Letters from the Front - by Catherine Randall

For a writer of historical fiction, letters can be gold dust. 

Three years ago, I wrote a local community play, Letters from the Front, to mark the 100^th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The idea was to create a sense of continuity between the communities of 1918 and 2018 by dramatising stories of local people who had lived and died in the Great War.

I was extremely lucky that others had already done a great deal of research into the names on our town war memorial, so I had plenty of stories to work with, but the thing that really brought the past to life for us were the letters.

In those days, rather wonderfully, the local newspaper sometimes reprinted in full letters that had been written by the men who were away fighting, or in some cases letters from the nurses and other soldiers who had cared for them as they died. The result was that I was able to include the actual words written by ordinary people from our town over 100 years ago.

Teddington War Memorial

Private Fred Savage, for instance, wrote to the paper from the Gallipoli campaign (in what is now Turkey) in 1915. After describing his part in the fighting, his thoughts turned to home:

My best wishes to my old sporting chums in Teddington and district... I have just been thinking, but for this beastly war we should in all probability have been enjoying an all-day match at cricket in Bushy Park tomorrow, but it will be time for that sort of thing when this match is over.

Sadly, there was no time for ‘that sort of thing’ for Fred Savage. By the time they printed the letter, Fred was already dead, aged just 24.

Another poignant letter printed in the newspaper was all the more unusual because it was written by a German. Mr and Mrs Charles Mole had only learned in August 1918 that their 19-year-old son, also called Charles, had died while a Prisoner of War back in March, after being wounded in action. Generally, that would have been pretty much all the information they’d be given. However, they then received the most extraordinary letter. This was reprinted in the paper under the heading,  ‘A German Soldier’s Kind Action’:

Charles Mole's name on the school war memorial (middle column)

The following letter, written in a shell funnel on Good Friday, March 29, 1918 was recently received by Mrs Mole, 82 York Road, Teddington, whose son, Pte Charles Arthur Mole, died whilst a prisoner of war in Germany.

The article explains how the letter reached Mrs Mole, and goes on to print the letter in full. The letter is long, so I will just share with you a few extracts. The letter begins:

Dear Family Mole, - Love and a sense of duty compel me to communicate to you what will be of the greatest interest to you. I am a German soldier, whose name is H.Weingartner. When our forces were moving onwards over the battlefields, which had been evacuated by the English, some of my comrades hit upon three English soldiers, of whom two were dead already and one still alive.

Private Mole was the soldier still alive. The letter writer goes on to describe how they tried to help ‘our poor fellow soldier’ whose legs were badly wounded.

After we had bandaged him up and refreshed him a little by a cup of tea, we carried him on a tent bed to the main road... We attached a little flag to his bed to direct our sanitary soldiers’ attention to him when passing by…

H.Weingartner’s letter goes on to describe how he continued to visit Private Mole when he could over the next hours, taking tea to him, and saying prayers with him. Communication was difficult as Private Mole only spoke English, and Weingartner German, but it is clear that they managed to make themselves understood.  The tone of the letter is extremely compassionate. The next day Private Mole was removed to a field hospital, and the letter writer never saw him again. He concludes his letter:

This is all I can tell you about your son. I have asked God to keep and safeguard his young life and grant him a meeting again with you all. And my sincere and fervent wish is that this letter will safely reach you, especially in case your son should succumb to his wounds, and no news about him should ever reach you. …Should your son survive, which I do hope and pray for, I hope to hear from him later on. May the Lord soon grant us peace according to His everlasting mercy and grace.

Yours sincerely H.W.

We know that Private Mole didn’t survive but imagine the comfort that this letter must have given his poor parents, knowing that he had been kindly cared for in the last days of his life.

Charles Mole's name on the Hampton School war memorial. He was at school here from 1911-15.

Both these letters bring to life for us the soldiers of the First World War in a way that few other things can.

When writing historical novels, including letters as part of your story can create a sense of immediacy and help your reader get inside your characters’ heads. 

Today, letters have largely been replaced by emails, phone calls and the myriad of other ways we communicate with each other, but it’s important to remember that until thirty years ago, letters were an essential part of life. So not only can letters reveal character, you can also make them crucial to your plot.  

In my novel The White Phoenix, set in London in 1666, letters play an important role from the very first chapter. When Lizzie Hopper and her family arrive back at their family bookshop after the plague, expecting to find her father, the very first words uttered by Master Pedley, the bookbinder from next door, concern the letter he claims to have sent: 

‘Oh, Mistress Hopper, praise God you have come! Did you get my letter?’

Might things have been different if they had received his letter, if he’d written earlier?

Later, a letter that Master Pedley claims to have sent to the Hopper’s valued apprentice Kit also goes astray, but this time Lizzie takes matters into her own hands and writes to Kit herself. (This of course meant I had to research all about writing and sending letters in 1666, but luckily, as the novel is set in a bookseller’s, Lizzie’s letter writing was believable.)

Kit’s swift response to Lizzie’s letter is one of the first indications that Pedley may not be the helpful neighbour he is made out to be. In The White Phoenix, letters are a crucial part of the plot.

So, next time you are writing a story, don’t forget letters! Think about how you could use them, either as part of the plot or as a way of revealing more about your characters. Some authors have even written books entirely made up of letters! And remember how the letters I have shared above from the First World War create a strong sense of immediacy. This Remembrance Day, maybe you could take whatever you have learned about the First World War, and use it to write a soldier’s letter of your own.

Catherine Randall's debut novel, The White Phoenix, is a thrilling adventure story for 9-14 year olds set during the Great Fire of London. It has been shortlisted for the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award 2021. The White Phoenix is published by the Book Guild and is available from bookshops and online retailers including Waterstones, Bookshop.org and Amazon.

For more information visit www.catherinerandall.com.

Remember, remember - by Ally Sherrick

The two main inspirations or story sparks for my first novel for young people, Black Powder, were a real life event – the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605 – and a place – Cowdray House on the edge of the historic market town of Midhurst in West Sussex.

The Gunpowder Plot – the reason why we light bonfires and set off fireworks every fifth of November – was the failed attempt by a band of desperate young Catholic men to assassinate the Protestant King James I and VI of Scotland, and many of the most important lords and bishops in the land as they met in Parliament.

Bonfire night revellers - copyright Elizabeth Doak

Cowdray, destroyed by fire in the late 18th century, is now a ruin. But when, on a visit several years ago, I discovered a certain Guy Fawkes had once been employed as a gentleman servant to the owner, the wealthy and influential, Anthony Maria-Browne, Lord Montague it proved too much for my writer’s imagination to resist!

Cowdray House ruins, West Sussex - author's own photo

It didn’t take long – asking the classic story question ‘What if’ – to come up with the outline for the story of a brave young Catholic boy, Tom Garnett who unwittingly gets caught up with the events culminating in the Plot.

Writing a story set in the past is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. As a general rule, the further back you travel in time, the less likely you are to have a complete – or as complete as you can hope for – picture of the events, the places and the people who lived then. Records, if they were made, might have been lost. And if they survive, they often only tell one side, or a fraction of the story. For a real-life jigsaw puzzler, such ‘missing pieces’ would be terribly frustrating, but for an historical novelist, they are story gold.

This is true for all my stories, but particularly for Black Powder.

Thanks to surviving documents of the day – including the intelligence gathered by the king’s spymaster and chief minister, Robert Cecil, the confessions of the plotters and official reports of their trials – we have quite a few jigsaw pieces to help us build a reasonably accurate account of the people and actions involved in the Gunpowder Plot. But it’s always important, when using such sources, to think about who is setting down the ‘facts’ and whether they can be trusted to tell it as it was or have maybe altered it in some way to suit their own ends.

Some of the pieces I discovered in the puzzle box when I started researching the true-life story of the Gunpowder Plot included:

· the identities, backgrounds and motives of the plotters and their leader, Robert Catesby (not Guy Fawkes, as so many people believe)

· their arrangements for hiring the cellar beneath the House of Lords, and stacking the 36 barrels of gunpowder inside it

· the plotters’ plans – if they had been successful in killing the king – to raise a rebellion in the country, to put the king’s young nine year-old daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, on the throne as a ‘puppet queen’, and to have all the anti-Catholic laws which provoked them to take their extreme action, reversed.

The Gunpowder Plotters

But these things are, in the main, drawn from official records of the time. They do not – and could not – give details of everything the plotters did or thought. For example, their conversations with each other, the things that made them laugh, or that made them sad or angry – aside of course from how badly treated they felt, because of the religious persecution they and their fellow Catholics had had to endure for so many years. And they don’t account for everyone they might have met and kept company with in the days leading up to the fateful events of the fifth of November 1605. This is where I could have fun with my imagination and start creating my own pieces of the jigsaw to fill in the gaps and tell a tale, linked to the story of the actual plot, but which was all my own. Some of the pieces I created include:

• my hero, 12 year-old Tom Garnett, who accidentally betrays his father after he rescues a Catholic priest from the harbour and then has to try and right that wrong and save him from the hangman’s noose with the help of a mysterious stranger called the Falcon
  
  
• Cressida Montague, daughter of Lord Montague and the rich and privileged cousin Tom never knew he had. They dislike each other intensely at first but eventually become good friends and allies
  
  
• two fictional spies who Tom, his mouse, Jago and Cressida must outwit if they are to succeed in their mission to rescue Tom’s father before it’s too late.

Of course, when you’re writing any form of historical fiction, whether for children, or adults, it’s important to maintain a balance between presenting everything that’s known versus telling a good story. But as long as you respect the facts of any real-life events or circumstances which form the backdrop to your story wherever you can, and have done the research which suggests what might be plausible to help flesh out the bits you don’t know, then how you complete the rest of the puzzle is up to you.

Can you use a real-life historical person or event to spark a new story idea? Or perhaps a favourite place? Think of something that intrigues you and makes you want to ask the magic story question ‘What if?’ Keep on asking the question every time you come up with an answer and see where it might lead. Then do some research of your own to fill in the missing pieces.

Happy plot puzzling!

Ally Sherrick is the author of books full of history, mystery and adventure including Black Powder, winner of the Historical Association’s Young Quills Award 2017. She is published by Chicken House Books and her books are widely available in bookshops and online. You can find out more about her and her books at www.allysherrick.com and follow her on Twitter: @ally_sherrick

Crumbling castles and spooky atmospheres - by Barbara Henderson

It’s Halloween week!

As I happen to live in the eeriest, spookiest, foggiest and darkest part of the country - the Scottish Highlands - I wanted to do something on crumbling castles and spooky atmospheres for this week’s blog post. Luckily, I visited just such a spooky castle last weekend, and took the opportunity to film some footage for our Time Tunnellers YouTube channel and our writing challenge for schools. 

 

Caerlaverock Castle 

Actually, I was there to do some research for a new book. But this is not the first time that I have set a story in a castle. The glorious Caerlaverock Castle, Britain’s only triangular medieval fortress, is the setting for my Young-Quills-shortlisted book The Siege of Caerlaverock. The opening of my middle grade novel describes Ada, a laundress at Caerlaverock, as she sneaks out at night to secretly feed a prisoner in the tower prison.

Even though my feet are bare, I feel the echo of every step along the corridor.

Don’t drop the candle.

Don’t drop the bread.

Don’t stumble.

Don’t cough.

The wind sings through the arrow slits and I hug my left hand around the tiny flame, pressing the hunk of bread against my body with my elbow. Back by the Gatehouse, the guards’ silhouettes stand outlined in the courtyard. I can’t tell which direction they are facing. No matter, I have to risk it. My conscience commands it.

My skirts flutter around my feet as I duck around the wash-house. Stooping behind barrels, stairs, sleeping horses and ladders, I run the last few steps and my candle blows out. I ease myself through the narrow gap and into the damp blackness of the tower. 

Let’s be clear: I absolutely love old castles and the atmosphere they evoke. Visiting Caerlaverock, I was able to research Ada’s route. I imagined the cold stone floor underfoot, the clammy dampness of the narrow stairs and corridors, and the smells and sounds of a castle courtyard.

I love reading this section aloud on school visits, often in no more than a whisper. Wonderfully, the book is based on a real and well-documented event in history, the real Siege of Caerlaverock in the year 1300. It happened during the Wars of Scottish Independence when the King of England, Edward Longshanks who loved to call himself The Hammer of the Scots, arrived at Caerlaverock with 3000 soldiers. Inside the castle were less than seventy, with the lady of the castle having to negotiate this tricky situation alone while her Lord was away. I thoroughly enjoyed imagining what these days would have been like for a girl and a young page boy, and I relied heavily on the contemporary poem which describes the siege for the plot of the book.

But walking around a castle after dark, on your own, as a girl? That would have been dangerous, verging on foolhardy. There surely cannot be a scarier, eerier or spookier atmosphere than a castle after dark, can there? How would you feel in Ada’s place?

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there is little doubt that most people in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period did. The castle I visited last week, Huntly Castle in Aberdeenshire, belonged to a notoriously fickle and disloyal lord called the Fourth Earl of Huntly. He plotted against the newly arrived Mary Queen of Scots during the 1500s, but when the Queen confronted him, he raised an army – while his wife turned to witchcraft. He will make a wonderfully vile villain for my next story, and I cannot wait to get started.

As I tiptoed along the corridors of Huntly Castle last weekend and peered down its old spiral staircases, I couldn’t help it: a shiver ran down my spine and I could feel my heart thump in my chest. It’s the castle effect.

So why not give yourself over to the castle experience? Visit a castle near you if you can, or support a heritage organisation which looks after such places. Explore the wealth of information about such sites that is now at our fingertips at the mere click of a mouse. And while you’re at it, whether you are young or old, why not try your hand at a story opening set in a night-time castle? I for one would be first in the queue to read it!

Think of echoing footsteps, the scraping of a sword out of a scabbard. The flickering light, the scent of rushes on the floor, the many tapestries behind which so much can be concealed. Think of the moonlight shining through arrow slits, an owl’s hooting, the rustling of rats and mice, the clanging of pots in the kitchen range, the rattling of an iron bucket in the depths of a well. Feel the rough stone underfoot, an iron chain cutting into your wrist, hear the chanting from the chapel at evensong.

Our heritage is rich, but it isn’t remote. All it asks of us is a little imagination.

 

 

Enemies within.

Enemies without.

Nowhere to hide.

 

12-year-old Ada is a laundress of little consequence, but the new castle commander Brian de Berclay has his evil eye on her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have secretly fed the young prisoner in the tower.

But when the King of England crosses the border with an army over 3000 strong, Ada, her friend Godfrey and all at Caerlaverock suddenly find themselves under attack, with only 60 men for protection.

Soon, rocks and flaming arrows rain from the sky over Castle Caerlaverock—and Ada has a dangerous choice to make.

 

Barbara Henderson in front of Huntly Castle 

Barbara's books are published by Cranachan. They are available from bookshops and online retailers.

For more information about Barbara's books visit barbarahenderson.co.uk

Follow Barbara @scattyscribbler