Using the setting in your writing as another character with Ruth Estevez

 

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)     Waves roar, they trip over themselves, a scurry of 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.

Instagram: @ruthestevezwriter

X: @RuthEstevez2

Facebook:  @RuthEstevezM

Website: www.artgoesglobal.wordpress.com

You can buy the Jiddy Vardy Trilogy here: Wave of Nostalgia

 

#MaryQueenofScots - 10 Pictures and a Classroom Resource

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.

My family’s tragic band of brothers - by Robin Scott-Elliot

 

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.

 

 

 

 

A Chilly Afternoon's Mudlarking! by guest author Kate Wiseman

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 17^th 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 17^th 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.

You can buy copies online HERE.

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.

World Book Day special : The history of children's books by The Time Tunnellers

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 19^th century to see the first real age of books for young people. There had been occasional pioneers in previous centuries, but in the 17^th 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 19^th 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 19^th century, early 20^th 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 Daughter by Jane Hardstaff (2014) where history meets just the right amount of magic.

Long live children’s books!

 

 

Taking inspiration from the history of cinema – by Susan Brownrigg

Where do you get your ideas? For me the things I want to write about are the same things I was passionate about as a child.

I loved daytrips to Blackpool with my family when I was growing up, visiting Blackpool Tower, the Illuminations and its many other attractions. So, it felt right to set my 1930s Gracie Fairshaw mystery series there.

For the third book in the series, Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel (published on World Book Day, March 7^th) I decided to set the story around the filming of a movie in the resort.

I knew that another Gracie, Gracie Fields – the Rochdale born superstar singer and actress had made a film in Blackpool in 1934. In fact, I had watched and studied Sing as We Go as part of my degree in journalism, film & broadcasting as well as writing my dissertation on the actress!

Gracie Fields in a special issue of Picturegoer Magazine about Sing as We Go

(author's photograph)

I loved that the film was shot on location, with key scenes recorded at the Pleasurebeach funfair, the open-air baths, sideshows and the Blackpool Tower circus.

Basil Dean directing Sing as we Go at the open-air baths, Blackpool.

In my book, the cast and crew are recording a fictional thriller called Room for a Traitor, when my heroine, young newspaper reporter, Gracie Fairshaw, learns that an important reel of film has gone missing.

To add authenticity to the film-making scenes, I visited Blackpool Central Library and looked at old copies of the Gazette newspaper on microfiche (as I had with the previous two Gracie books.)

I was able to see the cameras that were used and was intrigued by the fact that Gracie had had a body double/stuntwoman. I went on to learn that Lilian Tollis had been a stage actress herself as well as a dancer, sometimes using the name Zetta Morenta.

Body double/Stunt woman Zetta Morenta had a close resemblance
 to actress Gracie Fields (photo Jackie Settle)

I knew I wanted to include a similar character in my story – but I didn’t know much about stunt work. So, I did more research, reading a number of books on the subject.

I learned that in the early days of moviemaking, the stars often performed their own stunts.

In the silent film era, directors, script writers and performers were often women.

Half of all American films made before 1925 were written by women!

Dramatic serials like the Perils of Pauline were very popular with their cliffhangers, and gutsy heroines.

The female stars often performed their own stunts, with many hired because they were strong swimmers, good at driving motorcars, or were skilled acrobats.

Sometimes stuntwomen were hired, and then became leads themselves, but as the work became better paid, men started to take over – wearing wigs and dresses to look like the stars.

It was said that most stunt workers only lasted five years. Lots were killed or badly injured. For example, in 1929, sixteen men were killed, including three stunt pilots making the film Hell’s Angels!

(Sadly, stunt work is still very dangerous. Actor Rory Kinnear, whose father died in a stunt accident, continues to campaign for better training and awareness of the dangers involved.)

With the introduction of sound, cinema attendance grew and the film making became big business – women were pushed aside, and only certain poorer paid roles were generally deemed suitable for them.

Although Hollywood is often the place we associate with film making, Britain had its own studios, most were in London, but there was a northern company - Mancunian Films based in Manchester who also shot a movie in Blackpool - Holidays with Pay.

In 1927 the Cinematograph Films Act was introduced which insisted that a specific percentage of British produced movies that had to be shown domestically. Unfortunately while some brilliant movies were produced, this led to a lot of poorer quality ones too, dubbed 'Quota Quickies.'

The former Odeon cinema, Blackpool.
It opened in 1939 and had 3,088 seats!

(author's photograph)

Unemployment in the 1930s saw people visiting the cinema as an escape from their worries. Many new cinemas were built, some in exotic architectural styles.

By 1938 there were 4,907 cinemas in the UK and around that same time Blackpool alone had 17! 

Inspiration for two more characters in my book came from a real-life director Alfred Hitchcock and editor/screenwriter Alma Reville. They were married and often worked together on exciting thrillers including the first British made ‘talkie’ Blackmail.

I also enjoyed setting scenes in Blackpool’s stunning Winter Gardens. This Victorian era entertainment complex went through a transformation in the 1930s. New rooms were created that looked like a Spanish village, a pirate ship and a baronial hall! These new designs were created by Andrew Mazzei, who also worked as an art director on British films!

The Spanish Hall, Winter Gardens (photograph Susan Brownrigg)

The climax of Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel takes place on the roof of the Regent Cinema in Blackpool – which still exists today, as well as showing popular classic movies, it also houses an antiques centre. I was lucky to be allowed into the projection room - a real treat for a movie lover like me!

Susan Brownrigg in the projection room, The Regent Cinema,

 Blackpool ( author's photograph)

Lights, camera, action!

A new movie being filmed in Blackpool is a real scoop for trainee reporter Gracie Fairshaw.

When she's invited to interview the star, Sally Sunshine, Gracie uncovers a plot as exciting as the one being filmed. Someone has stolen a vital film reel - and then a vicious attack is attempted on Sally!

In a world of body-doubles, stunts, costumes and makeup, not everything is what it seems.
Gracie must go behind the scenes and work out, which of the cast and crew can;t be trusted before the shoot comes to a thrilling climax at the town's cinema.

Gracie Fairshaw and the Missing Reel is published on Thursday 7th March. You can preorder a signed copy HERE

Susan Brownrigg is the author of the Gracie Fairshaw mystery series and Kintana and the Captain's Curse, a treasure hunt adventure featuring pirates and lemurs!
(UCLan Publishing)

Find out more at susanbrownrigg.com