      | Having decided to write a prequel to my Dungeness based family saga of novels, I’ve been back exploring the area. This time a lunch in the Britannia was followed by a hunt for the remains of the original pub. Both the current Pilot Inn and Britannia Inn are sitting on slightly different locations than the original buildings. Built in 1850, the British Inn would have been a simple tavern, built of wood. It was sometimes known as the Black Pig, so I assume its plank walls were tarred. The Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway’s Britannia points are a good clue as to where the pub was, and the remains can be found close to the train track. It wasn’t until about 1890 that the pub was known as The Britannia. In 1926, it was rebuilt, mostly in corrugated iron; there are still rusting sheets of this on the ground near the site. By the 1950s, the Britannia Inn had burned down, and was replaced by the current brick building in a location to the south. It took much to-ing and fro-ing around the area before I found the remains of the pub in a hollow previously disregarded as being too small to be of any interest. There were no visible foundations or walls. It is likely the pub stood on timber joists, or perhaps a concrete base has been covered by the shingle. Expecting to find a few beer bottles and rusting lids, along with building rubble, I was amazed that once the site was found the treasures kept coming… My first finds were earthenware pieces of what I suspected were chimney pots. Next it was beer bottle lids and part of a wine glass. But soon I discovered a lovely section of cut glass, and then pieces of decorative plates – no doubt belonging to the landlady. One very special find was part of a mug, with a section of shield and a B within the shield on it – it must have been part of Britannia! Another favorite find was a jam jar lid with these words printed on it: Nell Gwyn Marmalade and Fresh Fruit Jams by Crosbies. Later at home, a search on the internet led to finding out that this would have been produced in the 1940s. I never expected to see such interesting objects and so easily. The British Inn, will feature in my novel and so it was particularly exciting to explore the area. I’m also keen to revisit the old lighthouse. Although not the lighthouse of my novel, this old lighthouse is thirty years too modern for me, I am hoping the displays will help and inspire my writing. My, as yet un-named, novel is well underway and I plan to have it published in the late autumn! |
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“What do I want to see in your next novel, Emma?” My good friend, Maud, asked as we discussed plans for my next creation. “I want something symbolic, like the hagstones. And plenty of description about Romney Marsh.”
“I want a Gundred,” I said, thinking of the old hag in What the Monk Didn’t See. “And I’m going far back in time, probably to Medieval times.” At the time I had just completed my WW2 novel. In the end I went further and took my characters to Saxon times. But Maud’s request for something ‘like the hagstones’ stayed in my mind and I created a golden cross, worn by an abbot, and dropped on Romney Marsh where it moves into different hands. It’s been a wonderful tool, linking different characters together and moving from place to place through the story. I wondered how many different ways the Marsh could be described, and going back to 680AD takes my reader to a very different place, one where the land is just beginning to dry out and islands are forming, but the sea still comes in at high tide, filling the creeks. Here my visiting monk is gazing down from the top of the Shipway (Lympne Hill) on a moonlit Romney Marsh: The sea was on the rise and a million silver sparkles flowed with the tide, filling creeks and flooding low-lying land. Here he is following a causeway across the marshy land: The track was narrow and every footstep needed to be taken with care, lest they should slip and their precious cargo launch into the gurgling marshland… The very thought of it caused Brother Edwen's stomach to lurch. Reeds brushed against his ankles and there was an occasional rustle as if a water-rat or wading bird had been disturbed by the nocturnal humans. In the half-light of a cloud-covered moon, Romney Marsh gave away none of its secrets. And here my female character, Eadlyn, is looking over Romney Marsh from Lympne: But the Marsh still beckoned her: those flat lands with great pools of water and tidal creeks winding this way and that. The view was clear at that moment, but Romney Marsh changed with the weather and when the mists hung about at dawn it was the place of mysteries and mythical beings. Eadlyn could believe that the pagan gods still lurked in this place which was half-land and half-sea. I’ve covered Maud’s requirements. But how to create another Gundred – the same but different? Meet Hlappa: “There's curious things happening on the Marsh tonight, and I don't know that I understand it.” These words came from an old woman; a newcomer to the Sandtun. Her name was Hlappa and she wore her old age for all to see in her skin that was wrinkled like a dried apple, and her wisp of dull brown hair. Her voice was hoarse; she coughed a little, then reached for her mug of weak ale, before closing her eyes. Her son, the clay-worker, gave a sigh. “She's always worrying over one thing or the other. Stirring up trouble.” “That's how it is with the elders,” Eadlyn gave him a smile. “I get these feelings and they play in my head,” Hlappa opened her eyes again and looked at those gathered nearby. “We are not the only ones on the Marsh tonight.” “Perchance there's a farmer out with the cattle?” The clay-worker’s tone was irritable. “That’s enough of your talk.” “A farmer is an innocent man, or so we would hope,” she raised her voice a little, disturbing the children, causing the mothers to draw them closer. “The folk on the Marsh tonight move in secret. Why else do they travel by dark?” As I come to the end of my novel set in the year 680, I wonder if my readers will mind being taken back so far and will they like my interpretation of Romney Marsh in those times? I am reflecting on the plots of previous novels and debating what to include in the next one. Do I continue with my Saxon saga or return to the Dungeness series? Or perhaps I should stick with the job in hand – editing, re-reading, checks and more checks…?  As I take my characters down the Shipway (Lympne Hill) to the Sandtun (West Hythe), I reflect on the use of language in my novels.
Having just written a book set in the 1920s and another in the 1940s, I became well used to my female characters saying: ‘Gosh’ and ‘Golly’ and ‘Crumbs’ and there was even an ‘Old Bean’! They called their parents ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ or ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ depending on their upbringing. But my favourite era so far was Medieval times and when the great storm was battering Romney, they were hardly going to say ‘Gosh’ or ‘Cripes, jolly bad luck old chap’. They said ‘God’s teeth’, ‘Christ’s bones’ or ‘By the blood of Christ’. These were pretty strong and quite appropriate for if your boat or home were being smashed up by the storm. Now I step back to Saxon times and although I write in modern day English (I wouldn’t sell many books otherwise), I want to know how my characters are going to curse if they find themselves in trouble. Well… it turns out the religious swear words are not going to happen. The best I can find is … ‘Death’s head on a mop-stick’. Hmmm, there’s only so many times I can use that in one book! I’m going to have to give up on that search. I move onto terms of endearment and find ‘Dearling’ and ‘Sweeting’, which I like. That reminds me that I tried to use ‘Honey’ in my medieval book. It was correct for the era, but sadly sounds too American so had to go… What else? What will the children call their parents? ‘Modor’ and ‘Faeder’ – I like that! I also have a grandmother and she is called ‘Elder-Modor’. Now I have to consider how far will I take this, without it becoming irritating for the reader? I decide to use ‘I thank you’ and I like a ‘Mayhap’ and a ‘Perchance’. Oh and I use ‘Aye’ and ‘Nay’. If there are any rules about how far to take this in a historical novel, then I know nothing of them. I go with what feels right for me and my characters and I hope my readers agree. I have to be careful not to slip these words into a descriptive passage, as these parts are my words written in my 21st century style. I do frequently check words to find out when they were first used. As I write this I have just searched twine, to see if my character can tie a goat up with it, or should it be rope? But words do slip through - a character was recently well ahead of her time when she used meters as a measurement in Victorian times! I do get it wrong and that’s when I rely on my readers to let me know. The kindle edition or the next print run of books can easily be changed. As I pass my halfway stage in the novel, I still need to use ‘Death’s head on a mop-stick’ and I’ve got ‘milk-soft’ on my list, which I think is rather nice!  Now those crazy busy weeks of promoting The Artist’s Gift have come to an end, I’m ready to get stuck into a new novel and have been determined to go right back in time. I’ve scouted about for something to hold my interest. And so, returning to familiar pages in Romney Marsh Survival on a Frontier, I’ve explored the idea of setting a novel in West Hythe at a time before there was any permanent settlement there. Called Sandtun, in the late 7th century it was on the edge of a tidal lagoon, which was sheltered by a shingle spit – roughly where the Hythe Ranges and Dymchurch Wall are today. What was happening on Sandtun? It was a seasonal trading place: craftsmen from the surrounding area would come to sell their wares to those who had sailed across the Oceanous Britannicus in order to trade. Archaeologists have found evidence of this from the 7th to the 9th centuries in the form of pottery and coins. The Sandtun was also a place for fishermen who descended the Shipway (Lympne Hill) to fish; evidence has been found in the form of fish hooks and bones. While this was happening, the islands of (Old) Romney and Lydd were home to the hardy people who lived with the risk of the incoming tide, in a flat, barren landscape. Nearby Burmarsh (the land on the burgh of the Marsh), one of the oldest settlements, was not yet evolving. The Romans had been gone for the past 400 years. Their fort at Lympne was once built on the top of the hill and at some point (possibly due to an earthquake) it slid to its current position (I can feel another novel coming here!). For the sake of my novel, the fort is still at the top of the hillside. So, having just released a WW2 novel, I find myself in a very different era and very much enjoying learning new things. While this is all very absorbing for me, how about something to spice things up a bit? Have you ever wondered about St Botolph’s Bridge pub sign? It shows four monks, crossing a drainage ditch at night. Two of them are carrying a coffin and a beam of golden light shines down to show them the way. The body of St Botolph lies in that coffin. He died in Lincolnshire – so what was he doing on Romney Marsh? You'll have to read the novel to find out!  It's been two weeks since I launched The Artist's Gift. Usually the book is available whenever I get the copies and usually comes out on Kindle a few days beforehand. This time was different as I had the opportunity to have a stall in Lydd Church on the day of the Summer Fayre and Teddy Bear Jump. What an amazing opportunity - to launch the book in the very place the first scenes are set!
The people of Lydd have always been great supporters but imagine my surprise when I saw I had my very own special place - a table under the painting of the bombed church. The church wardens were so busy and it was wonderful for them to think of putting me there for the launch. It was an amazing day and I'm so grateful to people who came on that day especially to support me. One of my friends arranged for my book to be launched off the church tower under its own parachute! Hence the reason why it was launched twice in one day! Since that day, I have been delivering to local customers, something I always enjoy doing. Then I had a successful book signing at the Romney Marsh Visitor Centre, always a nice place to spend a few hours. I also went to meet a book club who had read Secrets of the Shingle and very much enjoyed the discussion about the book. Coming up... I've got three more book signing events in Greatstone, Dymchurch and Hythe. Yes, I am writing the new novel and I just need to take a couple of photos and I'll be ready to tell you about it. Huge thanks to everyone who supports me - the regular customers, the people who buy the books as presents, the people who put lovely comments on facebook and send me messages. I really couldn't do it without your support. xx  You may remember way back last autumn I completed a novel set in the 1920s, and then asked my readers what they wanted from me next – a prequel set in the 1870s, or a sequel set in the 1940s. The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the 1940s. I've read plenty of fictional books set in that time; I've watched the 1940s house and seen other programs set in the era. But when it came to the research, I knew I had to get this right. It is within living memory and I needed to show respect to the war and the people who lived through it.
Here I am living on Romney Marsh, I know about PLUTO and the air-fields and the armoured train. I knew the coastal areas were restricted and that sheep had been evacuated from the Marsh. But when it comes to writing about fictional characters, I needed to know the tiny details: what did they eat, what did they wear, what war work was available locally and what was it like in one small town on the front-line? All of a sudden I felt very lost and wanted to race back to Medieval times, an era in which I had previously done a lot of research. But I persevered… (Actually I didn't, I wrote a chapter of a medieval novel and three chapters of the 1870 one and then returned to the 40s) The opening chapters are set in Lydd. The town suffered a lot of bombing in the early years of the war. One significant event was the bombing of the church and this was the point where I was compelled to start the novel. Immediately I was in trouble: my reference book said the bombs fell from Messerschmitts fighters. So I wrote that that the bombs fell from a fighter plane. Luckily I read this scene to my writers' group and was told that fighters don't drop bombs. I rewrote the scene. Later, I discovered that it was a fighter-bomber. I learned then to take a lot of care whenever planes were mentioned. It's really important to me that I get the facts right, so I had to be careful not to mention events that hadn't yet happened. For instance bringing in rationing before its time. At the beginning of the war, the women could happily bake their sponge cakes and puddings, as time progressed the rationing increased and I had to think carefully about what treats could be provided – many rock-cakes were eaten! I searched make-do-and-mend, as when invited to a dance my character was inspired to alter an old dress by the posters encouraging her to be frugal with material. This was in the summer of 1941. I couldn't mention in beforehand. My main characters do their war work on the NAAFI tea-van. But what did they serve? Tea, cigarettes and chocolate, an internet search revealed. I was able to view photos of restored NAAFI vans and see the selection of chocolate apparently on offer – all in authentic looking wrapping. Kitkats, Bounty and Mars bars, along with Cadbury's Chocolate – I wasn't so sure about that. Some further research revealed that the servicemen in the 1940s were not so lucky – they suffered Ration Chocolate. Cadbury's Dairy Milk ceased to be made in 1941 when the government banned manufacturers from using fresh milk. Instead Cadbury’s manufactured Ration Chocolate, made with dried skimmed milk powder. Not quite so tasty? How easy it is to be misled by 'authentic' images of past times. Readers have often asked for a map at the beginning of a book so, with my limited experience of moving images and text boxes on a screen, I began to prepare a simple map of Romney Marsh in that era. I found some little plane shapes and placed them where the airfields were. My son's friend looked at the map and queried the era – 'they are jet planes,' he said! A mistake narrowly avoided! I really hope that readers appreciate all the research that went into creating it. Now I move onto a totally different era and immerse myself in Saxon Hythe. More about that next time.  Wow! I can't believe I have finished the main part of my book. In the middle of January, I set myself a five thousand word a week target, which is a lot for me, and managed to stick to it, only dropping a thousand words one week. As well as doing that, I did the final checks on A Place Called Hope and prepared the document for print and kindle.
What happens next? I've got a short list of points to check on. I've also got to complete my chapter-by-chapter list of where I got my WW2 stories from, what is fiction based on real stories and what is fiction. Then the word document will go to my proof reader. While it's there, I need to think about the cover and the blurb. I've also got another two or three chapters to write; these are set in 1958 and tie up the end of this three book saga, then they will go to the proof reader. The whole book has already been read by my friend who reads as I write and makes suggestions/points out things that don't quite work. When it comes back from the proof reader, I will look through it again. Then I'm going to ask a couple of people with good Romney Marsh and Second World War knowledge to read it. Finally, I need to prepare the pages for print. This involves setting margins and looking at the spacing (for instance checking that all chapter headings start on a new page). Then it is time to order a paperback proof. I'll need to set it up for kindle; a different process as the document needs to read well on various sizes of screens. How long will this take? I'm determined not to rush this and to make sure the novel is thoroughly checked, so hoping to have it ready by the summer – maybe July? And what is the book called? The Artist's Gift. Why? You'll have to wait and see! I've been reading through the proof copy of my re-written A Place Called Hope and this led me to revisit some of my favourite characters. Perhaps not the nicest people I have created, but the ones who were the most fun to put into a scene. These have been the people least like myself and I guess they give me the chance to say outrageous things or to behave in a way so unlike how I would in real life.
Starting with A Place Called Hope, I loved writing scenes with Anna's slatternly sister Eliza. Here she is entering the church on Christmas Day: It must have been halfway through the service when Eliza made her noisy entrance, interrupting the sermon. She held her baby and was followed by little Bess who clutched the hand of quiet, mild-mannered William. Not content to sit quietly at the back, she gestured for her husband to follow her along the aisle. The parson waited patiently as she arranged her family, squeezing in beside Mother and asking others to move up to allow space for William and Bess. Eliza made herself comfortable, brushed stray mousy curls from her face, hitched up her skirt to show a stained shift, then used her sleeve to wipe the dribble from the baby’s mouth. Finally she set her dark eyes and snub nose in the direction of the parson, lips in a bored pout. also enjoyed writing the scenes with Edmund who Jessica was intended to marry. He wasn't horrible, but very thoughtless. Here they are having been to a church service at the far superior church in New Romney: “A welcome change from your little chapel, no doubt,” commented Mr Blackstock. “All Saints suits us well enough, and our small community still manages to enjoy the service,” my father responded. “I hear the roof is in disrepair,” Edmund said. He turned to me, “You'll not suffer such discomfort for much longer, St Nicholas is a fine church; no cause for complaint here.” “It's no discomfort,” I replied. Edmund didn't hear. Later, when discussing which church to marry in, Edmund has this to say about Jessica's parish church: “...and I can’t say that I could let my own mother sit in a puddle if it were to rain. Oh no, she could not be sitting in a puddle on her son’s wedding day!” Following their betrothal, Jessica worries about becoming intimate with Edmund: would he dare to press his lips upon mine when we were alone? In What the Monk Didn't See, the character who was the most fun to put in a scene has to be the old soothsayer, Gundred! Any scene with her in it flowed so quickly. Here she is on the afternoon before the Great Storm: "There's dark deeds happening tonight. I've never had such a bad feeling. Pray Matilda. Pray for your family and the town." "Pray for the town?" Matilda repeated, alarmed for she tended to be drawn into the soothsayer's cautionary tales. "Aye, the town. Cinque Port, sunk port. That's what I hear over and over: Cinque port, sank port, sunk port. It rings in my ears and fills me with terror." Gundred stood on the street before Matilda. She only reached the younger woman's shoulders, her back was that bent. As always, she was draped in a thick shawl, scraggy brown-grey hair escaped in tendrils from beneath her hood; her nose was aquiline and her eyes were small dark currants. Here Gundred speaks to Agnes: Then she looked beyond Agnes and her eyes narrowed. “Be off with you, I see your secrets, we need no words and you bother my prayers.” And again she taunts Agnes with her knowledge: "I was just... just saying a prayer for him." "There need be no secrets between us," Gundred said. "You wouldn't want his wife, the godly Matilda, to see you at his funeral. Full of suspicion that one. Shame... shame that she was once a dear sweet girl. Not like you." "Not like me?" Agnes repeated, her heart tightening. Next time I'll look at my favourite characters in Secrets of the Shingle and Stranger on The Point. Can you guess who they are?  I can't believe it's been months since I last blogged. My excuses are: first I was busy selling and promoting Stranger on the Point, and then I was getting absorbed in the new novel.
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