Writing Historical Heists with Laura Noakes

A heist story follows the planning, completion and aftermath of a theft of an item or items from a place. It often involves a group of heisters, who each have a specific skillset that will help them to pull off the caper. 

The Italian Job is a classic heist film

When I sat down to write my heist, I was inspired a lot by the films I watched as a kid. I think my introduction to heists was the classic film The Italian Job, which stars Michael Caine and is set in Italy in the 1960s. I was blown away by the clever ways the characters sought to outwit the security measures to get their hands on some valuable gold, as well as the literal cliffhanger ending! I fell in love with heists watching the Oceans Eleven series, which is far more modern. I loved the cool gadgets and tech the gang used as they closed in on the vault.

So quite a lot of my ‘research’ into the different types of heists was actually just rewatching a lot of my favourite heist films, which was a lot of fun! From these rewatches, I noticed that there are a few elements common in many heists, and I turned these elements into questions to help plot my heist story:

1)      Who is the mastermind behind the heist?

2)     Who makes up the heist team?

3)     What are the team trying to steal?

4)     Why are they trying to steal it?

5)     What’s the plan?

6)     What’s the twist?

Having answers to these questions meant that whenever I got writer’s block, I was able to unstick myself pretty quickly.

Laura's archival research on life in Victorian London

As I wrote my own heist, which is set in 1899 in London, I had to be really aware of the time period and how the historical setting would impact on my heist. In 1899, Queen Victoria was on the throne, women didn’t have the vote and much of the technology we take for granted today didn’t exist yet! I really wanted readers to feel as though they were in late-Victorian London, so I did a lot of research on what living during that time would have been like.

This research came in many forms. I read a lot of non-fiction books about the Victorian era and Victorian London—one my favourites is How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman, which told me a lot about everyday life. I also read fiction books set during the Victorian era, and books written by Victorians, like Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

Websites were also a huge research tool. My main character, Cosima, lives in a group home for disabled children run by a matron. These homes really did exist during the Victorian era, and thinking about these institutions served as the spark which inspired my story. A brilliant website created by Peter Higginbotham formed the core component of my research into these homes: http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/. Peter is also the author of several excellent books which I wholeheartedly recommend.

I have the same disability as Cos—Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder—so I thought a lot about how different my life would have been if I’d have been brought up in a Home and being disabled during the Victorian era. There isn’t a tonne of information on how disabled people lived in the past, so I turned to a thoroughly modern research tool: the internet!

Finally, I also watched a lot of films and TV shows set in the Victorian era and I also watched many historical documentaries. One of my favourite movies that I saw during research was Enola Holmes, starring Millie Bobby Brown.

Laura's plot takes shape!

When it came to the heist itself, setting my story in the past actually helped in some respects. In 1899, there are no motion detectors, CCTV cameras or complicated security systems to bypass. However, this doesn’t mean that pulling off a heist was easy—Victorians were just as security conscious as we are! Cos and her friends still have to navigate guards, seemingly impenetrable walls, and complicated safes to reach the jewels they’re after.

Heists are full of twists and turns that readers don’t see coming, and I hope I’ve managed to sneak a few into my story. Creating an unexpected twist was really difficult—and I think what helped me to make my twist surprising was that I was also surprised by it.

Bringing the two components of my story together, the historical and the heist, was probably my favourite part of writing my book!

Writing Challenge

I challenge you to plot a historical heist story. This story can be set in any historical period!

Think about how the era will impact on your heist. For example, if your story is set in the pre-historic era, its unlikely that cave-people would want steal a million pounds, because that form of currency didn’t exist then. Maybe instead your cave-people’s target is a Woolley Mammoth! If your heist happens during World War II, what impact will an unexpected air raid have on your characters?

Laura Noakes grew up in Bedfordshire in a home full of books. She loved books so much she went to three universities after school, and graduated with a PhD in Legal History in 2021. Writing stories is her first love. She has Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, a disability that she shares with her main character, Cosima. Laura now lives in beautiful Cumbria with her husband, Connor, and their two mischievous cats, Scout & Sunny. 

Laura's debut book, Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star, will be published by Harper Collins on May 25th 2023. Buy a copy online at - https://www.bookscumbria.com/product/uk-books/signed-editions/cosima-unfortunate-steals-a-star/

Learn more about Laura and her writing at her website and follow her on twitter,  Facebook and Instagram

#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.

The Mary Rose: Ship of Stories

In my Tudor-set adventure, The Queen’s Fool, my heroes, young orphan girl, Cat Sparrow and her new-found friend, French boy, Jacques Bonhomme find themselves voyaging across the English Channel to Calais as part of King Henry VIII’s entourage bound for the grand Anglo-French peace celebrations at the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520.

Contemporary painting of Henry VIII's flagship, 'The Mary Rose'

The sea journey presented a brilliant opportunity to include an exciting chase scene with the villain which results in poor Jacques falling overboard and which leads on to a dramatic ‘reveal’ that hopefully young readers won’t see coming.

To write these shipboard scenes meant that I needed to understand the layout and construction of Tudor ships, how you might have boarded them – by small boats and a set of ropes, ladders and nets as it turns out – and what life both above and below deck was like for passengers and crew.

A key primary resource proved to be an ‘old friend’ – the wreck of King Henry’s favourite warship and flagship, The Mary Rose, which had been part of the king’s escort of ships that day on the journey across to France.  I’m fortunate enough to live within an hour’s drive of Portsmouth Harbour where, over four centuries after her dramatic sinking at the end of Henry’s reign, the remains of The Mary Rose were discovered and, in 1982, brought to the surface in an event broadcast across the world.

A miraculous resurrection 

In fact it was as a teenager that I paid my first ever visit to see what was left of The Mary Rose, not long after she first went on public display in the mid 1980s in a covered dry dock

at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard – though at the time the surviving timbers of the wreck were heavily veiled in plastic and being sprayed with water to keep them from drying out. I returned several times over the years as they were further treated with preserving chemicals and then, finally, air-dried. 

'The Mary Rose' as she looks today on display at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

I was also keen to see the amazing artefacts which had been excavated from the wreck and put on display after conservation, in a new, purpose-built museum on the site. So in a small way I got personally caught up, like so many other visitors over the years, in the story of the exciting discovery, ground-breaking excavation and conservation of the ship.  

But the wreck of The Mary Rose harbours other, equally fascinating stories. These include the part the ship played in the history of the early English navy, how she came to sink on that fateful day back in 1545 and the lives – and deaths – of the men who formed her crew.

Pride of a king

For 34 years after her construction and launch in Portsmouth in 1511, The Mary Rose was the pride of King Henry VIII’s navy. A 600 ton carrack and one of the earliest known examples of a purpose-built sailing warship, she was reputedly built to the young king’s own design. She saw a number of actions over the years in battles and skirmishes against the French navy and in the defence against King James IV of Scotland’s attempted invasion of England. And records also show that she underwent a substantial refit during the 1530s with the addition of a number of extra, heavy guns.

 Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

Her final action took place on 19^th July 1545, when she was part of an English fleet of 80 vessels involved in a face-off against over 200 ships of the French navy gathered in the Solent – the stretch of water between Portsmouth Harbour and the Isle of Wight. The French were on a mission of revenge for Henry VIII’s capture of the French town of Boulogne the previous year, and Henry himself came down to watch the action from nearby Southsea Castle.

But what actually caused The Mary Rose to sink? A surviving eye-witness reported that, seeking to engage the enemy, she fired first from her starboard side, then turned about to fire from her port side. But as she made the turn, her sails were caught by a gust of wind and she was blown over. This resulted in her still-open starboard gun-ports taking on water as they dipped below the waterline.

The sinking of the Mary Rose in the Solent (detail from The Cowdray Engraving)

Alternative theories emerged over time including that there had been too many guns and soldiers on board, or that the earlier refit of the vessel had resulted in some fundamental design flaws. There was even the suggestion that the officers or crew might not have been up to the job. The French themselves maintained they had holed the ship with a cannonball, though none of these claims has ever been convincingly substantiated.

Whatever the full story, it took no more than a handful of minutes for The Mary Rose to disappear beneath the waves with the loss of almost the entire crew. Estimates vary but it is believed over 450 men drowned that day with around only 35 survivors. 

A porthole into the past

For me the most intriguing stories are to be found in the huge haul of archaeological treasures painstakingly excavated from the mud of the seabed. These represent a sort of Tudor time-capsule, illuminating both the operation of a ship of Henry VIII’s navy and the day-to-day lives of the mariners, soldiers, gunners and servants on board. Stand-out items include the ship’s bell; the cannon bearing the King’s personal Tudor rose symbol; the chests of Yew longbows and thousands of arrows for use by the archers in battle; the two great brick ovens and cauldrons and the eating utensils used to serve the crew their food, not forgetting the detachable mast-top which crowned the ship’s main mast.

Just some  of the archery bows, arrows and other weapons salvaged from the wreck

Other highlights are the more personal items belonging to individual crew members, all of them male, most young adults and some just boys. These range from leather shoes, jerkins and hats to dice, gaming boards and musical instruments including something called a shawm – an early type of oboe. Also writing materials including ink pots, quill pens and even leather book covers, though the pages have long since rotted away. 

A leather jerkin (left), and a home-made gaming board, fiddle and bundle of needles and thread (right)

                                                             

 Leather book cover 

And then there are tools of the trade belonging to men of the ship’s company such as the carpenter – including his mallet, planes and rulers – and the surgeon, whose belongings – his canisters  of ointments, metal syringes and a bowl to collect the patient’s blood during blood-letting – I found particularly intriguing because of a crucial scene I set in the surgeon’s cabin on board ship in The Queen’s Fool. 

 Items from the surgeon's chest     

Finally, there are the remains – human and animal – which tell their own tales. For example the bones of men believed to have been archers, which show the stress caused to arm and shoulder muscles and joints by the regular shooting of many arrows. And the isotope analysis of teeth which has allowed historians to demonstrate that the crew were not only of English origin but that some of them came from places as far afield as the Mediterranean and North Africa.

'Hatch', the ship's dog

And perhaps my favourite find of all – the skeleton of a small dog discovered outside the carpenter’s cabin.  Nicknamed Hatch by the museum team and identified from his bones as a sort of terrier, similar to a modern day Jack Russell, he is believed to have been the ship’s ratter. And as relatively few rat bones were found in the wreck, the museum staff reckon he must have been pretty good at his job!

Scarcely any personal information is known about the individuals who went down with King Henry VIII’s great flagship that day nearly 500 years ago. But through the treasure-trove of objects rescued from the deep, we are part way at least to bringing them and their stories back to life.

 More information about the fascinating and inspirational artefacts and stories connected with The Mary Rose is available from the museum website here.

View Ally’s video on The Mary Rose on YouTube Kids here.

Ally Sherrick is the award-winning author of stories full of history, mystery and adventure.

BLACK  POWDER, her debut novel about a boy caught up in the Gunpowder Plot, won the  Historical Association’s Young Quills Award. Other titles include THE BURIED CROWN, a wartime tale with a whiff of Anglo-Saxon myth and magic and THE QUEEN’S FOOL, a story of treachery and treason set at the court of King Henry VIII. Ally’s latest book, published in February 2023 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.

Ally’s books are available from bookshop.org.uk and all good high street bookshops

For more information visit Ally's website. You can also follow her on Twitter @ally_sherrick

More than just a Game by guest author Richard O’Neill

I stood on the terraces at seven years old and watched my first professional football match, it was a school friend’s birthday treat and I was invited to join him. A very nice thing to do but nothing record breaking about watching your first game at seven, many people watched their first game at a much younger age, the difference being that I was the first person - adult or child - in my family to have done that.

 Richard in his school uniform around the time he enjoyed his first football match!

It had been less than a year before when I’d had my first experience of playing football in any real sense, it was at school as part of a PE lesson and then in the school yard at playtimes where teams were quickly picked and pitched against each other. It seemed I was pretty good at it almost immediately and I was hooked.

I grew up in a nomadic Romani family which meant I went to a number of different schools and whilst I was aware of the games of cricket and football they weren’t part of our culture so we didn’t play them. We played throw and catch but that was mainly as hand-eye coordination practice for our sports like quoits and competitive slingshot.

Discovering not only that I had a passion for the game but also a talent for it, football became my thing I’m hesitant to say obsession but as an ADHD person I guess the term would be hyper-focused.

It was the thing I thought about and talked about and practised at home and there came the problem, none of my large family, close or extended, were interested in the game and practising became a solitary occupation. My Dad had no interest in the game at all in fact thought it was pretty pointless yet even with four other children to share his time with and a business to run he would take time out to stand and allow me, dressed in the football strip that my mam had bought me, to take shots at him with the ball he’d bought me.

I wanted to find out all I could about the game, its history and how to play it better. The first thing I did was to go to the library and get out as many books as I could on the subject and I read them from cover to cover. One day after school my mam showed me a book she’d bought in a second hand shop and I dove straight into my gift. The book written by Billy Wright was a treasure trove of information and read from cover to cover many times and kept safe along with my other prized possession, my football kit.

Book of Soccer by Billy Wright

Every new school or area I went to I found being able to play football well was a major advantage often allowing my inclusion simply because I could score goals. And for me when I was charging down the field with the ball at my feet and with only one aim in mind to beat the goalie and help my team win it was the most amazing feeling of freedom. When I did score my team mates would pat me on the back and shake my hand, something boys would rarely if ever do off the pitch.

As I got older as much as I loved the game I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to pursue it any further. Whether you have the talent and dedication or not, when you move around a lot, when your family culture is different to the mainstream, when there are expectations placed upon you from your culture it often means you have to make a choice, either or.

Richard at a football club in 1998

Which brings me to my book. A Different Kind of Freedom, set in the early part of the last century, is the story of a boy from a Romani family who wants to be a footballer. He encounters a huge amount of resistance from his father but fortunately he finds inspiration in a real life hero who has trodden the same path.

The novel was inspired by real life Victorian footballer Rab Howell who was a pioneer in football in general being one of the first to become a professional player who played for Rotherham, Sheffield United, Liverpool and Preston and went on to also play for England. He also happened to have been born and brought up in a nomadic Romani family.

Rab Howell

I try to show in the book just how difficult it is to overcome the increased obstacles you encounter both from inside and outside when you come from a different background and emphasise the importance of having a mentor and a role model.

I also wanted to show in the book which is also mirrored in my own life that the game isn’t over until the final whistle blows. Whilst I didn’t go on to play football professionally I did get the opportunity to work with professional football clubs and enjoy the excitement, the ups, downs, highs lows and the absolute joy of being on a winning team.

To find out more about Rab Howell and Richard's book visit the Time Tunneller's YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/7CjEgnJhfiA

A Different Kind of Freedom: A Romani story by Richard O'Neill is available from all good bookshops including https://www.mirrormewrite.com/shop and https://www.anewchapterbooks.com/product-page/a-different-kind-of-freedom-a-romani-story

Richard O’Neill is a multi-award award winning author and storyteller.

He is the recipient of the ‘National Literacy Hero’ award, the Beacon Leadership and a Royal Literary Society Award.

Raised in a traditional nomadic Romani family, he has a particular interest in using literature to promote inclusion and social mobility.

His books have received teacher awards in the UK and ‘Book-list’ awards in the USA and an Aesop medal.

Website www.richardthestoryteller.weebly.com 

Twitter @therroneill

 

The history of glass by Susan Brownrigg

Glass is all around us - it is used in windows, lightbulbs, mirrors, bottles, drinking glasses, for our TVs and mobile phones as well as in decorative vases and paperweights. So common place we don't often stop to wonder at the skill taken to produce this versatile material.

Glass has always been found in nature – for example obsidian (volcanic glass) was used by stone age people for cutting tools while Libyan Desert Glass was carved into a scarab beetle as the centrepiece of a gold and jewel decorated breastplate found in King Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.

Pectoral found in King Tutankhamun's burial chamber

Human crafted glass has been around for around 4000 years, often attributed to the people of Mesopotamia, the Ancient Egyptians also made glass beads and jars in about 2500BCE.

Glass was made by mixing sand, soda and lime and heating at a very high temperature in open molds.

This lump of translucent blue glass found by archaeologists

in Iraq is one of the oldest surviving glass objects (British Museum)

Glass portrait thought to be of Amenhotep II
(Corning Museum of Glass, USA)

This glass portrait may be of Amenhotep II, who ruled Egypt about 60 years before Tutankhamun. Glass making may have been introduced during his reign. This head was originally blue but has faded to tan after being buried for a long time. It belongs to the Corning Museum of Glass in America.

About 100BCE a Syrian glassmaker invented the blowpipe and the art of glassblowing using a long tube was created. The glassblower picks up a gob of molten glass at the end of the tube, turns, swirls and rolls it, while blowing air into it.

Another 100 years later, the Romans were producing elaborately decorated drinking glasses – they were especially skilled at carving or etching glass.

The Romans are also thought to be the first to use glass in windows, while the Anglo Saxons also created stained glass windows. Fragments of coloured window glass from the 7th century have been found at excavations of former monasteries in Northumbria.

Stained glass window at Bede’s World

featuring excavated glass.

The stained glass window (above) was reconstructed from pieces of glass excavated from St Paul’s Church, Jarrow, Northumbria. Scientific analysis of the glass revealed that it was made from a combination of recycled glass and chunks of new glass which had been imported from the Levant – present-day Lebanon and Syria.

In Medieval Times glassmakers were so skilled that they could create huge windows of stained glass for churches and cathedrals. The oldest (in-situ) glass from this time can be seen at Canterbury Cathedral.

The Parable of the Sower (Stained Glass window, Canterbury Cathedral)

One of the most famous places for glass making is Venice. In 1291 a law was passed that said Venetian glassmakers had to work and live on the island of Murano.

Barovier Goblet, Murano

This was said to stop the risk of fire spreading from their furnaces to the mainly wooden buildings of Venice, but historians believe it was also to stop them sharing trade secrets – and in 1295 the glassmakers were forbidden from leaving the city!

In the 1900s glass became easier to make, less expensive, and stronger.

Glass windows and containers became everyday features of most homes.

 

Susan's grandfather was a glass carrier

My grandfather worked as a glass carrier for Pilkingtons – known locally as Pilks – the St Helens glass manufacturer. 

I visited the World of Glass Museum, St Helens, to learn more about glassmaking and the history of the Pilkingtons company.
Find out what I discovered by watching this week's Youtube video.

WRITING CHALLENGE:

Choose a glass object pictured in this article as the starting point for a story. It could be the Libyan Desert Glass scarab, a medieval church window or a Murano goblet.

Susan Brownrigg is a Lancashire lass and the author of three historical children's books for ages 8+ - Gracie Fairshaw and the Mysterious Guest & Gracie Fairshaw and the Trouble at the Tower are seaside mysteries set in Blackpool. Kintana and the Captain's Curse is a pirate adventure set in Madagascar.

Susan's books are published by Uclan Publishing. 

They are available from bookshops and online retailers.

susanbrownrigg.com

@susanbrownrigg

susan brownrigg facebook author page

Women's History Month: Being a Saint Ain't Easy by Catherine Randall

March is Women’s History Month when we celebrate the lives and achievements of women throughout history. 

Until comparatively recently, most history was about men. After all, broadly speaking, men were the rulers, the law-makers, the generals and the scholars. Men were the ones who did things and history was about what they did. And most history was written by men too.

Thankfully, things have changed dramatically and we now know a lot more about the lives and achievements of women. However, it is still true that the further back in history you go, the harder it is to find women who are remembered in their own right, and not just for being the mothers, daughters or wives of famous men. The obvious exception is powerful female rulers, like Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth I. 

But there were other remarkable women from long ago who made their mark on history in their own right and left behind the evidence to prove it. Prominent among these were the early Christian female saints.

I’m going to tell you about two of them. Their names were Perpetua and Felicity.

Perpetua and Felicity lived more than 1800 years ago, at the beginning of the third century AD. They lived in North Africa, in a place called Carthage, which at the time was in the Roman province of Africa, and today is in Tunisia. Vibia Perpetua was 22, a well-educated noblewoman with a young son, probably a widow. Felicity was a slave, pregnant with her first child. At the time, Christians in this part of the Roman Empire faced persecution, yet both of these women bravely decided to become Christians, and as a result were arrested, imprisoned and put to death.

Septimius Severus was Roman Emperor at the time of the saints' deaths (Glyptothek, Munich)

But the most remarkable thing about this – and why we know so much about it - is that Perpetua left behind a diary, a document now known as The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. This is one of the earliest surviving first-person narratives written by a woman. 

Apparently, Perpetua’s mother had been a Christian, but her father was not, and in her diary she writes of how he pleaded with her to change her mind. She wouldn’t do so, and both women were arrested and imprisoned.

Perpetua describes the terrible heat of the prison (this is north Africa, remember) and the rough behaviour of the guards. She also writes about how upset she is at having to leave behind her baby, including the physical torment caused by the fact that she abruptly has to stop breast-feeding him. When she is allowed to continue breast-feeding, after bribing the guards to move her to a better part of the prison where he can be with her, she writes of the great relief and happiness she feels.

At a hearing in front of the Roman Governor, Perpetua and Felicity both refused to give up their Christian faith and were therefore condemned to public execution by means of wild beasts. Both women, along with three Christian men, were to be put to death at the military games held in Carthage to celebrate Emperor Septimius Severus’s birthday. Perpetua’s record of her trial and imprisonment ends the day before the games.

Remains of the Roman Amphitheatre at Carthage.
The column in the centre is a memorial to the Christian martyrs

‘Of what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will,’ Perpetua writes. The diary was finished by an eyewitness, who relates that Felicity gave birth to a daughter before the games, which meant that she could join Perpetua in her martyrdom. (Roman law forbade pregnant women to be put to death.) Arrangements were made for Felicity's daughter and Perpetua's son to be cared for after their deaths.

If you have read Vita and the Gladiator by my fellow Time Tunneller, Ally Sherrick, you will have a sense of what Perpetua, Felicity and their male counterparts experienced when they walked into the Roman arena. The eyewitness account emphasises how bravely they faced their deaths, entering the arena with their heads held high, so strong was their faith in God. The men sentenced to die alongside Perpetua and Felicity were attacked by bears, leopards and wild boars, Perpetua and Felicity were set upon by a rabid cow.  But the wild beasts failed to kill them, and they were put to death by sword. 

Perpetua and Felicity have been revered as saints ever since their deaths, and they are still remembered in all branches of the Christian church today. In life they were separated by social class - Perpetua was a noblewoman and Felicity a slave - but they died together as sisters, which would been a powerful witness to their status-conscious contemporaries as to the radical nature of the Christian faith. Their feast day, on which they are especially remembered, is 7 March.

It is remarkable to think that, in St Perpetua’s account of her imprisonment, we can read the voice of someone who lived over 1800 years ago.

Watch Catherine's YouTube video about St Perpetua and St Felicity 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.

Girl Racer: recreating the world of the Circus Maximus by Annelise Gray

My childhood reading obsessions were with books about ponies. I had a whole shelf devoted to them – the Jill series by Ruby Fergusson, an assortment of titles by the prolific Pullein-Thompson sisters. If I’d known about the Flambards trilogy by K.M. Peyton at the time, that would have been on there too. Pride of place in my collection, though, was given over to a dog-eared copy of National Velvet by Enid Bagnold, the tale of a girl who wins a wild horse in a village raffle and dreams of riding him to victory at the Grand National. 

It now has a home on the shelf above my writing desk, the lodestar and inspiration for my Circus Maximus series, which follows the adventures of a horse-mad Roman girl called Dido, whose dream is to be break into the all-male world of charioteering and compete at the Circus Maximus, the greatest sporting stadium in the ancient world. 

In conjuring up the historical setting for Dido’s adventures, my other literary inspiration, besides National Velvet, is Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth, the tale of a young Roman soldier’s quest to discover what happened to his missing father’s lost legion. As well as being a riveting adventure story, I’m in awe of the way Sutcliff brings the bleak landscape of Roman Britain to life but in a way that never feels like she’s borrowing on cliched tropes about the ancient world. 

That was my aspiration with the Circus Maximus series. Plenty of research underpins the novels, but I hope the reader never feels that they’re having a history lesson. Instead, by immersing them in the period, I want them to feel as if they are right there besides Dido and her fellow characters, smelling the same scents in the air, feeling the noise coming up through the ground as the vast Circus crowd roars and stamps its feet in anticipation. The ultimate goal is to make people think I know what it’s like to drive a chariot, even though – a little to my regret – I never have.

To that end, much of my background research prior to writing the series was into the world of chariot racing, ancient Rome’s favourite sport. I drew from a tapestry of different sources – literary, artistic and archaeological. Written eyewitness accounts from the time provide a glimpse into the build-up to a race – the charioteers drawing lots to see which of the Circus’s twelve starting gates they will be allocated; stable-hands and grooms holding harness, plaiting manes and trying to soothe their four-legged charges; the horses’ hot breath puffing through the gates. Thanks to inscriptions in honour of winning teams, we know the names of hundreds of horses who raced at the Circus and even their colour and sometimes their breeding.

No actual Roman racing chariots survive from the ancient world, but little model replicas – such as this one currently held by the British Museum - assist with their reconstruction and demonstrate how much smaller, flimsier and more dangerous to drive they would have been than the cumbersome vehicles seen in the classic film Ben-Hur. Meanwhile, mosaics from North Africa, where many of the best horses and drivers began their careers, give us close-ups of the uniform of the charioteers, their coloured tunics denoting which of the four big racing factions they represented – Reds, Blues, Whites and Greens.

Mosaic from the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome depicting a charioteer and horse from each of the four factions

Curse tablets buried under the track at ancient circuses and inscribed with spells wishing a gruesome death on teams from particular factions - demonstrate how fierce the rivalries were between supporters. That hostile tribalism, particularly between the Blues and Green factions, is much in evidence during all three Circus Maximus books and plays a key part in determining the course of Dido’s life. 

Of all the evidence I drew on in writing the books though, my favourite are the games tokens that were found in the grave of a young Roman girl from the fourth century. Six little ivory discs, with an image of a horse on one side and a victorious charioteer on the other, they were buried with the girl alongside a doll with jointed arms and legs and plaited hair. One theory is that the tokens were keepsakes from a day at the races, and it’s a poignant image, that idea that maybe this girl loved going to the Circus and her family buried it with her as mementoes of a happy day. From my point of view, it’s always seemed unlikely that amongst the quarter of a million people who could fit into the Circus Maximus on race day, there weren’t at least a handful of girls – young Velvet Browns of the past – who longed to be down on that great track themselves, competing for glory, hearing their name on the crowd’s lips. That’s an image I always hold in my head as I write Dido’s story. 

You can watch Annelise Gray's video on Roman Chariot Races by clicking here.

Annelise Gray was born in Bermuda and moved to the UK as a child. She grew up riding horses and dreaming of becoming a writer. After studying Classics under Professor Mary Beard, she earned her PhD in 2004 and has worked as a historical researcher and as a Latin teacher. Her debut children’s novel, Circus Maximus: Race to the Death (Zephyr Books) was longlisted for the 2022 Branford Boase Award and named as a Children’s Book of the Week in the Sunday Times. There are now two more titles in the Circus Maximus series, Rivals on the Track and Rider of the Storm, which was published on World Book Day this year.

Author website: www.annelisegray.co.uk

Twitter: @AnneliseGray

Annelise Gray's books are available online and from bookshops, including The Rocketship Bookshop, Salisbury