Local Legend Edith Nesbitt, with Time Tunneller Matthew Wainwright

My children love Edith Nesbit’s books. I love them too! I remember reading them when I was younger, and now my children listen to them in the car on the way home from school.

You’ve probably heard of some of her books, even if you haven’t read them: The Railway Children is probably her most famous, but she also wrote Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet, and The Enchanted Castle (as well as many, many others!)

At the time Edith was writing, over 100 years ago, she was just as famous as any best-selling children’s author today. Children awaited each new book eagerly–and with good reason.

Edith had a ferocious imagination, writing stories full of magic, adventure and drama, and she understood how children think: what they love, fear and desire.

Her depiction of sibling relationships is note-perfect, capturing the little jokes and quarrels that exist between brothers and sisters, as well as the fierce loyalty that can turn in an instant to bitter hostility, then back again in the next second!

You may be wondering why I am writing about Edith Nesbitt. Well, as it turns out she lived for a while not very far from where I live now – in Eltham in south-east London!

Her home was a place called Well Hall, an 18th century manor house which was built on the remains of a much earlier, medieval manor house of the same name.

Interestingly, there were two manor houses recorded in Eltham in 1100: East Horne and Well Hall. Neither manor is still standing (unfortunately) but their names remain.

Well Hall gives its name to Well Hall Road and Well Hall Pleasaunce – a sort of small park or garden – and East Horne manor lives on in the neighbourhood of Horn Park, which is in fact where I live!

As I said, the original medieval Well Hall manor was pulled down and rebuilt in the 18th century, but the barn that was built next door in the Tudor era remains, and is home to the Tudor Barn restaurant today.

Edith Nesbit lived in Well Hall from 1899 to around 1920. During this time she wrote many of her most famous novels, including the ‘Psammead Series’ (Five Children and It; The Phoenix and the Carpet; The Story of the Amulet), The Railway Children and The Enchanted Castle.

If you visit Well Hall Pleasaunce today (as I did) you’ll find some lovely wood carvings of the Psammead (the sand fairy from Five Children and It), the Phoenix (the magical fire bird from The Phoenix and the Carpet) and a dragon in honour of the many magical creatures Edith Nesbit wrote about.

I had a great time walking in Edith’s footsteps (you can see my outing in the video that goes with this blog post). It was wonderful to walk where she would have walked, and to think what she might have seen and smelled and heard when she lived there.

The place would have been a lot quieter, with no main road, much fewer shops, and the whole place consisting of a small village in the countryside rather than a busy London suburb.

Despite these differences, however, it was very moving to have that connection to someone who was so influential in children’s writing.

Later in the day I visited Railway Children Walk in nearby Grove Park. It’s not much – just a narrow footpath behind some houses, leading to a bridge over a railway line – but as I walked down I had the sensation of walking away from the bustle of London and into a quiet place all by itself.

It was as if I was walking back in time to that period when there were fewer cars and no planes, no mobile phones and no internet. Back, in fact, to the era of The Railway Children, when trains ran on steam and the two World Wars hadn’t happened yet.

It reminded me that history isn’t confined to the past: it’s all around us. Sometimes it’s hidden, and you have to go digging for it; but sometimes you’ll come across it quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

It’ll be there in a place name, a street sign, a plaque on a wall or a rise in the ground. If you don’t know what it is you’ll probably miss it – but if you go out in your local area with an idea of what to look for you’ll find the past rushing up to meet you.

With that in mind, here’s this week’s Writing Challenge. In fact it’s not so much a challenge as an adventure!

Your challenge is to find out about a person who lived in your local area a long time ago, and see if you can find anything of them left behind, and record it on the sheet. They don't have to be very famous, but it would be good to know if they did something important or helpful.

You might not find much. It might just be a street name; it might be a house where they lived; it might be a path they used to walk along. Whatever it is, see if you can find it, and either draw it or take a picture.

Then write a description of the place as it might have looked when that person was alive. If it was long enough ago it might have changed a lot – or it might not have changed at all! Either way, it’s fascinating to think about how the past relates to the present. Include the person in your scene if you can.

Enjoy the activity, and happy time tunnelling!

Finding Treasure Island - Robin Scott Elliot on Scotland, Stevenson and Seeking a Story

“Where do you get your ideas from?” It’s a question I get asked all the time – and I’m sure all authors do. And every time I get asked my mind goes blank. But it’s a good question… if only I knew the answer, everybody’s answer. 

Where do you get your ideas from? I want to ask it of every author or movie maker. In fact, anyone who has created something that interests me. The scientist in their lab discovering, say, the Covid jag, the engineer who invented the jet engine. Where did you get your idea from Frank Whittle? What was the Eureka moment?

It was Archimedes, the ancient Greek scholar, who is supposed to have had the original Eureka moment – it’s a Greek word meaning ‘I’ve got it’. Legend has it he leapt from his bath and ran naked into the street shouting ‘Eureka’. 

Legend is not always right. I’ve made up a legend to tell the story of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Eureka moment; the moment that was to change his life forever, the moment that set him on the course to become one of the best known writers in the world, a fame that lasts to this day more than a century after he died aged only 44 in Samoa. 

My ideas tend to begin as a muddle of thoughts. There is rarely a Eureka moment, although I did have one for my second book, Acrobats of Agra. They happen – and it feels fantastic when they do. There was a great deal of chance involved too. I was in a bookshop with my daughter, she was taking ages to make her choice (she loves books), I wandered downstairs, saw the history section (I love history), saw an old book on the Indian Mutiny that interested me, bought it and while reading came across a single line about a French travelling circus being trapped in the siege of Agra. Eureka! 

There’s a large serving of serendipidity in there too – several ‘What-ifs’. And that applies to Stevenson and his idea for Treasure Island.

Come back to 1881. Queen Victoria is on the throne, and staying near where my story is set. She’s on holiday at Balmoral, her Highland home (and makes a fleeting appearance in the book). 

The presence of the Queen is why Braemar, the nearby village, became such a popular destination. Stevenson arrived at Old Mrs McGregor’s Cottage in Braemar with his mother and father, his American wife Fanny and Sam, her teenage son, his old nanny, known as Cummy, Maggie, his parents’ maid, and a dog.

Stevenson was 30. He’d wanted to be a writer for as long as he could remember. And he was not a well man, had been sickly since childhood. Stevenson never thought he’d live a long life – so he really did worry time was running out. 

He’d written well-received travel books but had never managed to finish a novel. He contemplated turning his back on fiction. Perhaps history was the way to go, perhaps a biography of the Duke of Wellington… He needed something, anything, a spark… And then it started to rain – of course it did, this was a Scottish summer holiday – and Stevenson had to stop worrying about himself and turn attention to his new stepson.

Sam Osbourne was 13 and something of a lost soul. He’d been dragged from place to place through his short life. 

His father was an adventurer, a man always one break from making it big. And family seems to have come a poor second to his dreams of riches. The family shuffled around the wild west of the US and when his parents split, Sam, his younger brother and older sister, were taken off to Europe by Fanny, who fancied herself as an artist. 

It was in France that Stevenson first leapt into their lives, jumping through a doorway into a hotel in Grez-sur-Long, a small town south of Paris that had become an artists’ colony. By then Sam’s younger brother, Hervey, had died. His sister, Bel, was 10 years older. Sam felt alone. 

From Paris, they went to London, returned to California then back across the Atlantic to Scotland. In this strange new land – how different to California – Sam clung to his new stepfather. 

They developed a bond (much of the suggestion for this comes from Sam himself, but they do seem to have been close) and so one rainy afternoon in Braemar – imagine the rain smattering against the small windows of the cottage, the fire spitting and crackling – Stevenson reached for a piece of paper and drew a sketch to amuse a bored Sam. It was a map. A map of an island that over the course of the afternoon grew ever more detailed until finally Stevenson wrote two words on the bottom and handed it to Sam. ‘Treasure Island,’ Stevenson had written and here was the spark. Eureka! 

Treasure Island, a story that has sold millions of copies, been made into a movie time and time again and in a host of different languages. It’s a story that has defined the image of a pirate, a treasure hunt; it is the adventure story. Stevenson later wrote an essay on how he came up with the story. But, rather like some of his characters, Stevenson is an unreliable narrator. His later account of how he came up with the idea for Jekyll and Hyde – in a dream – is barely believable, and differed to other versions he told friends and family.

It makes for a good story though – and that is what Stevenson is all about. Perhaps it was freeing his mind of his worries just for one afternoon that helped Stevenson come up with Treasure Island; thinking about Sam rather than himself (what would have happened if it hadn’t rained?).

It wasn’t an original idea. Pirates had featured in plenty of other stories but then most ideas borrow something from other books, paintings, movies.

What Stevenson did was take his idea and make it into something unforgettable. In Finding Treasure Island I have tried to play with Stevenson’s idea and where it came from. Could it have come from Sam? Could Sam’s own adventures in the magical, mysterious glens, forests and hills around Braemar have foreshadowed Jim Hawkins’ trials and tribulations on Treasure Island?

It's Sam who tells us the story in Finding Treasure Island; this is his version of history. But is it true? Perhaps. But what is undoubtedly true is that it all started with a map; a map and an ‘Eureka!’ moment.

Writing challenge – draw a map. It can be an island, a treasure island, a forest, a town, your own street and house – anywhere – but it must include an X because as every treasure seeker knows, X marks the spot. Once you’ve drawn your map, which can include dragons or castles or swamps or multi-storey car parks and shopping centres, write a short story about it.

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.

Recycling, Victorian Style: Sweetheart Brooches by Barbara Henderson

Remember that time when we…? We often share precious memories, don’t we? We love to look back on times, people and places which are special to us, or which meant something at the time. Why else would there be such a thriving souvenir trade in tourist hotspots, for example? And photographs fulfil the same purpose – they help us hold on to things and events in the past which we may otherwise forget. The Victorian construction workers who built the first significant steel bridge across the waters of the Firt of Forth were no different – only, they rarely had photography at their disposal. If they wanted a memento of their time spent working on the bridge, they had to be ingenious and thrifty – and they came up with a fantastic solution.

The Forth Bridge is constructed from shaped and cut steel, riveted together by at least 6.5 million rivets. But this sort of construction effort did not come about without waste – there would have been many steel offcuts lying around in the famous workshops on the hillside. The workers found a good use for some of this waste material: jewellery for their loved ones.

Yes, I know it sounds a little strange: taking bits of a bridge and turning the waste material into something to be admired and stared at? The resulting brooches and pendants were often simple in shape, cut using the tools of the steel trade, and polished until they resembled the more precious silver. In addition to cutting, there were skilled engravers on site who knew how to add words and decoration to such jewellery. Imagine your delight if you were a girl, courted by such a bridge worker (“brigger” was the word used for the workforce)! You may find your own name engraved on the brooch, or perhaps the name of your admirer who gave you the piece. Many of the men took great pride in being involved in such important work, and they wanted to shout about it!

Occasionally, the offcuts were worked on by a skilled jeweller instead of the workmen themselves, resulting in a more ornamental, detailed design.

I love that there are still items of jewellery made from bridge offcuts in drawers and attics around the country. If only we knew their stories!

Writing challenge: Think of a person who is special to you: a parent, a friend, a relative… Now think of a place that means something to both of you. Design a brooch or pendant, containing words – what would it say? Now write a card which would accompany such a beautiful and meaningful gift. Barbara Henderson is a Time Tunneller. Her latest historical adventure is Rivet Boy, set during the construction of the Forth Bridge.

The History of Holidays by Catherine Randall

The first holidays were religious festivals or holy days, which is of course where the word ‘holiday’ comes from.  In Britain, these were traditionally based around Christian festivals such as Christmas, Easter and saints’ days and they were an opportunity for people to take time away from their work to gather together and celebrate.  The festival would normally begin with a service in the local church and decorating the church with fresh greenery and flowers would be part of the fun. The rest of the day would be given up to feasting, music, parades, dancing and drinking. They were days out of the ordinary, days to look forward to, days to remember, which is how we still think of holidays.

Church flower festivals are an echo of the very first holidays

Until the Victorian age, only the very wealthiest people travelled away for a holiday! Most people couldn’t take more than a day or so away from their work on the land, travelling was slow, and anyway – where would they go?

Then two things happened which changed British summer holidays for ever – the new idea that seawater was actually good for you and, secondly, the arrival of the railways.

From the early 1700s onwards, sea bathing became a recommended cure for all kinds of illnesses, and gradually coastal towns such as Scarborough, Whitby, Margate and Brighton grew into seaside resorts where you could go for a health-giving dip in the sea and enjoy the bracing sea air. But there was no splashing around in your bathing costume with your rubber ring  - the bather entered the sea from a bathing machine, a sort of mobile changing room wheeled into the water. Women bathed fully dressed although, rather surprisingly, until the 1860s men could bathe in the nude! A canvas modesty hood attached to the end of the machine concealed the bather from spectators on the beach.

William Powell Frith’s painting Life at the Seaside, Ramsgate Sands is a fascinating Victorian seaside scene. Note the bathing machines in the background on the right (Royal Collection Trust)

Seaside towns soon sprouted assembly halls, theatres and libraries to entertain their visitors when they weren’t sea bathing. But these coastal resorts were the preserve of the wealthy classes who had the time and the means to make the long coach journeys from their fashionable homes in London or Bath.   

All this changed with the coming of the railways. From the 1840s, it was possible for the first time for large numbers of people to travel from inland towns and cities to the coast. Genteel resorts like Weymouth, Scarborough and Brighton now saw an influx of new visitors while resorts such as Blackpool and Llandudno, Cromer and Minehead all grew up in response to the growing demand from the middle classes for a jolly day out at the seaside.

Loughborough Central Station (photo: David Middleton)

It wasn’t long before the working classes too were jumping on trains and joining their more affluent neighbours at the beach. The increasing popularity of the seaside among all social classes can be seen in the building of the piers in Blackpool. Blackpool began as a middle-class resort. It opened its first pier – North Pier - in May 1863 as an attraction for middle-class Victorians to stroll along while taking the health-giving sea air. By 1868, a new influx of working people led to the construction of Central Pier (originally called South Pier), which boasted opportunities for dancing, music and drinking.

Blackpool's North Pier (photo: Susan Brownrigg)

Blackpool was at the very forefront of seaside entertainment for the working classes. After Blackpool station opened in 1846, its easy accessibility from the Lancashire mill towns, coupled with the northern tradition of the ‘wakes week’ (a week when all the factories in a particular town closed down for maintenance), led to thousands of holidaymakers taking the train to Blackpool each year. They went to enjoy the wide beaches, the fresh air and the increasing number of entertainments that the enterprising town businesses provided for their amusement.

Blackpool Tower was opened in 1894 (photo: Susan Brownrigg)

While the workers of the Lancashire mill towns were jumping on trains and speeding off to the nearest seaside, a Leicestershire temperance campaigner called Thomas Cook was busy pioneering another type of holiday which stills flourishes today: the package holiday.

Statue of Thomas Cook outside Leicester Railway Station

Thomas Cook was a strict Baptist who at the age of 25 took the temperance pledge to abstain from alcohol, and soon began campaigning for others to do the same. Unlikely as it sounds, the first ‘package holiday’ organised by Thomas Cook was a day trip from Leicester to Loughborough (a distance of 11 miles) for a temperance meeting on 5 July 1841. The one shilling ticket price included rail travel, a ham sandwich and a cup of tea!  Around 485 people paid the shilling to travel on a train hired from the Midland Counties’ Railway for a day of marches, speeches, games and tea. 

The original 1840 Loughborough station used by Thomas Cook no longer exists, but Loughborough Central Station shown here, opened in 1899, is now the headquarters of the Great Central Railway heritage line, where visitors can ride on full-size steam trains. At one stage in the nineteenth century, Loughborough had three railway stations! (photo: David Middleton)

Thomas Cook had realised the potential of arranging trips for others. Just as the railways made seaside holidays accessible to the masses, railways also made possible day excursions to other places of interest. Thomas Cook’s business really took off in 1851 when he organised trips to the Great Exhibition in London for workers from the Midlands and Yorkshire. By the end of the Exhibition, 150,000 people had travelled with Thomas Cook. Only four years later Thomas Cook was leading his first continental tour to Belgium, Germany and on to Paris. 

Early postcard from Blackpool (photo: Susan Brownrigg)

WRITING CHALLENGE

Imagine you are a Victorian child, travelling by steam train to go to the seaside for the day. Can you write a postcard to someone at home telling them about your amazing experience? What was the most exciting thing – travelling on the train, with the steam billowing around you, or maybe it was paddling in the sea for the first time. Did you walk along the pier and listen to the band? Or maybe you did some fishing from the end of the pier? Was it sunny, or did you have to huddle under an umbrella? What did you have to eat? 

Write a postcard, or even a letter, about your day trip.

Watch Catherine's YouTube video about Victorian holidays by clicking here

Catherine Randall is the author of The White Phoenix , an historical novel for 9-12 year olds set in London, 1666. It was shortlisted for the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award 2021. Catherine is currently working on a children's novel set in Victorian London.

The White Phoenix is published by the Book Guild and available from bookshops and online retailers.

For more information, go to Catherine’s website: www.catherinerandall.com.

Twitter: @Crr1Randall.

#NationalTechnologyDay: Sir William Arrol

For National Technology day, I thought I would give you all an insight into the life of Forth Bridge Engineer William Arrol, one of the most innovative and respected bridge builders of the Victorian era. His name deserves to be much better known than it is, considering his huge contribution to engineering and technology. I was lucky enough to visit an exhibition about him and his legacy earlier this spring, to do a couple of author events to accompany the exhibition, but the best bit, surely, was to see the exhibits for myself. This is William Arrol:

It's a fair hike from my home in the Highlands to the exhibition at Ayr's Rozelle House - to my great shame, I had only passed through the town so far, so I jumped at the chance to visit, courtesy of the Scottish Book Trust's Live Literature funding. I was picked up by Kirsty Menzies, the researcher behind the Arrol exhibition and part of Friends of Seafield House, William Arrol's residence currently undergoing ambitious refurbishment. With a personal family connection to the Arrols, she is a fountain of knowledge and was the ideal companion for my visit.

My workshops were fun, and I loved reading some of the Arrol sections from Rivet Boy in the place where he had lived. However, most memorable of all was the time spent browsing the handful of rooms devoted to the great Victorian engineer. Not only did he build iconic landmarks like the Forth Bridge, the replacement Tay Bridge (following the Tay Bridge disaster), Tower Bridge in London and even a bridge across the River Nile in Cairo. No, he also invented tools and practices to make metal work more efficient, such as the hydraulic riveting machine. In addition, his company built gantries, cranes and workshops, including the one on which the Titanic and her sister ship the Olympia were built in Belfast.

Workmen using the Arrol riveting machine on a construction site

It is clear that Arrol was a workaholic. However, isn't it surprising that a man of his achievements didn't go to university? Imagine: he didn't even attend secondary school!

I was particularly struck by his demeanour in this photograph where he is on the right, pictured alongside Forth Bridge designer Sir John Fowler and Fowler's wife. Look at the contrast! The Fowlers are wealthy and self-assured, well-dressed and comfortable. Perhaps they are used to having their photograph taken. Arrol, on the other hand, retains the slightly awkward air of an imposter. Born in Houston near Paisley, Arrol left school before the age of 10 to become a piecer in a cotton mill - he was a working man, and remained a working man all his life, despite his considerable wealth and success. Look at the size of those hands! Arrol's personal life, like our own lives, was far from straightforward. In the exhibition, the ups and downs of complicated family dynamics are hinted at, but here was clearly a man who appreciated the beauty of a job well done or a thing well made.

We visitors could inspect the cranes and tools he invented, but I was most impressed by the traces of the man himself - for example, I was moved to see his actual signature, and to spot his initials in the metalwork around his personal home. Most contemporary accounts seem to agree that as well as a technological pioneer, he was a genuine, considerate and immensely talented man who commanded respect from all sections of the Victorian society he inhabited. I am honoured to have met him here. Well, sort of anyway! If you want, do check out the video I made for the Time Tunnellers' YouTube channel:

Writing Challenge: When Sir William Arrol spotted a problem, he often used technology to solve it. Your turn! Think of a problem. Then invent a fictional machine which could solve that problem and write a ten-step instruction leaflet to use your invention. You can have fun illustrating it too!

Barbara with her book Rivet Boy, in front of the Arrol-built Forth Bridge. William Arrol is a character in the novel which is set during the Bridge's construction in 1888-1890 Buy the book here. Find out more about Barbara on her website.

Ghost signs: messages from the past by Matthew Wainwright

 

The high street was another matter: now that the day was underway it was a crawling, heaving, swelling mass of life. Horse-drawn omnibus carriages rumbled constantly to and fro, overflowing with passengers, advertisements in bold letters plastered over every available surface. 

Out of the Smoke - Chapter 15

Advertising, in one form or another, has been around since the dawn of civilisation. From political messages inscribed on a tablet in ancient Egypt, to interactive video screens on the streets of present-day Tokyo, people have always tried to get their messages across to other people in the most effective way possible.

The Narmer Palette: It possibly depicts the unification of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms in Ancient Egypt.

You could argue that the Victorian era was a boom time for advertising. The middle classes were becoming more well-off, which meant they had money to spare for all kinds of things that would make their lives easier. And this meant that companies had a growing market to appeal to.

In the 19th century you could find adverts everywhere: in newspapers, in magazines, in books, on the sides of omnibus carriages, and on the sides of buildings. The average person in a Victorian town centre of any size was bombarded with colourful images and slogans wherever they went.

Street advertising in 19th century London
Watercolour by John Orlando Parry, "A London Street Scene" 1835, in the Alfred Dunhill Collection

Virtually all of these adverts have now disappeared, except where they are captured in drawings and photographs or preserved in museums. But if you look a little more carefully, you may just see the echoes of some of these adverts on the buildings around you …

Stroll through just about any medium-sized town or city in England, and you will see a jumble of different kinds of buildings. Some of these buildings are new — all glass and steel — and others are old, built of red brick. On the sides of some of these buildings, if you look carefully, you might just see something called a ghost sign!

A ghost sign lurking behind some more recent advertising ...

Ghost signs are … well, just that: they’re the ghosts of old advertisements, originally painted directly onto the sides of buildings and now faded — sometimes almost to nothing.

Can you spot the ghost sign ...?

The earliest record of a painted advert is from 1803, when a German visitor wrote about a sign advertising razor blades in Ludgate Hill — which means that ghost signs are a window that enables us to look over 200 years into the past!

Ghost signs can tell us the kind of shops and businesses that were around in an area, what people were most interested in, and what business wanted people to buy.

A ghost sign advert for an estate agent in South London

They can also tell us about the language that people used: instead of advertising a cafe, for instance, you might see ghost signs talking about a ‘dining room’ or a ‘coffee and dining room’. It’s a fascinating insight into the way people spoke, recorded right there on a wall for everyone to see!

I love things like ghost signs. They’re a reminder that history isn’t just in the past: it’s all around us, right there for us to see. If you take a moment, stop and look at your surroundings, you’re sure to find something that someone has left behind. My advice is: look up. You’d be surprised what you might see on the side of a building or perched on a roof!

Writing challenge

Imagine a child living 200 years in the future. They come across a ‘ghost sign’ left over from today! 

• What is the sign they find? Is it an advert for a game or a film, or perhaps for a new book? Is it a shop sign?
• What do the surroundings of the sign look like? Is it still a town or a city, or has it become something completely different?
• How would that child feel about the sign, and what would they think about the people who made it (us)?

A modern painted sign in London that might become a ghost sign one day ...

Write a short scene of the child discovering the sign. Describe the sign and its surroundings, and write what the child thinks and feels about the sign. Happy writing, and keep time tunnelling!

 

Matthew Wainwright is an author of historical fiction for children and teenagers.

Out of the Smoke is available at all good bookshops and online.

You can find out more about Matthew and his books on his website.

The Victorian Can-Do Spirit

 

What a can-do bunch the Victorians were!

Queen Victoria

I decided to return to the Victorian age in my latest book Rivet Boy for a whole lot of reasons. It was the age of reason, of invention, of engineering, of science and arguably, the age of the novel, too. Imagine a world without Dickens or Darwin, Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, John Ruskin, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Gustave Eiffel, The Bronte sisters, Florence Nightingale, Ada Lovelace, Alexander Graham Bell…. And that’s just off the top off my head.

I have been privileged to indulge my love of all things Victorian in my latest book, Rivet Boy. As the daughter of an engineer, I have been around machinery all my life. While my father never worked in construction, I am well used to asking myself the questions: how does that work? How did they do that? We visited the iconic Forth Bridge when I was a child in the early eighties.

Barbara with her sister, brother-in-law and mother, visiting the Forth Bridge as a child. 

While browsing through a photography book of Victorian Scotland, I came across a chapter on the building of the iconic Forth Bridge. I was staggered by the images. How did that work? How did they do that? I was interested in the architects and engineers who built the structure, yes – but I was even more interested in the blurred faces of the people who worked on the site, day in and day out. I looked for a book on the subject (my usual go-to next step if something captures my interest) and bingo! The Briggers, written by Elspeth Wills with a team of South Queensferry-based researchers features details and often even images of the long-forgotten workers who helped to achieve one of the greatest engineering feats in history. These jobs were dangerous!

 For many years the figure of deaths quoted was 57 nameless casualties. However, more recent research has revealed the figure to be considerably greater: 73 confirmed – with more than 30 other related deaths. Not exactly a cheering basis for a children’s book. And then I struck gold: A newspaper article:

Here was a 12-year-old boy who survived.

He was to form the basis for my main character. With the help of local researchers I was able to find out where he lived – around the corner of the brand-new Carnegie Library in Dunfermline – the very first in the world. How could I not include it as a setting to contrast with the noise and danger of the building site. In my book, John is a rivet boy, heating and throwing rivets which his team will insert and hammer into place on the giant steel structure. It was skilled and dangerous work, often at great height and without much safety equipment.

A Forth Bridge rivet, with my hand for scale. It's HEAVY!

John may have been one of thousands of ‘Briggers’, but in my book he takes centre stage, alongside his friend Cora, who longs to become an engineer herself. John is at best ambivalent, and often terrified of the structure, but when the Crown Prince’s life is in danger he does not hesitate: knowing the structure like the back of his hand enables him to overcome his fear at the very moment when courage is needed most.

The Victorians loved engineering, and they were exceedingly good at it. William Arrol, in charge of the Forth Bridge construction, went on to build Tower Bridge in London – as far as they were concerned, the sky was the limit. In my opinion, there are not nearly enough books celebrating science and engineering.

We’d do well to channel our inner Victorians, don’t you think?

You can buy Rivet Boy at https://www.cranachanpublishing.co.uk/product/rivet-boy-by-barbara-henderson/