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/

Children At War by Vanessa Harbour

With history we often talk about silent voices – those who have no voice and who had no chance to tell their story. Children could be perceived like that. The period I am passionate about is the Second World War and children play quite a role in it. Many of those roles were all about humanity and freedom.

The reason I am interested in the Second World War is because I was brought up on stories about it. My parents were teenagers at the beginning of the war. My father lied about his age so he could join up early. He drove tanks initially before becoming an officer in the Parachute Regiment.

My mother joined the WRNS and led quite a life, which she loved telling me about.

The perception of children in the UK during the Second World War was that they were evacuated. And yes, over a million children were evacuated with their schools from towns and cities to the safety of the countryside. Most went by train and were settled with foster parents. For some who’d never been outside their cities it was an adventure; for others they were desperately homesick. It was hard to adjust to being separated from family and friends. One of my favourite books about evacuees is Good Night Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian.

However, for those who stayed in the cities things might have been very different. During the Battle of Britain, they might have watched the planes of the RAF and Luftwaffe in dog fights above them. During the Blitz itself, 7,736 children were killed and 7,622 were seriously wounded. The Blitz meant many children were orphaned or a sibling might have been killed during the bombing.

Their education was also disrupted as schools were damaged. Often, they might have to leave their classrooms when there were air raids. Many children pulled their weight. During the war, children left school at the age of fourteen and would be in full-time work, maybe agriculture, offices or major industries. Those over sixteen, including Girl Guides and Scouts assisted with Air Raid Precautions during an air raid. They’d take messages, be fire watchers or work with the voluntary services. Boys received their call up papers at eighteen, and soon girls were also conscripted, so would receive call up papers too. Check out Phil Earle’s book, When the Sky Falls. It deals with a lot of the issues that children had to face.

It wasn’t just the teenagers; younger children did their bit too. They’d salvage scrap metal, paper, glass and waste food for recycling. Also ‘digging for victory’. They still got a chance to be children though. They might have homemade toys. Books and comics were very popular. Children would happily play on bombsites and sometimes go to the cinema.

Children in Britain at least did not have to face the threat of persecution – unlike those in Europe. In both my books, Flight and Safe, the main characters Jakob and Kizzy constantly face the threat of persecution as one is a Jew and the other has a Romani background. In Safe, I also introduced the idea of 'Lost Children’ or Found Children as I called them. These were children that moved around Europe in packs at the end of the Second World War having lost all their relatives so they only had each other. Can you imagine how resourceful they had to be to keep themselves safe and alive?

Nazis had a tendency to pick on children. They would target them for racial reasons, or because they looked disabled, or if they had a suspicion they were linked to political activities/the Resistance. 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered by the Nazis – thousands of Jewish children were saved by being hidden away. The Nazis also murdered tens of thousands of Romani children, and 5000-7000 physically and/or mentally disabled children were also murdered. The Nazis were very cruel - this was all driven by Hitler’s desire to have a ‘perfect race’.

This is a child’s shoe found at Auschwitz, displayed at Peace Museum, Caen, France.

As well as the concentration camps, Nazis created ghettos. Within the ghettos, Nazis considered the younger children to be unproductive because they couldn’t work so were named ‘useless eaters.’ Children in ghettos often died of starvation, disease, lack of clothing and shelter. If you want to know more about this time, Morris Gleitzman’s Once and Ian Serraillier’s The Silver Sword are powerful books based on true stories.

Children didn’t accept their countries being invaded or their friends being humiliated. They stood up to the Nazis in their own way whether it was in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, or Czechoslovakia. All over Europe children stood with their parents in the Resistance to fight the anti-Nazi cause. Some maybe wanted adventure, some were desperate.

The resistance might take a childish form such as burping in soldiers’ faces or singing patriotic songs. Sometimes they would co-ordinate coughing fits when they were supposed to be watching Nazi propaganda films.

Their innocence could be of benefit though. No one would question a little girl pushing her doll’s pram, not realizing there were books hidden inside, taken from school to stop them being burnt, or a message maybe, or even a gun. The children might be used to hide or escort a shot down pilot or escaped prisoners of war. The danger was constant. A sixteen-year-old girl, whose parents had died, successfully hid thirteen Jews in her house to keep them safe, while looking after her younger sister. Check out Tom Palmer’s book Resist which is based on Audrey Hepburn’s war time experiences, getting information and passing messages to the resistance, while living in the Netherlands.

I want to keep remembering how brave these children were and I know in many wars all over the world there are many children being equally as brave.

Bio

Vanessa Harbour is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. Previously she ran her own PR & Management consultancy. Also, she used to work as an editor and Academic and Business Consultant at the Golden Egg Academy, and now writes online courses. She’s written for The Bookseller on being a disabled author. Flight, Vanessa’s first novel, is a World War II middle-grade thriller selected for Empathy LabUK’s Read for Empathy Collection 2020. Safe is Jakob and Kizzy’s second adventure, set against the last days of the War, involving horses and this time some ‘lost children’.

Social Media

Twitter @VanessaHarbour Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VanessaHarbourAuthor Instagram @nessharbour Tik Tok @nessharbour YouTube: Channel: Vanessa Harbour https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMZcIV7Ql2bPE1YeZFRwAlw Bookseller: https://bookwagon.co.uk/

Girl power, gladiator-style by Ally Sherrick

One of my favourite movies of all time is Gladiator. The multi Oscar-winning film, directed by Ridley Scott, stars Russell Crowe as wronged army commander turned gladiator-slave, Maximus Decimus Meridius who – spoiler alert! – seeks vengeance for the murder of his wife and child by his bitter enemy and rival, Emperor-in-waiting, Commodus.

It features all the classic ingredients of a great ‘swords and sandals’ epic – bravery, heroism and self-sacrifice plus a liberal dose of blood, sweat and the brutality of gladiatorial combat.

When I set out to write my latest book, Vita and the Gladiator a story of my own set in that world, I wanted to make it about a hero who, like Maximus Decimus, finds themselves pitched into the arena against their will and forced to use their wits and courage to fight back.

But while the film depicts a pretty much all-male world, the original inspiration for my story was sparked by a more unusual pair of gladiatorial fighters. These are Amazon and Achillia – two female gladiators (or gladiatrices as they are now known) whose memory is preserved in a stone relief from the ancient town of Halicarnassus (modern day Turkey) now housed in the British Museum.

Stone relief of female gladiators, Amazon and Achillia

Female gladiators were a rarity. In Roman society, women were expected to conform to the ideal of the Roman matron – to be decent, beautiful and devoted to their husband and family. The notion that they might want to fight in the arena was shocking. Nevertheless, there is both documentary and archaeological evidence – like the stone relief – that they did and that they drew the crowds too.

This discovery got my story whiskers twitching. Then, as I delved further into the world of the Roman arena, I discovered that women are recorded as having taken part in beast-hunts too. Known as venatores, beast-hunters were pitched against wild animals – both exotic ones like lions, tigers and even crocodiles – or, as was most likely the case in Roman Britain where my book is set, the more home-grown sort, like wild boar, bulls and bears.  

Mosaic depicting a beast-hunter (Photo credit: Catherine Randall)

Slowly, surely an idea began to take shape of a young girl – Vita – daughter of a retired military commander, now a magistrate in Roman London – who when the story opens is living a life of comparative luxury. She harbours an ambition to write poetry and plays but is reconciled to the fact she will soon be married off, like all girls of her age. Then, on the night of her fourteenth birthday celebrations, something terrible happens to her family and everything changes. She escapes with her life – only to end up a slave sharing a cell with a fierce gladiator, Brea and her wolf.

Brea and Col - Illustration by Nan Lawson

In truth, Brea, a native Briton, is a female beast-hunter (or venatrix) with her own dark back-story. At first Vita is terrified of the pair, but gradually, as she comes to trust Brea (known as Lupa or ‘the She-Wolf’ in the arena), she discovers they have a common enemy – one they must stand against together in the name of truth and justice. 

Mosaic showing a pair of gladiators (Photo credit: Catherine Randall)

The world of the gladiator is an alien one to us – barbaric and cruel-seeming. But at the time, the arena was the place where imperial justice was seen to be served and a sense of order reinforced – a reminder of the power of the Emperor in Rome and the meaning and worth of Roman citizenship. As such, it was a world with its own rules. But Vita has never been permitted to watch a gladiatorial games by her parents – women were in the minority in the audience as well as out in the ring. And one of the great things about writing the book was to have my hero – and the reader – discover these rules as the story unfolds.

For example Vita soon learns that most gladiators are either prisoners-of-war sold by their captors to fight in the arena, criminals sentenced to die by the sword or else condemned to the games, or slaves considered too unruly by their masters to keep. Though as she discovers, there are also the foolhardy types who volunteer for gladiator-school too.

Also that gladiators have to swear an oath – the sacramentum gladiatorum - agreeing to be ‘burnt by fire, bound in chains, beaten and killed by the sword’ as their master (the lanista) commands. And that fighters are only permitted to use wooden weapons during training for fear they might stage a revolt.
Vita – and Brea’s – survival depends on understanding how this strange and dangerous world works. But also on knowing when and how they can break the rules, as you’ll find if you read the book ...

Writing Challenge

Imagine that like Vita, you find yourself in a grand arena in front of crowds of baying spectators with little or no training. As you look around you, what do you see; hear; smell? Who is your opponent and how are they armed? What chance do you think you have of beating them and how does that make you feel? Die or survive to fight another day? It’s down to you!

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure. You can find out more about her by visiting her website. Ally’s latest book, just published with Chicken House Books, is Vita and the Gladiator, the story of a young girl’s fight for justice in the high-stakes world of London’s gladiatorial arena.

You can watch Ally's video on Roman Gladiators here.

Ally's books are widely available in high street bookshops and online.

For more information visit Ally's website. 

The Windermere Children: The story of 300 child Holocaust survivors who came to the Lake District

In 1945 the people of Lakeland welcomed three hundred child Holocaust Survivors into their community.

Lake Windermere

(photo Susan Brownrigg)

A special exhibition at Windermere Library From Auschwitz to Ambleside highlights what life was like for these children. I visited to find out more.

Windermere Library, home to the
Auschwitz to Ambleside exhibition 

(photo Susan Brownrigg)

In 1942 the Nazis began what they called ‘the Final Solution’ - a plan to exterminate all Jewish people across Europe. Roma gypsies, gay and disabled people, as well as black and mixed-race people were also persecuted and killed. 

It's estimated that eleven million people died in the Holocaust including six million Jewish people

By the end of World War II, approximately 90 per cent of Europe’s Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust.

In June 1945, Leonard Montefiore, of the Central British Fund (now World Jewish Relief), persuaded the British Government to give permission for a thousand Jewish orphans aged from eight to sixteen to be brought to the UK for recuperation, and ultimate re-emigration overseas. 

Leonard Montefiore also set up the
 Kindertransport (children’s transport)
 which provided refuge for
 10,000 children before the war.

Just 732 actually came to Britain. They became known as The Boys, though they included 204 girls. 

Of these, 300 children who had survived the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Czech Republic were brought to Windermere. The youngest were just three years old. 

Many of the children no longer knew how old they were and could not remember their date of birth, and lots were older than sixteen.

The Lake District Holocaust Project which curated the exhibition explains: “The Jewish children who came to the Lake District had been liberated in May 1945. Many had been used as slave labour in many camps across Nazi Occupied Europe for a number of years. The list of names of the camps they had experienced is an A-Z of horror. Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Majdanek, Warsaw ghetto, Lodz ghetto…..they each had a different story to tell of a different journey. Their discovery in Theresienstadt does not begin to cover their story.”

The children were to spend a period of recuperation in the Lakes before setting out on new lives.  

The children were flown from Prague to Crosby on Eden airfield near Carlisle. 

The Immigration Officer said: “The behaviour of the children was exceptionally good.”

From there the children were taken in a convoy of buses and army trucks to Calgarth - a wartime housing estate built to accommodate workers from the Short Sunderland Flying Boats factory on the shores of Windermere. 

The single workers no longer needed the rooms at the now lost estate, near Troutbeck Bridge - and there was the perfect number available for each child to have their own private room.

A plan of the Calgarth Estate from Cumbria Archives
which is on display in the library

(photo Susan Brownrigg)

Arriving in the Lake District was described by the children as like being in “Paradise”.  

The Lake District Holocaust Project website explains: “The estate had its own shops, canteen, entertainment hall and many other facilities. They were each given their own small room, a bed and clean linen. For many it was their first encounter with privacy and cleanliness in five years.”

One quote on display is from Ben Helfgott, who was 15 when he came to Calgarth. “I'll never forget the smell of the fresh linen I slept on that first night ... I can't remember ever having a better night sleep ... It was only a hut, but to me it was a palace.”

The children who came to Windermere

were given a copy of Pears' Cyclopaedia

The children became known as the Windermere Boys - although the group included 35 girls.

Most young survivors were male and the Nazis considered girls less useful for slave labour.

When they arrived they could not speak English, so they were given language lessons.

The children were offered opportunities for sport, education, outdoor recreation and healthcare. 

Over a period of six months, they were gradually moved to other homes in places throughout the UK, and they had left Calgarth Estate by early 1946.

Around 30-40 children moved to Manchester, others to Liverpool, Gateshead and London. Some left Britain, to America, Canada and Israel.

Outside the library there is a memorial garden to the Windermere Children with colourful artwork and planting that tells the journey of the children through the language of flowers.

The interpretation explains: “Many of the children spoke of their love of the luscious green of the Lake District and described it as an explosion of colour after the horrors of the camps.”

Plants chosen include heather (protection) daffodils (new beginnings) and snowdrops (hope.)

From Auschwitz to Ambleside exhibition, Windermere Library

(photo Susan Brownrigg)

The children's story is also retold in the BBC film The Windermere Children and the accompanying documentary The Windermere Children: in their own words.

After the War from Auschwitz to Ambleside by Tom Palmer

The book After the War : From Auschwitz to Ambleside by Tom Palmer tells the story of the Windermere Boys in a dyslexia friendly accessible format. It is published by Barrington Stoke. The Centre for Holocaust education offers lesson plans for schools studying the book.

The '45 Aid Society was set up in 1963 by some of the 732 children who came to Britain in 1945. Their children continue the society's work. 

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) encourages remembrance in a world scarred by genocide. They promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) – the international day on 27 January to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and the millions of people killed under Nazi Persecution and in genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. 27 January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

Useful links:

https://www.hmd.org.uk/take-part-in-holocaust-memorial-day/schools/primary-schools/

https://holocausteducation.org.uk/lessons/open-access/lesson-materials-to-support-after-the-war-a/

https://www.worldjewishrelief.org/about-us/the-boys

https://45aid.org/

From Guan Yin to Xuanzang - a road trip through Chinese myth and history by Maisie Chan

I’m Maisie Chan, the author of award-winning Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths. I’m going to chat with you today about a couple of books - Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu and Bedtime Stories: Amazing Asian Tales from the Past and how they feature some famous Chinese mythical and historical figures.

I’m known for humorous family tales set in the UK that feature British Chinese characters. Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu is about a girl who looks after her grandfather who is acting strange. He tells her stories about his favourite goddess Guan Yin (also spelt Kwan Yin, Kuan Yin and Gwan Yin). She is a Chinese deity that people in East and Southeast Asia still pray to.

She is the goddess of compassion and mercy. She features in many stories, sometimes they are fantastical and often they have a moral tale. In my novel, I retold four Chinese stories that feature Guan Yin. One of the stories that Guan Yin appears in is The Journey to The West – it is the most famous Chinese novel written by Wu Cheng’en; published in the 16th Century. It’s about a monk called Tripitaka (which is his Buddhist name) who is given a set of misfit companions by Guan Yin. They’re his protectors as the journey is full of demons and obstacles. His most famous companion is the mischievous Monkey King.

By coincidence, Scholastic asked me if I wanted to write a story for Bedtime Stories: Amazing Asian Tales from the Past. They had a list of historical figures - I chose Xuanzang. He travelled from China to India because he wanted to translate and return to China with updated Buddhist scriptures. This is the real life person that Wu Cheng’en was inspired by when he began writing The Journey to the West!

Xuanzang became a Buddhist monk before he was an adult. He followed in his brother’s footsteps. His life up to his teenage years were not easy. His parents had passed away, his country was experiencing civil war and he and his brother had to find refuge in a new city. When reading the Buddhist scriptures Xuanzang found they were incomplete or did not always make sense because of the poor translation. He decided that he wanted to go to India himself, learn Sanskrit and go on an adventure.

However, Emperor Taizong forbade him from leaving. Xuanzang made the decision to sneak out because he felt it was his destiny. It was a big risk for him to go without the proper travel passes. He travelled the Silk Road with merchants. But he encountered quite a few obstacles. He was abandoned by the merchants, had to cross tough terrain and in one town, a King wanted to keep him there FOREVER. But Xuanzang had a mission, he needed to make it to India. He persuaded the king to let him go. After more treacherous travel he finally made it.

He did what he set out to do, he learned Sanskrit. And in AD 645 decided to head back to China with newly translated Buddhist scriptures. His writings were the foundation of Buddhism in China where it is one of the most popular religions.

When I wrote Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu I was thinking about her road trip as an inner journey as well as an external one of getting to Blackpool to have some fun. I wondered how she and her friends would be changed by that trip? And who or what might stand in her way. I think of road trips in stories as a great way for the main characters to learn something about themselves, other people, and the world around them.

Writing exercise:
Think of a historical figure. Write a contemporary story about a road trip with this person and you, or a character you make up. Where would you take them? Who would you meet on the way? What would happen once you got there?

Maisie Chan is a children's author whose debut novel DANNY CHUNG DOES NOT DO MATHS won the Jhalak Prize and the Branford Boase Award in 2022. It was also shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards and Diverse Book Awards 2022.

Her latest novel KEEP DANCING, LIZZIE CHU is out now with Piccadilly Press. She also writes the series TIGER WARRIOR for younger readers. She has written early readers for Hachette and Big Cat Collins, and has a collection of myths and legends out with Scholastic. She runs the Bubble Tea Writers Network to support and encourage writers of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) descent in the U.K. She has a dog called Miko who has big eyes. She lives in Glasgow with her family.

You can buy Maisie's books here.

Catching the Post by Catherine Randall

One of the things I used to associate with those quiet days after Christmas was having to write thank you letters. Before computers and smart phones, it was the only way to thank all the relatives and friends that I didn’t actually see at Christmas for the presents they’d kindly given me. Making a quick phone call to thank them was not an acceptable option in my family! Anyway, I quite enjoyed writing letters, which I suppose is not surprising given that I am now a writer. 

Of course, nowadays, most people will have expressed their thanks in an email or a text message. I wonder how many actual physical thank you letters are written and put in the post these days? 

One of the fun things about writing historical fiction is getting to discover how people did ordinary things in the past. In both my novel, The White Phoenix, and the novel I am currently working on, set in Victorian London, I’ve had to work out how my characters would communicate with each other without being able to pick up a phone, or send a text message or email. It got me thinking about how communicating has changed over the past 500 years.

To find out more, I visited the Postal Museum in London (on a rather windy day!)

From my research for The White Phoenix, I knew that the Royal Mail already existed in 1666, and that the General Letter Office in central London had burned down during the Great Fire with the loss of a huge number of letters. It was called the Royal Mail because it used the distribution system already in place for royal and government documents. This system had been put in place originally by Henry VIII (who else? He always gets involved!) and then in 1635 King Charles I made it legal to use the royal post to send private letters. The General Post Office, the state postal system, was formally and legally established in 1660 with post offices throughout the country connected by regular routes.

But, as I learnt at the Postal Museum, post in those days did not necessarily remain private. Staff at the General Letter Office would open letters to check that no one was plotting against the King or the government, so if you wanted to make sure your letter was truly private, you needed to find another way to send it.

Luckily, people could also send letters by the carriers who plied between towns, taking people and goods, or by giving it to a friend travelling to the right town, or – if you had money – you could use a private messenger. In The White Phoenix, letters are often sent by carrier.

When the Post Office was first established, the mail was distributed by post boys travelling on foot. But post boys were slow and sometimes unreliable, and – unluckily for them – they were also vulnerable to highwaymen and pressgangs trying to forcibly recruit men for the army and navy. In 1784 smart new mail coaches replaced the post boys along many major routes which really speeded up mail delivery.

A mail coach on display in the Postal Museum in London

The next great innovation came in 1840 with the introduction of the Penny Black, the world’s first postage stamp. Until then, the cost of sending a letter depended on the number of sheets of paper included and the distance the letter had travelled and it was the recipient of the letter who paid for its delivery. You could choose not to pay, but then you didn’t receive the letter. I will never forget a story I once heard about two old and poverty-stricken friends who sent each other a blank sheet of paper every 6 months– they never accepted the ‘letter’ so they couldn’t pass on any news, but at least they knew that they were both still alive! 

 A Penny Black stamp, featuring the head of a young Queen Victoria

After the arrival of the Penny Black, it cost just one penny to send a letter weighing up to 14g (half an ounce) anywhere in the United Kingdom. This made the whole postal system cheaper to use and more efficient, and letter writing flourished. 

However, it wasn’t until 15 years later that post boxes were introduced - before that you had to take your letter to the nearest post office. The first post boxes were green, not the red we are used to today. 

An early post box at the Postal Museum

I was very happy to discover that post boxes began to appear on the streets of London at around the time my new novel is set – it made it so much easier for my main character to sneak out and post a letter! In a nice literary link, the famous Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope is credited with introducing the post box when he worked for the Post Office. The first post boxes in the UK were in the Channel Islands. 

Post boxes have changed in colour and size and design since the mid-nineteenth century, but they are still instantly recognisable, whatever their age. The post box where I live has been painted gold since 2012, in honour of Mo Farah’s gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. 

We might marvel at how much slower Victorian communications were than ours are today, but in Victorian London, you could expect to receive 12 deliveries of post a day – that’s one an hour! – and it was possible to send a letter by post and receive an answer the same day. Imagine that happening nowadays!

Of course, the fascinating displays in the Postal Museum cover the story of the Post Office right up to the present day, including such things as the introduction of the postcode, and the role post boxes played in the Second World War. If my next historical novel is set in the twentieth century, I will certainly be paying another visit, so that I can add authentic historical detail to my story. After all, people will always need to communicate with one another, and there’s nothing like an unexpected letter or a mysterious parcel to move a plot along!

Watch Catherine's YouTube video on Catching the Post by clicking here

The White Phoenix by Catherine Randall is an historical novel for 9-12 year olds set in London, 1666. It was shortlisted for the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award 2021.

Published by the Book Guild, it is available from bookshops and online retailers.

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

Christmas and Mary, Queen of Scots by Barbara Henderson

As I write this blog post, Christmas lights are everywhere. The shops are blaring out the same melodies, shoppers crowd the streets and there is a Christmas tree in every second window already.

It is hard to imagine that not so very long ago, Christmas celebrations were frowned upon in this country. I share a December birthday with the famous Mary, Queen of Scots. Both of us were born on the 8th of December, in the run up to Christmas. You may not be aware, but Mary’s father died days after her birth in 1542. He had recently sustained a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss. Bruised and ailing, he visited his pregnant wife at Linlithgow Palace before travelling on to Falkland Palace where he took to his bed with a fever. When he heard that his wife, the French-born Mary of Guise had given birth to a girl rather than the hoped-for male heir, it is said that he turned his face to the wall and died of despair!

Mary Queen of Scots' parents: James V and Mary of Guise 

Poor Mary didn’t have the easiest start in life. England’s King Henry VIII was outraged that Mary was not promised to his own son in marriage and proceeded to ransack Scotland in a period called the Rough Wooing. Mary was sent to France for her own safety and married the Dauphin of France, the Crown Prince, briefly becoming France’s Queen – and still only a teenager. When her young husband died and she lost her position, she chose to return to Scotland and claim her throne. Her first Christmas in Scotland did not quite go to plan for the catholic Mary, used to the extravagant feasting and the celebrations of the French Court. No, both Scotland and England were now protestant, and Christmas feasting was frowned upon by strict reformers like the influential John Knox. No-one even got Christmas day off!

The statue of reformer John Knox in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

It hadn’t always been like this. Mary’s catholic grandfather, James IV had celebrated Yuletide at the local Abbey and commissioned elaborate clothes to be made for the occasion which were to be left in front of his door on Christmas morning. There was a High Mass, nativity plays, poems and even aerial acrobatics. Courtiers would sing carols at their King’s door. 

By contrast, Mary - widowed already at 18 - had left a catholic country behind. Her designs for her first Christmas as monarch of Scotland were quickly frustrated. For a start, she was was told that she couldn’t have the music or the dancing she craved – in fact, the musicians refused to sing at all, afraid of repercussions in this newly protestant country. An envoy to the court declared that Mary was ‘upset’. However, Mary did manage to sneak some of her favourite celebrations in at the later date of 6th January, the end of the twelve days of Christmas.

Barbara outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse

We have good records of the Festival of the Bean, for example. A cake was made, and a bean baked into it. Whoever’s slice of cake contained the bean became the ‘Queen of the Bean’. Queen Mary’s friend and companion Mary Fleming won it one year and became the Queen of the Bean for the day. She was allowed to wear the Queen’s silver dress and her necklace of rubies, and to be treated like the Queen herself. What fun! Fancy a game of ‘Festival of the Bean’ yourself this year? What special treatment will the winner receive? Will they get the TV remote?

Mary was famed for her stylish and extravagant dresses

Less than a hundred years later, by the year 1640, it was illegal in Scotland to celebrate Christmas at all. And it would take till 1928 for people to get Christmas Day off work!

Barbara Henderson is the author of six historical novels for children. You can find out more about her on her website. Her new book, Rivet Boy, will be published in February 2023.