his wife, had been stationed in the Transylvanian town of Temesvar (now Timisoara, Romania). Another of Stoker’s associates who influenced his interest in vampires was Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian writer and traveller who was also a keen collector of superstitions and legends from the Baltic regions.

Because of these interests, there is no doubt that Stoker delighted in the Gothic, mysterious and historic aspects of Whitby, and indeed two real-life maritime incidents were instrumental in the town becoming a key part of the story. One involved a mysterious and apparently unmanned ship that sailed out of the fog near Whitby Harbour entrance and rammed a local fishing vessel, tipping its crew into the water. The ship then, despite the desperate cries of the distressed crew, sailed off into the mist, never to be seen again. The second real-life incident to have an influence on the story of Dracula was the wrecking of a Russian vessel, the Dmitri of Narva, in October 1885. It was carrying sand along the north-east coast and got into difficulty in atrocious weather. As it started to take in water its cargo of sand became unstable: the vessel limped through the harbour mouth at Whitby and was wrecked upon Tate Hill beach. In true form, Stoker slightly disguised the incident, transforming the Dmitri into the Demeter and giving its home port as Varna (an anagram of the real port of Navra.)

Bram Stoker knew that both the names ‘Demeter’ and ‘Dmitri’ had virtually the same meaning. ‘Dimitri’ was the Russian version of the Greek Demeter and as such is the equivalent of the British Earth Mother goddess. To the Romans she was known as Ceres, whilst the Celtic tribes knew her as Gaia or Mother Earth, the primeval Mother goddess of all goddesses. The fifty boxes of loam carried upon the Demeter, which were also no doubt meant to symbolically convey the same ‘earth’ message, were in the story consigned to Mr Billington the solicitor at 7 The Crescent before finally being delivered to Carfax House near Purfleet. Stoker is believed to have based his, or rather his character Jonathan Harker’s, description of Carfax House (‘close to an old chapel or church’) on ‘Purfleet House’, which was built there in 1791 by Samuel Whitbread, the brewer, together with a detached chapel for the ‘ease of use of his family’.

Extracted from Gothic Whitby by Colin Waters

The post In Dracula’s footsteps appeared first on The History Press.

But writing biographical fiction is not easy and it has some unique challenges. As with writing history of any kind, there are always gaps in the historical record and events so controversial or complex that they produce multiple, conflicting accounts. When writing biography, however, there is the added challenge of trying to understand motives for recorded actions and the emotions of the individuals involved ? unless, of course, the subject kept diaries or wrote letters and memoirs describing emotions. In that case, however, the biographer is confronted with the equally challenging issue of how honest or self-serving such documents are!

Biographers like historians, whether working in fiction or non-fiction, must fill in gaps, select between competing accounts of events, and speculate about motives and emotions. Non-fictional biographers do this openly by discussing the different possible interpretations and explaining the reasoning behind their analysis of the character’s actions and motives. Novelists do this by turning their analysis of events into a novel and their interpretation of the personalities into characters.

For the biographical novelist, the historical record is therefore the skeleton – or plot – of the book. History, not the novelist, defines the beginning and the end of the principal character, and indeed all the essential historical events in between. But most readers do not want to read about skeletons, certainly not inert ones. They want characters with flesh and blood – with faces, emotions, dreams, and fears. The goal of a biographical novelist is to add contours, colours, animation and above all personality to that historical skeleton.

The novelist’s toolbox for fleshing out a historical skeleton includes research into the “skeleton’s” family background, social status, and profession (and that of the “skeleton’s” ancestors, spouse and partners as well). It includes investigating the customs and culture of the society in which the “skeleton” lived, the legal system to which he or she was subject, the technology and fashions of the age and more. In addition, the biographer (whether for fiction or non-fiction) must also investigate the biographies of known figures who influenced the subject: e.g. their parents, siblings, spouses, colleagues, superiors and subordinates, partners, opponents and rivals.

Only after the biographer has developed an understanding of the environment in which the subject lived and the relationships the historical figure had with contemporaries is it possible to start constructing a plausible character. Based on this research, the novelist evolves an understanding of why the subject acted in one way or another. The novelist is able to hypothesize the emotions the subject likely felt in certain situations, and to understand the fears, inhibitions, ambitions, and obsessions that might have driven, inspired, warped, and hindered the protagonist. An excellent example of this is Sharon Kay Penman’s biographical novel of Richard III, The Sunne in Splendour. She effectively explains King Richard III by showing how his childhood relationships with his brothers and his Neville cousins made him the man he became.

So far, so good, but a good novelist, in contrast to a non-fiction biographer, also wants to address readers at a literary level. A good novel is not just accurate history about engaging characters, it should also have some compelling themes that will keep the reader thinking about the book long after the reading is over. In biographical fiction, however, the historical skeleton limits a novelist’s freedom of action. It is not possible to give the biography of Anne Boleyn a happy ending!

So this is where it gets tricky-? and bit controversial: a biographical novelist striving to produce a work of art may feel the need to deviate – carefully, selectively, and strategically – from the historical record. This is not about giving a character two heads, or only one hand: it is about changing very subtly some of the “flesh and blood.”

Let me give an example from the world of painting. The surviving contemporary paintings of Isabella I of Castile painted by unknown artists who may have met her are not terribly flattering or inspiring. However, there are many portraits of Isabella by subsequent artists who had certainly never laid eyes on her yet are far more evocative and appealing. These later works may not as accurately depict Isabella’s physical features, yet they may capture her spirit in that they make the viewer see aspects of Isabella’s known personality – her piety combined with her iron will, and so on.

This explains how different works of biographical fiction about the same subject can be very different ? yet equally good. Is Schiller’s or Shaw’s Joan of Arc better? I cannot say offhand which one historians would choose as more accurate, but I do know that both – regardless of which is more accurate – are great works of biographical fiction.

Creating a work of art requires clarity of purpose, consistency of style, and a proper use of light and dark. It requires not only extrapolating and interpreting, but some outright falsification. In a novel, it almost always requires the creation some fictional characters – servants or friends, lovers or rivals – that serve as foils for highlighting character traits, explain later (known) behavior, or provide contrast in order to give the central character deeper contours.

However, from my experience as a writer of non-fictional biography (Codename Valkyrie: General Olbricht and the Plot Against Hitler) and biographical fiction (the Leonidas of Sparta trilogy and the Balian d’Ibelin trilogy), the greatest challenge for the biographical novelist is paring away or condensing some of the known facts or strategically making changes to the historical record in order to produce a clearer and more compelling central character or more comprehensible story.

When resurrecting the dead, historical novelists seek to raise the spirit, not the body. The spirit, not each pound of flesh or each wrinkle on the face, is what we wish our readers and future generations to understand and honour. And spirits are always ethereal, elusive – and not quite real.

The post Resurrecting the dead: Or the delicate art of writing biographical fiction appeared first on The History Press.

What drew you to Hampton Court in Tudor times as the backdrop for your writing?

Hampton Court is a microcosm of English history from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, but especially of the sixteenth century. And as the sixteenth century is my favourite era, it was inevitable that sooner or later I was going to place one of my imaginary characters in that setting. For Hugh Mac Egan, a lawyer to the Butler family of Ormond, one of the most powerful families in Ireland, the environment of Cardinal Wolsey’s Hampton Court was a potent mixture of power, aesthetic pleasure and the heady excitement of the Tudor court.

Why do you think readers are so intrigued by the Tudor era?

Partly, I think, because of the wide range of written resources that are available to historians. But mainly, I suppose, because it has all the elements of a modern soap opera: love, lust, scandal, power, larger-than-life characters and, of course, marvellous clothes.

How do your experiences and background inform your writing?

I came to writing about Tudor Hampton Court from a slightly odd perspective. During the last ten years I have been writing about Ireland, the west of Ireland, where the native law of Ireland prevailed and where the Tudor-governed tiny area, known as the ‘Pale’ (from its surrounding fence – Donald Trump and his wall is nothing new in Ireland), was a threat to Irish laws and the Irish way of life. Now, in this book, I focus on the powerful politics of England as seen through the eyes of an Irish lawyer who was educated in the native, or Brehon law, but who served the Butlers of Ormond, one of the two most powerful Anglo-Irish families in the Pale.

What is the most difficult part of your writing process?

I’m one of those lucky people who don’t find writing difficult. Ideas seem to flow from brain to finger tips and a full-length book for adults normally takes me under two months.  On the other hand, the production of 90,000 words does require discipline, as well as enthusiasm, and I suppose there is a bleak time, usually about a third of the way through any book, where one suddenly doubts whether one has enough material. The thing I have discovered by experience, is just to drive the narrative ahead at this point, and worry about the word count later on. So far I have written over fifty books (my retirement project!) and I have never once, so far, found that I had run short of words by the time that I had reached the end of the story.

How do you go about researching and writing? Did you have any challenges?

I already owned quite a lot of books about the Tudor period, but I went on a special journey to the little town of Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh border, which possesses over twenty second-hand bookshops, and spent a whole day rummaging. And came back with the boot of our car full of books – mostly enormous dusty tomes – but, also, a small, thin, brilliant find, a translation from Italian of a book written for painters in the late 15th century, instructing them how to make their paints and their glues. My best discovery, though, was a 19th century reprint of a book written in the 16th century by George Cavendish, the gentleman usher of Cardinal Wolsey’s court – hugely inspiring.

There were some challenges – mainly how much erudite historians like David Starkey and Eric Ives can differ over the basic facts of Anne Boleyn’s life. There was so much black propaganda written about her (the Spanish ambassador, Chapuys, was a great provider) that sometimes it’s almost impossible to disentangle the truth. In the end, I had to make some decisions of whom to trust and of how to tell the story of a few weeks in the turbulent life of Anne Boleyn.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I loved bringing people like Cardinal Wolsey and Anne Boleyn to life. And I enjoyed the research enormously. I love reading historical biography and there is such an abundance of books about Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and about the first half of the sixteenth century that my passion to know about the minutiae of their lives and of the lives of those around them had plenty of material to devour. By the time that I had read and reread the books, festooned them with ‘post-it’ notes, my mind was overflowing with ideas. And, I thoroughly enjoyed constructing the murder within the walls of Hampton Court!

What about writing historical crime fiction most fascinates you?

I think that it is possible to be self-indulgent when writing historical fiction, to allow the fascinating minutiae of lives so far from our own to dominate the book. But crime rules all. Crime builds in a structure, a tension that moves the story along and allows the historical details to slip into place. I’ve now written fifteen historical crime novels and would not contemplate moving to another genre. History and mystery are a powerful combination.

If you could interview another author (living or dead) who would it be and why?

I would love, love to interview George Cavendish, gentleman usher to Cardinal Wolsey. His Life & Death of Cardinal Wolsey, written over four hundred years ago, gives such a marvellous picture of the great cardinal and of his household. I read and reread it so often before writing my book The Cardinal’s Court. However, he wrote it in his old age, a quarter of a century after the death of Wolsey, and so may not have remembered everything correctly. I would love to say to him:

‘Now, George, are you sure that King Henry noticed Anne Boleyn in 1522? Are you sure that was the reason why the love affair with Harry Percy was nipped in the bud? And George, could you tell me why the marriage arranged between James Butler, the future Earl of Ormond, and his cousin Anne Boleyn never took place? And don’t tell that it was anything to do with King Henry, George! Because if King Henry fell for Anne Boleyn in 1522, then he took a marvellously long time to declare himself – almost four years, George. Surely you must be muddling things, George, do think again!’

And George, who comes across as such a nice fellow in his book, would think again, and his face would light up and he would say:

‘Oh, I remember now. . .’

The post Ask the author: Cora Harrison on writing historical crime fiction appeared first on The History Press.

That’s how my story Alice and the Snap Dragon begins. After that… away we go! We can twist, we can shout, we can shake it all about and even make up a song if we want to.

That’s what I love about the art of performance storytelling; there’s so much room for improvisation. No live experience is the same. Every audience and venue are different so, in turn, every storytelling is different too.

Since the release of my debut children’s book, The Norfolk Story Book, I have had the pleasure of touring schools, book shops and museums as an author and performance storyteller for family audiences and children in primary schools. For me, the live storytelling very much goes hand in hand with the book, but is an entirely different experience. The wonderful thing about reading is that it can be your own, individual, magical experience. But in a room full of people, we can all join in together to create a unique, collective adventure. We don’t need props, fancy costumes or time machines…just lots of imagination!

My favourite part of performance storytelling is that the audience all become part of the story and we can discover things together, in the moment; it’s what keeps the narrative fun and fresh!

In A Mammoth Journey we go on a journey though prehistoric Norfolk, meet lots of animals along the way and make some noise! I always enjoy inviting the audience to help me create characters for the animals. They always come up with something different – so far we have encountered sneaky snakes, mischievous monkeys, kind mice and inquisitive hedgehogs….never a dull moment!

In Alice and the Snap Dragon there is an opportunity for the audience to create their own dragon, inspired by the dragon from the story. One of the best things about this job is that it gives me the chance to meet so many fantastically talented young writers and artists. Whether you read The Norfolk Story Book or see it in performance at one of my events, I hope it continues to encourage you to make up your own story; it could be about something in the book: snap dragons, mammoths, mustard or indeed, smelly feet, or something of your own creation. If your imagination is sparked that’s all you need to get started then…away we go!

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