In the late 19th and early 20th century holidaying at the seaside became extremely popular in Britain. The expansion of the railways meant that a trip to the coast was easier and there was a host of natural and built attractions to draw in visitors. Unfortunately sunny weather couldn't always be guaranteed, so towns quickly realised that indoor attractions were needed.
Winter Gardens were the solution - entertainment complexes made out of glass, often with trees and flowering plants inside.
A souvenir of The Crystal Palace owned by the author.
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
Winter Gardens owners took their inspiration from The Crystal Palace the stunning iron and glass building originally constructed for The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 at Hyde Park, London. The Crystal Palace was the idea of three men - Prince Albert, Henry Cole (also known for creating the first commercial Christmas card) and Joseph Paxton.
Paxton had been designing glass houses for twenty years when he was commissioned to create The Crystal Palace including the Lily House at Chatsworth which was built to protect the giant Victoria Regia a rare tropical water plant that had been newly discovered and its seed brought back to Britain.
The Crystal Palace was so popular it was moved south of the River Thames to Sydenham in 1854. It was sadly destroyed by a fire in 1936.
Souvenir of The Southport Pavilion Winter Gardens
& Aquarium owned by the author.
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
The first Winter Garden was built in Southport, Lancashire, on land between the Promenade and Lord Street it's smart shopping street which is said to have inspired the famous Champs-Élysées in Paris.
The Winter Gardens was built by Manchester architects Maxwell and Tuke, who also designed Blackpool Tower, though they both died before it was finished.
Their Winter Gardens opened 150 years ago, in September 1874, and was advertised as 'the largest conservatory in England' and was built between two brick pavilions.
Postcard showing Southport Winter Gardens (right) owned by the author.
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
There were extensive gardens outside the building and a 170 foot promenade inside where visitors could stroll and admire the indoor planting. There was also a band pavilion, a reading room, a chess room and a conservatory filled with plants and flowers as well as a cascade (waterfall.)
The aquarium had over 20 tanks for fish including sharks and pools for seals and crocodiles.
An opera house was added in 1851 designed by the renowned theatre designer Frank Matcham (he also designed the famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom).
The opera house was destroyed by a fire in 1929 and was replaced by the art deco Garrick Theatre which later became a cinema and then a bingo hall and is now set to be transformed into a fancy spa hotel.
The Garrick Theatre, Southport, was built on the site
of the Southport Winter Gardens Opera House is set to be restored.
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
Winter Gardens soon followed at Bournemouth and Torquay on the South Coast.
Southport and Bournemouth Winter Gardens were demolished in the 1930s but the one at Torquay was sold to Great Yarmouth who had the building taken apart and the pieces transported by barge to its new home!
Now Grade II* listed, the Winter Gardens closed in 2008 but is due to be renovated as it was awarded a Heritage Horizon Award by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Blackpool Winter Gardens features on the cover of Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel by Susan Brownrigg (illustration by Jenny Czerwonka)
My latest children's book - Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel is partly set in Blackpool Winter Gardens. The story is set around the filming of a movie in the resort in 1935. The plot was inspired by actress Gracie Fields filming Sing as We Go in the town. In the book, my characters visit the posh Renaissance Restaurant in the Winter Gardens and go to a casting call in the Spanish Hall.
Coronation Street entrance with white faience tiles, to Blackpool Winter Gardens.
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
The Blackpool Winter Gardens opened in 1878 and is also Grade II* listed. Early attractions included gardens and a roller skating rink.
Early features included a fernery. There is also a horseshoe promenade and the floral hall which has a beautiful glass roof.
Glass roof, Floral Hall, Blackpool Winter Gardens. (Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
The building has had many changes over the years, including three versions of an opera houses (the first was also designed by Frank Matcham).
It is also home to not one, but two Wurlitzer organs!
Wurlitzer organ, Empress Ballroom. (Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
In 1896 a Big Wheel was added to the outside of the building, in the hope it would be a rival attraction to Blackpool Tower. The 'jolly wheel' as it was known locally was closed in 1928 and taken apart. Apparantly the carriages were sold off! A similar one is still going strong in Vienna, Austria and features in the classic 1930s film The Third Man!
Author's paperweight souvenir showing Blackpool Winter Garden's Big Wheel. One of the Winter Gardens glass domes is visible on the left of the image. (Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
In the 1930s when other Winter Gardens were being demolished, the one at Blackpool had a makeover.
J.C Derham was hired to do the construction, while Andrew Mazzei, who worked as an art director for the Gaumont Film Company was responsible for the decoration.
His rooms include the Spanish Hall, the Ye Galleon bar and the Jacobethan style Baronial Hall which look like they have wooden paneling and decoration but are actually made from fibrous plaster - a material used for making film sets and props.
Ye Galleon today (Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
The Baronial Hall is now used as a wedding venue
(Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
Blackpool Council bought the Winter Gardens in 2010 in a £40 million pound deal. They have renovated a lot of the rooms inside which had fallen into disrepair.
They have made repairs to the Empress Ballroom roof and £1.8 million was spent on restoring the glorious Spanish Hall's roof.
The Spanish Hall's decoration includes depictions of Spanish villages
in plasterwork. Photo: Susan Brownrigg
Hopefully the Winter Garden's historic Pavilion Theatre will be next to be repaired.
Further up the coast, the surviving part of Morecambe Winter Gardens, originally the Victoria Pavilion Theare, is also currently being restored.
It is great that these important building are being preserved for the future.
Author Susan Brownrigg in the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool Winter Gardens during an open day (Photo: Susan Brownrigg)
Susan Brownrigg is the author of the Gracie Fairshaw mystery series set in 1930s Blackpool and Kintana and the Captain's Curse.
Most of my books are set
in my native Yorkshire, and knowing the landscape intimately, means I can
describe it with the love I have for it as well as the knowledge of its hills,
dales and coastline.
I use it as another
character in my books, not only through my lens as the narrator, but also
through my characters’ emotions and the action. I think it’s fair to say that place
holds a strong central position in most of my novels.
But as we’re Time
Tunnellers here, I’m going to talk about my Jiddy Vardy Historical Fiction
Trilogy which is set in Robin Hood’s Bay on the Yorkshire Coast.
So, I’ve been through
each book in the trilogy and tried to pick out how I use place in the story.
First though, a little
context:
Jiddy Vardy was a real-life
female smuggler in 1700’s Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire. Her mother was from
Naples and her father, an English aristocrat. Jiddy arrived in the Bay, as it’s
called locally, parentless, to be brought up by an elderly, childless couple.
The inspiration for this real-life
character came from a few pages about her in a local history book about
smuggling called A Rum Do! by local author, Patricia Labistour.
Jiddy is described as
tall, dark, beautiful, brave, strong and loyal. I thought she sounded like a
great character for a story and I was surprised practically no-one had heard
about her. I set out to rectify that. It’s my on-going mission! So please, help
spread the word!
So, armed with a great central
character, and a stunning location, and with all the researched smuggling
stories, I had the makings of some excellent material for the books.
The story is full of
action – smuggling – and the whys and development of this illicit trade opens
up discussions about the definition of crime, what leads some people to break
the law, and then questions about who should make laws, especially when those
who make them know nothing of local community needs and its people. It is also
a coming-of-age story, first love, women’s rights and choices and identity. So
many discussion topics!
However, it is also about
place. And that is what I want to talk about here.
Jiddy Vardy grows up in a
remote village with cottages higgledy piggledy clustered on a hill leading down
to the North Sea and its dangerous tides. Moorland and marshland cut it off
from much of the world and roads at this time were atrocious!
Perfect for clandestine activity.
Robin Hood's Bay viewed from the top
(photograph Ruth Estevez)
Robin Hood’s Bay bursts
into life as a character, not only because it is so fascinating and I love it,
but because for the story, it is a must.
I bring the place alive
as another character by various methods:
1)The narrator’s descriptions. That’s me! My
voice.
2)Through the eyes of different characters,
in particular Jiddy.
3)Linking the descriptions to what is going
on in the action.
4)Jiddy’s emotions. How the descriptions of
her environment mirror her mood. (A bit like Thomas Hardy does with the weather
in novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles)
5)How the landscape affects characters and
how it forms them. (If they lived somewhere else, would they be different
people?)
I also use personification
in my descriptions through adjectives and verbs. This brings the landscape
alive by giving it human or animal attributes.
Using verbs for example
from book 1:
a)The causeway lolled empty.
(The causeway is an
extension of the road reaching out onto the beach)
Lolled suggests
a place where no action is happening, it’s without purpose, an area at rest
which is what I wanted in this scene. At other times, it is full of activity.
b)The cliff meandering green and
brown.
We
think of people meandering as they walk, weaving a path, so the image is of a
cliff not in a straight line, taking a stroll.
c)Wavesroar, they trip
over themselves, a scurryof waves.
These
show the sea with a personality, behaving like a human.
d)The silver sky shivered cold.
Again,
the sky taking on human actions.
Looking
at a place through a character’s eyes, for example Jiddy, when she looks at the
village, the adjectives show her mood as she views it. She is unsettled by an
event that has just happened and she looks at the place she knows well with
that unsettled eye:
Steps, Robin Hood's Bay (Photograph Ruth Estevez)
Out
in the ginnels and lanes, buildings hemmed her in, bairns whined,
dogs yelped, nets tangled, beating, slapping, the suffocating
stench of fish and mould and the sight of pinched eyes and red, flaking
knuckles.
All
the adjectives and verbs are unpleasant. Verbs like whining, yelping, beating,
slapping, they are all threatening, and Jiddy feels the buildings are holding
her in. This passage is taken from book 3, Full Sail and shows her state of
mind as she views her surroundings.
The voice of the narrator
(me!) is also used. Here, we can talk about including the senses in description
as well. If we used it all the time though, I think we’d put the reader on
overload! So, it’s choosing where to use it and which sense at a certain time.
Certainly not all at once.
I tend to use the senses
in places that are alien to my characters to show they are on higher alert than
usual. For example, when Jiddy arrives in an opulent department store, I use
sounds, sight and smell.
Marble counters bounced
back sound. A clock ticked…the scent of animal pelts, rose water and musk
mingled…fabrics fell in folds, frills and tucks. The room exploded with dresses,
ornaments, shining objects.,,the wealth grew heavier. Lights shone brighter.
Glass gleamed sharper. (Book 3, Full Sail.)
It’s dazzling,
overwhelming. Ominous in the ‘heavier’ and ‘sharper.’ And I don’t feel
description has to be realistic either, I like it used to give a sense of a
place and atmosphere, rather than it always being logical. But that comes down
to personal style as well. A writer just needs to be consistent in this and
that it suits the story.
Description can also be
used to make comparisons between places: the new versus the familiar.
For example, when Jiddy
arrives in York (in book 3), she compares the size of the Minster (the huge
church in the centre of the city) to the height of the cliffs she knows at
Ravenscar. She can only describe something new through something familiar.
Ravenscar (Photograph by Ruth Estevez)
So, there are many ways
to make a place a character in your writing and I hope these examples
illustrate the way I use it and perhaps, you may want try these out as well.
My challenge is for you
to describe a place in one or a mixture of these methods. You can personify a
building or a forest, or the sea, for example. Use adjectives and verbs to
personify the place. Or compare
somewhere new through familiar buildings and landscape. Show us the mood of the
onlooker through the verbs and adjectives you use. Above all, have fun!
Thanks to the Time
Tunnellers team for inviting me onto the blog today. Happy writing!
Ruth Estevez is the author of six novels, including the Jiddy Vardy trilogy, which is inspired by a real-life female smuggler from Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire. She is a semi-finalist in the BBNYA Awards 2023 and was the Guest Speaker in the Cheshire Prize for Literature 2023.
Ruth has previously worked as a scriptwriter on the children’s TV series Bob the Builder and worked in theatre and TV from Opera North, Harrogate Theatre-in-Education Company, Pitlochry Festival Theatre to ITV’s Emmerdale. She has taught scriptwriting on the Contemporary BA Film and Television Degree Course at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Ruth is also Project Coordinator for the Portico Sadie Massey awards for Young Readers and Writers, based at The Portico Library in Manchester.
I have long has an interest in Mary, Queen of Scots. For any teachers tackling Mary in the classroom, I have created comprehensive teaching resources for The Boy, the Witch and the Queen of Scots, free to download HERE.
The tragic queen was born at Linlithgow Palace on the 8th of December 1542, barely three weeks after Scotland's defeat to the English at the Battle of Solway Moss. Below, I am pictured with her statue at Linlithgow. Sadly, her life was to get more complicated still.
When little Mary was six days old, her Father James V of Scots reportedly turned his face to the wall and died. Allegedly, he said:'It began with a lass and it will gang with a lass.', referring to his disappointment that his family line was not to carry on through a male heir. Aged 9 months, Mary was officially crowned at Stirling Castle, pictured below.
However, her life was to become even more challenging: King Henry VIII of England had insisted that his own son Edward and Mary should be wed, an arrangement ratified in the Treaty of Greenwich. However, the regent in Scotland, the Earl of Arran, renounced the treaty, ushering in the prologued period of violent confrontation known as the 'Rough Wooing'. Five-year-old Mary was whisked off to France and, as a teenager, married to the French Crown Prince, her childhood playmate. Hoever, that stability and happiness was soon to be at an end: her husband inherited the French crown but died soon thereafter, leaving Mary widowed and without a purpose at the French court. She was persuaded to return to Scotland.
However, Scotland was not the country she had left behind. The Catholic Mary was returning to a now Protestant Scotland. Influential preachers like John Knox had persuaded many influential noblemen to become Protestants, including Mary's half-brother and closest advisor James Stewart. From the very beginning of her reign, John Knox tried to stir up trouble for Mary.
As a writer, I was particularly interested in this newly arrived 18-year-old Queen Mary. She certainly didn't have her troubles to seek, but she appears to have had considerable charm and vivacity, travelling across Scotland on lengthy progress journeys and indulging in dancing, riding, hunting and hawking. I found myself particularly fascinated by Mary's love of falconry and decided to make my boy hero an apprentice falconer. This necessicated some research, both theoretical...
...and practical.
Particular mention is made of Mary's merlins for which she had a particular fondness. A merlin is Britain's smallest bird of prey, but more than capable of hunting and supplying the Palace kitchens with larks, for example.
I discovered that the Catholic Earl of Huntly became a formidable foe when Mary did not back his wishes for a counter-reformation to reinstate Catholicism. On her progress north in the summer of 1562, she snubbed the Ear's invitation to visit his castle at Huntly, then called Strathbogie. Here I am, visiting its ruin.
Mary was probably wise not to trust the Earl - rumour had it that he planned to kidnap the Queen and marry her forcibly to his son. Instead, Mary bypassed his castle and gathered support to finally defeat the Earl at the Battle of Corrichie, fought in Aberdeenshire in October 1562. Mary was victorious.
It is true that in the years to come, Mary made some very questionable choices, particularly when it came to the men she chose to trust. However, she also had more than her fair share of bad luck and unfair treatment at the hands of others. In The Boy, the Witch and the Queen of Scots, I hope that I can portray a different, more hopeful side of the tragic queen: a fun-loving, considerate, charismatic, thoughtful and energetic go-getter, a teenager who is all too often judged too harshly. Whatever the truth, Mary's iconic status and hold on the imagination is set to continue, as this recent exhibition on her cultural legacy shows.
Barbara Henderson is the award-winning author of eleven books. Her new title, The Boy, the Witch and the Queen of Scots, is out from Luath Press now. Find out more about Barbara at www.barbarahenderson.co.uk.
History
was my favourite subject at school and it still fascinates me today – I’ve
always got a pile of history books next to my bed (my favourite place to read!).
What interests me most about history is not the big picture, the great canvas
that shows the rise and fall of empires and kings and queens, but the all the small
portraits of the people who make up history. I want to know about those in the
frontline, the led not the leaders and that’s why I have a fascination with
family history.
This
is what got me into history in the first place – my family story. Everyone will
have something in their family history worth sharing. I help put together a
podcast (We Have Ways Family Stories) in which listeners send in stories of
their relatives from the Second World War. Hundreds were sent in. These range
from tales of brave men and women doing incredible things… to those whose
battle was just to stay alive… to those whose part in history almost makes you
laugh.
One
listener told of a relative who worked at a top-secret weapons factory. The
roof was covered in grass to make it look like a field with a few wooden cows
and sheep scattered around. This person’s job was to climb up on to the roof
each morning and move the cows and sheep around in case the Germans realised
they were always in the same place.
So,
everyone’s family has a story but you have to go out and look for it. That’s
what I did with mine and it’s one of the main reasons I became obsessed with
history.
Bertie Anderson
I’ve
an old photograph hanging in my house of my great-granddad, WH Anderson, known
as Bertie. It’s been handed down the family and I grew up hearing stories of
Bertie and his three brothers, Ronnie, Charlie and Teddie. They were all killed
in the First World War and so I decided I wanted to write their story so we
would have a way of always remembering them and their short lives.
The Anderson brothers
This
is what I found out…
When
war began in the hot summer of 1914, Charlie Anderson, a lieutenant in the
Highland Light Infantry, wrote home that he “was so glad we will all be in this
one together.” Charlie, like many Britons and in particular British soldiers,
was excited at the thought of going to war. He pictured marching off to fight
the Germans with his three brothers at his side. But by the time his brothers
arrived in France, Charlie was already dead.
Charlie’s
war lasted eight days. He went into the trenches on 11 December 1914. On 19
December he took part in an attack on the German lines and was never seen
again. His body was never found. His parents, Nora and Willie, were told he was
missing, but that didn’t mean he was dead. They had to wait seven terrible
months until it was confirmed Charlie was gone forever.
By
then Ronnie was at the front. He joined Charlie’s battalion, determined to ‘do
his bit’, as people at the time used to say.
He
lasted longer than Charlie, but not by long. In October 1915, Ronnie, a tall
man with long legs, didn’t notice he’d stopped by a place in the trench which
was not as deep as the rest. He was shot by a sniper.
What
must this have been like for the two remaining brothers, Bertie and Teddie?
What about Nora and Willie? Two of their children gone, the remaining two now
at the front and in daily danger of suffering the same fate. What was it like
to live like that for day after day, month after month, year after year?
Teddie Anderson
By
March 1918, Teddie was in the Royal Flying Corps – he left school and joined
up. The first time he went abroad was to go to war. If you lasted six months at
the front as a pilot, you were sent home to be an instructor – most pilots
didn’t last that long. Teddie sent long letters home from France. In one he
wrote about singing all the way home after surviving a raid on some German
observation balloons. I picture him sitting in the cockpit, swaddled in his
massive leather coat with its fur collar, scarf flapping in the wind and
goggles fixed tight, shouting out his song. I wonder what song it was?
On
16 March 1918, Teddie, now an instructor in Kent, suffered a catastrophic
engine failure while on a test flight. His injuries were fatal. “He slipped
away to a better place,” the nurse who treated him wrote to Nora.
Nora
put a thin black line through 16 on her pocket March calendar. Nine days later
she made another mark.
On
21 March, the Germans launched a huge attack, a last bid to win the war. Bertie
and his men of the Highland Light Infantry stood in their way. On 25 March he
was killed. He’d spent his final day leading his men in attack after attack. He
died a hero – later awarded a Victoria Cross. The medal is in the Imperial War
Museum along with photographs and the story of him and his brothers. When I go
to London, I go and see the medal. It feels like I’m saying hello.
The telegram sent to Bertie's wife, Gertie, informing her that he'd been killed
Bertie
never knew of the medal, or the fact he would be considered a hero. I wonder
what Nora, his mother, made of it. Four children, all gone in the space of four
years. How do you cope with that? She made an album about her boys, photographs
and letters and newspaper cuttings, everything she had of them. All she had
left of them.
I’ve
got the album. I’m looking after it until I hand it on to my children and I
hope they will hand it on in due course. And that way someone will always
remember Nora’s boys, Bertie, Ronnie, Charlie and Teddie.
Robin Scott-Elliot has been a sports journalist for 25 years with the BBC, ITV, the Sunday Times, the Independent and the ‘i’, covering every sport you can think of and a few you probably can’t. He threw that all away to move home to Scotland and chase his dream of writing books instead of football reports. Once there his daughters persuaded him to write a story for them and that is how his career as a children's author began. Finding Treasure Island is his latest book and is published by Cranachan.
Hi, I was absolutely delighted to be asked to make a film
about mudlarking* for the Time Tunnellers.
If you don’t know, mudlarking is
searching the Thames foreshore at low tide to see what historical treasures you
can find, and you need a permit from the Port of London Authority to do it. I’m always more than happy to talk about
mudlarking, so I set off on a chilly late winter’s day to see what the Thames
would give me.
Mudlarkers look for objects from the past on the banks of the Thames
The tide wasn’t particularly low, but the Thames was
generous, as she usually is. My favourite finds were a tiny 17th
century pipe bowl and a lovely nugget of fool’s gold. Someone suggested that I
break it open to see what it’s like inside, but I think it’s beautiful as it
is. What do you think?? What would you do?
One of Kate's mudlarking finds
I didn’t come across my dream find: a bellarmine jug or
witch bottle. They were used in the 17th century to ward off
witchcraft. Superstitious people filled them with nail clippings, hair, red
thread and even urine to counteract witches’ spells. Often they would be buried
under the doorway of a house, or beneath the fireplace. Others were simply used
to transport alcohol and thrown into the Thames when empty.
I did find the handle
of one, and also the eye from the representation of an angry-looking man. These
were applied to the front of bellarmine bottles. I dream about finding a whole one and if I
ever do, I’ll be shouting about it from the rooftops.
Clay pipes are one object that can be found by mudlarkers - the original mudlarkers were poor children.
My first Mudlark Mystery,
The Grinning Throat, features a witch bottle and on the front cover, Edie
Lighterman, one of my protagonists, is shown holding one. That will have to do
until I find a real one. Watch this space…
'My first thought is that it’s a pig that someone has lost to the river. Perhaps it fell off one of the barges that choke up the Thames. They’re a constant feature, toiling up and down, day and night, giving off black smoke that clings to the water.'
Joe (15) and Edie (13) are orphans living in Victorian London. Forever worried that they will be sent to the dreaded workhouse, they scratch out a living the best way they can by mudlarking on the foreshore of the River Thames and selling their finds to the notorious Hempson. One day they discover something macabre, and it will change their lives forever.
The Grinning Throat is the first in the trilogy of The Mudlark Mysteries. Written by award winning author, Kate Wiseman, it is historical fiction at its best. Suitable for readers from age 9 and upwards.
The Grinning Throat has been longlisted in the historical Association's Young Quills 2024 award.
Kate Wiseman is an author and mudlark. She grew up in Oxford in the 1970s and was the first in her family to go to university, at the age of 38. She loved it so much, she went on to take a master’s degree as well. That gave her the courage to have a go at what she’d always dreamed of doing: being a writer. Kate loves visiting schools to deliver creative writing workshops based on mudlarking and her books.
Find out more about mudlarking and Kate's other books at Katewiseman.co.uk
*Mudlarkers in London must have a Thames Foreshore Permit which can be obtained from the Port of London Authority. All objects which are three hundred years old or more must be reported to the Museum of London. Mudlarks arrange regular appointments with a Finds Liaison Officer who records the artefacts on the Portable Antiquities Scheme managed by the British Museum.
If you go into a bookshop or library today there
will be a Children’s Section – of course there will. And you will be spoilt for
choice. There have never been so many books written for young people. But it
hasn’t always been like this. Far from it – the history of children’s books is
not a long one, certainly compared to adult literature.
Children are spoiled for choice in many independent bookshops
(photograph Susan Brownrigg)
We have to fast-forward to the 19th
century to see the first real age of books for young people. There had been
occasional pioneers in previous centuries, but in the 17th century the
few books aimed at children were mostly about being ‘good’ – and the horrors
that would befall you if you weren’t.
In the Victorian era, for many children in Britain,
the poor, the ones in ever-growing factories or getting shoved up chimneys,
there would have been next to no access to books. But for the middle class, a
group growing by the day, this was the first golden age of children’s
literature. And certainly it’s remarkable how many books published in the 19th
century are still adored.
A selection of favourite children's classics
Photo Robin Scott-Eliot
I’m
going to stay largely British, with a nod to America, because there just isn’t
space to squeeze everything in from around the globe.
In
1846 Edward Lear published A Book of Nonsense. It did what it said on the tin
and was a huge hit. Lear wrote Limericks and nonsense poetry, the Owl and the
Pussycat his most famous. He played with words, made up words – the owl and the
pussycat took a runcible spoon with them – he showed children (and adults) that
reading and writing can be fun.
Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson did something similar in novel form 20 years later in one of
the most famous children’s books ever written.
Who?
Dodgson
took the pen name Lewis Carroll and wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
published in 1865. Dodgson’s story challenged everything… what is normal, how
adults behave, how adults expect children to behave – and it entertained.
Throughout
this era technology was constantly improving, mass producing books was becoming
easier, therefore books could be cheaper. Children’s publishers became pioneers
of book covers as we know them today, using illustrations, pictures and
designs.
There
still remained a consensus in Victorian Britain that children should be
protected from the real world with all its horrors and cruelties. Then along
came Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure Island – an adventure story that does
not shield young readers from anything, nor its hero Jim. It throws us into a
scary world but also one of enormous excitement. Stevenson was one of the first
writers not to talk down to children; he wrote for them as equals.
Treasure
Island takes its place in a late 19th century, early 20th
century bookshelf that could be found in homes today. Run a finger along our
bookshelf… Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Peter Pan, the Jungle Book, the
Wizard of Oz, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (the first great boarding school story),
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green
Gables, Beatrix Potter’s stories…
Some
have lasted better than others, but many still have a golden glow or have had a
significant influence on the stories that followed in the years to come.
Books from the 20s and 30s are still loved by readers today
Photo Susan Brownrigg
The 1920s and 1930s was a thin time for children's books, but there are titles which will be familiar to readers today.
A.A Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, Doctor Doolittle, Mary Poppins, The Hobbit and others continue to be chosen by children, and gifted by parents and grandparents wishing to pass on their favourites to a new generation. While film and animation adaptations as well as merchandising (who can resist a cuddly Pooh bear) continue to keep these stories alive.
Book jackets became more vibrant and colourful to entice shoppers and the Just William and the Chalet School books could use their covers to make it obvious they were part of a series. Some authors even began to illustrate their own covers, including Hugh Lofting (Doctor Doolittle again), Arthur Ransome while J R R Tolkien (The Hobbit) and T.S Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) designed their's. Artwork could also be very appealing in this period, for example E H Sheppard's beautifully illustrations for the A.A Milne books and Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.
Some popular books started out in a different format. Rupert the Bear, first created by Mary Tourtel, began life as a comic strip in the Daily Express (where he still appears every day) while The Velveteen Rabbit (or how toys become real) by Margery Williams was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1921. The book was illustrated by William Nicholson and is still in print today.
Spot any favourites? Photo by Matt Wainwright
In the wake of the Second World War, publishers were looking for children's books that recalled an idyllic Britain to contrast with the reality of rationing and the enormous amount of work it was taking to rebuild the nation.
This period is sometimes called a Second Golden Age of children's publishing. The industry was small enough that publishers were still selecting authors and illustrators very carefully, but the developments in printing technology and the growing availability of printing materials meant that more and more books were being released and read. This, coupled with the influence of editors from the United States, meant that children’s publishing was beginning its journey towards becoming Big Business.
The Second World War loomed large in children’s fiction, including fantasies like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (in which the children are evacuated to the country), and more realistic books like Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden and, later, Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian.
British middle-grade fiction thrived in the 1960s and 70s. Roald Dahl captivated imaginations with classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where magical worlds unfolded alongside pointed life lessons. Dahl’s books represented the changes taking place in Britain in the 60s: they were still very moralistic, with clear ideas of right and wrong—but they were also anarchic and anti-authority, reacting against the strict upbringing that many of the children's authors of this period had experienced.
Across the Atlantic, Judy Blume’s classic Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret opened up the mind of a preteen girl and dealt frankly with topics such as young love and periods, while in the UK The Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend explored a teenage boy’s attitudes towards adolescence and 1980s politics. While there was no such market as ‘young adult’ yet, these books were some of the first to explicitly explore the teenage experience for a teen audience.
Fantasy experienced a resurgence in the later part of the twentieth century, as readers and publishers rediscovered Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Building on Tolkien's vision of a rich fantasy world, British authors like Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising series), Alan Garner (Elidor) and Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy) explored surprisingly adult themes, offering young readers narratives rich in fantasy, mythology, and moral complexity.
The second half of the century also saw a growth in children’s picture books, with more experimental formats and surprising stories being explored. Shirley Hughes painted vivid pictures of childhood with the Alfie books and Dogger; Dr. Suess created a madcap rhyming world in classics like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham; Maurice Sendak’s dark and atmospheric Where the Wild Things Are resonated with the heightened emotions of children; and Raymond Briggs bridged the gap between children and adults with his modern fairytale The Snowman and the firmly adult reflections on Cold War fears in When the Wind Blows.
The latter part of the twentieth century also witnessed a growing commitment to diversity in British children's literature. Authors like Malorie Blackman addressed issues of identity, discrimination, and inclusion, resonating with readers of all backgrounds. Representation of class and race was still not comprehensive, however, and working class and Black authors struggled for legitimacy in an industry that still favoured white, middle class writers.
Between the Second World War and the dawn of the next millennium, Children’s publishing had grown from a cottage industry to a thriving business model.
Readers are spoiled for choice with books
written in the 1990s and onwards!
Photo Barbara Henderson
And then came along a single Mum in
Edinburgh, who exploded the world of children’s publishing while jobbing as a
teacher. You have guessed it: JK Rowling and her generation-defining boy
wizard, Harry Potter, changed our world!
The first book in the series, The Philosopher’s Stone (1997),
was published quietly with an initial print run of only 500. No one could have
possibly foreseen how huge and influential Rowling’s wizarding world would
become – least of all the author who had received a considerable clutch of
rejections from publishers and agents.
The groundwork had been laid in the months before: Philip Pullman’s
ambitious His Dark Materials trilogy was already underway.
Both his and Rowling’s series would be turned into multi-million budget film
franchises, further extending the reach of their books.
No one could deny it now – a new golden age of children’s publishing had begun,
and children’s books were selling in their millions.
Those new instant classics kept coming thick and fast: Louis
Sachar’s Holes (1998), Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo (1999),
Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl (2001), Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002)
and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.
While Donaldson has dominated the picture book market in the UK ever since, the
crowded Middle Grade category sported four genres in the main: humour,
including Horrid Henry and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jacqueline Wilson’s real-life
contemporary heroines, action series such as Alex Rider and fantasy, including
the massively successful How to Train Your Dragon series.
Rowling and Pullman occupied the upper limits of the age group
edging into YA territory which would have its own renaissance with dystopian
series fiction like Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses (2001)
and American imports such as The Hunger Games (2008) and
the Mazerunner (2009) and Divergent (2011)
series.
Vampires also had their moment with the Twilight (2005)
Saga. Back in Middle Grade territory, Robin Stevens and her Murder Most
Unladylike (2014) series and Katherine Rundell with her range of
quirky adventures ushered in a bunch of new kids on the block.
But recently, there has been another trend: the celebrity author. The most
ubiquitous of these is one David Walliams, sure to be stacked sky-high on a
supermarket shelf near you. But all is not lost! Riding on the waves of these
phenomenally successful books are hundreds of quieter authors with quirky and
imaginative books in more genres one could count.
If I may pick one particular favourite? The Executioner’s
Daughterby Jane Hardstaff (2014) where history meets just the right
amount of magic.
