Local Event – Come Along If You Can!

Just a quick update – If you subscribe to the New Writing North newsletter (“The Listening Post“), you probably noticed that I’m speaking at the Ryton Social Club on Thursday evening.

I’ll be there as one of Gateshead Libraries’ Local History Month events. The main thing I’m going to be talking about is researching historical places – I’ll be focusing on the North East locations that featured so prominently in the Jarrow and Durham Trilogies, and the six Tyneside Sagas.

Speaking of the Tyneside Sagas, I’m overwhelmed with how well the new Kindle edition of The Tea Planter’s Daughter is doing – currently at number 24 in Amazon.co.uk’s Kindle Bestsellers List.

Normally at events like this, I’d sign any copies of my books that you brought along with you. But I’m not sure how this works for Kindle books – maybe I can sign the back of your Kindle for you!

The evening is just £3 on the door, and there’s lots of parking available as the social club is right next door to Ryton’s Summerfield store.

I hope to see you there!

FROM PONTELAND TO PORT STANLEY – FALKLANDS WAR 30 YEARS ON

John wearing his Falklands medal by the River Tyne

30 years ago, Geordie matlot John Mew was heading south on HMS Coventry as part of the British Task Force. He didn’t know then that his ship would be bombed and he plucked from the South Atlantic during the Falklands War. We knew him from his involvement with Ponteland Rugby Club in Northumberland where my husband Graeme played in the 1980s and 90s. When he was home on leave John would lead them in vigorous training and fitness sessions – with exacting Royal Navy standards!

After the Falklands conflict, John was generous in talking about his experiences and knowledge of the Navy when I was researching my novel, FOR LOVE & GLORY.

Amy, myself and John by the River Tyne

It is set in Wallsend on the River Tyne from where my husband’s family come. I have them to thank for much of the background information on this vibrant community where many of the world’s greatest ships were built. The Falklands material was inspired by veterans I’d read about – ordinary people who’d shown extraordinary courage – long after the short war was over and out of the news. But in particular, I’m indebted to our brave friend, John.

We met up recently to launch a new version of the novel. It’s now available as ebook for the first time. My daughter Amy is the model for the new cover!

These days it is John’s sons who are playing rugby for Ponteland – but I’m sure he can still teach them a thing or two about fitness!

FOR LOVE & GLORY ebook

The Falklands War of 1982

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands war, which is being commemorated at the National Memorial Arboretum with the lighting of a single flame. This will burn for the length of the conflict – 74 days:

Several of the hundred ships that sailed for the South Atlantic less than a week after the invasion were built on the Tyne - HMS Bristol, HMS Glasgow, HMS Exeter, HMS Glamorgan, HMS Argonaut, HMS Penelope, HMS Cordella, RFA Omleda, RFA Stromness, SS Atlantic Conveyor and SS Atlantic Causeway.

It was through discussion with my husband’s family who lived in Wallsend, and a meeting with John Mew who served on HMS Coventry that I came to write For Love and Glory.

Over the next ten weeks, I (along with the rest of the British media!), will be covering the events in the Falklands from thirty years ago. Later THIS month, a new edition of For Love and Glory will be published – initially for Kindle, but the paperback version will be ready soon after.

SUFFRAGETTE REMEMBERED WITH SONGS AND FLOWERS

To mark International Women’s Day, we gathered in the ancient church of St Mary’s in Morpeth to celebrate the life of Suffragette martyr, Emily Wilding Davison

Wearing suffragette ribbons, our gathering of North East women (and a few men!) sang hymns, joined in songs with Werca’s Folk, listened to amusing and spirited words from Northumberland’s female High Sheriff (who happens to be a reverend too – how Emily would have approved!) and the Romanian consul – also a woman.

Afterwards we were given long-stemmed white carnations and processed behind Emily’s descendants to her graveside.  Flowers were laid to the sound of Werca’s Folk singing the rousing Women’s Marseillaise that Emily would have known well.  Then there were hot drinks and a buffet in the nearby hall – the whole event laid on by Northumberland County Council.

(I took this with my phone, balanced against the railings, so that’s why it’s on a tilt!)

Next year is the centenary of Emily Davison’s death – there will be many events to mark the occasion – I’ll keep you updated here.

“The tranquil graveyard was so overrun with mourners that Maggie and Rose could not get near to see the coffin lowered into the ground at the Davison burial mound, so they patiently waited their turn among the lofty pines. Some time later they were able to approach the iron-fenced memorial which was almost hidden under the heaps of wreaths and floral messages. The scent of the flowers was overpowering as Maggie tossed her own modest purple iris onto the coffin.

‘I’ll fight on, I promise!’ Maggie whispered, as around her women openly wept.”  

Extract from my novel THE SUFFRAGETTE

International Women’s Day – It Didn’t End With “The Vote”

As today is International Women’s Day, I’m going to post a couple of photos of my relations from the Suffragette movement:

Great granny Janet Gorrie – around the 1870′s / 1880′s

Great granny Janet Gorrie in later life as a voting woman!

Granny Janet’s daughter, Mary Gorrie went on to run the Scottish Female Domestic Service Association, which cared for the latter years of domestic servants. Before the coming of the Welfare State, old age could be hard and grim for those who’d spent all their lives in service. The kindly paternalism shown in the likes of Downton Abbey was far rarer than the rose-tinted glasses of TV producers would have us think:

WPSU Fifty Pence Piece

I found this in the loose change in my purse last week:

A fifty pence piece commemorating the centenary of the founding of the WPSU. I wonder if Emmeline & Christabel Pankhurst had any idea that just a hundred years later they’d be seen worthy of commemorating on the nation’s coins? I wonder how much of a lift it would have given to the Suffragette’s foot-soldiers like my character Maggie Beaton when they faced tough times & the consequences of their actions?

Suffragettes And The Peace Movement

As well as the long fight to get votes for women, the Suffragette movement was also very much involved in peace campaigning.

I became aware of the extent of this when I was taking part in a monthly peace vigil against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. At the same time, I was researching conscientious objectors in the First World War for A Crimson Dawn, and I wondered if the widespread women’s movement for emancipation had been stopped by the outbreak of the Great War.

Anti-Suffrage politicians at the time were quick to call for an end to the campaign – it was seen as unpatriotic when “our brave boys” were involved in such a desperate struggle. That line sounds very familiar today, doesn’t it?

Yet many of the Suffragette groups did not disband. Many brave women stood up against the government’s jingoistic rhetoric, and kept in touch with their fellow campaigners in the ‘enemy’ countries. They saw the war for what it was – an imperialist expedition that was about grabbing colonies and resources. Ordinary people on both sides were manipulated into fighting in support of a system that kept them subjugated.

In 1915, some of these women even organised a peace conference. Aletta Jacobs (one of the first woman doctors) called the conference to take place in The Hague, and it became the foundation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The conference was attended by Suffragettes from the USA, as well as Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence & Emily Hobhouse representing England, and Chrystal MacMillan representing Scotland. In all, there were 1136 delegates from 12 countries. After the conference, they personally lobbied various governments in London, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Rome, Berne and Paris to sue for peace.

It’s a mark of how far they got under the skin of the political system, with Theodore Roosevelt describing them as “hysterical pacifists… both silly and base”, while Jane Addams was described in the Rochester Herald as,

“In the true sense of the word, she is apparently without education. She knows no more of the discipline and methods of modern warfare than she does of its meaning. If the woman conceded by her sisters to be the ablest of her sex, is so readily duped, so little informed, men wonder what degree of intelligence is to be secured by adding the female vote to the electorate.”

This sort of personal attack is a sure sign that you’ve got them on the run! Jane Adams was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace prize – the first American woman to be honoured with this award.

The Vanishing Of Ruth: Exhibition Material

I’m really pleased about this – some of the original research materials for The Vanishing of Ruth is to be featured as part of the Lit & Phil (that’s the Literary and Philosophical Society) exhibition on North East authors.

The exhibition – Creative Passions: An exhibition celebrating literature in portraits and words runs from 1st February to 3rd March 2012.

Hopefully if you’re in Newcastle in February, you’ll have time to pop into the Lit & Phil – it’s one of my favourite buildings in the North East, and a great place to work on my writing. The materials I’ve submitted for the exhibition include:

• Diary extracts from Day 1 and Day 53 of my overland trip of 1976 from the Isle of Skye to Kathmandu.
• Day 53′s entry was written in Balochistan, which formed one of the key settings for The Vanishing of Ruth. I refreshed my knowledge on the area some thirty-odd years later with the help of the Lit & Phil’s copy of Stanford’s Compendium on Balochistan.
• A letter written home from Afghanistan. Beautiful country, and wonderful people!

More on the Vanishing of Ruth later in the week…

A Crimson Dawn Now In E-Book Formats

It’s been a while coming, but I’ve finally got A Crimson Dawn converted to e-book formats:

Emmie Kelso is only nine years old when she’s rescued from a dingy Gateshead tenement. Sent to Crawdene, a mining village on the fell, she’s taken into the vibrant, loving household of the MacRaes and brought up as one of their own.

Blossoming into an intelligent and spirited young woman, Emmie is soon swept off her feet by handsome miner Tom Curran but it’s only after their wedding that she learns of his possessive, violent nature.

As war engulfs Europe in 1914, the community divides. Tom enlists and despite his disapproval, Emmie joins the MacRaes, among others, in their cries for peace. Working with those opposed to the war, Emmie finds herself alongside Rab, the MacRaes’ eldest son and a conscientious objector, and their childhood devotion to each other sparks into a love too strong to hide. But as the war worsens, the atmosphere grows ever more tense.

Women hand out white feathers to those refusing to defend their country and Rab, arrested as a ‘conchie’, faces the ultimate penalty. And when a brutalised, war-weary Tom returns home, there’s trouble ahead. The war may be drawing to an end, but Emmie’s fight for happiness is only just beginning ….

For full details of this book, please go to my page on Family Sagas.