High School Prom – a history and a personal experience

High School Prom
Prom princesses

I’ve just had a very odd experience.  My fifteen year old daughter has just attended her year 11 high school prom and I found myself, for a short time, turning into ‘prom Mum’.  It’s astonishing how much time and energy can go into preparing a daughter for this one event, lasting a few hours only.  I’m not sure that I was looking forward to it but in the end it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.

It wasn’t the first prom in the family.  My son went through the process a couple of years ago but on that occasion my only involvement was to admire him in his suit and make sure the corsage matched his date’s dress.  There was little else for me to do.

It’s different with a daughter, especially one like mine who does not conform to most teenage norms.  I was frankly surprised that she wanted to do prom at all.  Given her ambivalence, we rather left the whole shopping thing to the last minute, so we ended up travelling to buy the dress.  Make up and hair needed to be decided and the location of the pre-prom and after-prom events took some arranging.  But my child is fearsomely independent and apart from buying the dress I had less to do than many parents.

The high school prom is a custom which began in the United States but has been exported in recent years to the United Kingdom and Canada, probably because of the popularity of the prom in films and TV shows over the years.  A rite of passage for high school students it has become an important ritual in the UK and most schools now have a version of it.

Susan Ford, who held her prom at the White House
1950s High School Prom
Prom in the 1950s

In the early days of prom in the United States, the dance was a bit like a debutante ball.  It was considered the first adult social event for many teenagers and the first real occasion to dress up.  Initially nothing more than an end of year dance, it gradually became an iconic episode in high school life and during the 1950s proms became more extravagant and elaborate.  Original proms took place at the school but gradually it became more common to use hotels or country clubs.  One lucky girl, whose father happened to be a President, held her prom at the White House.

The high school prom arrived in the UK during the 2000s.  Before then schools often held a summer ball or end of year disco to celebrate the end of formal schooling but this did not have the significance of the US style prom.  However, the increasing influence of US TV shows and movies changed the nature of these events and most schools now hold a year 11 prom and a year 13 prom to celebrate the end of schooling for these two year groups.

There is something reminiscent of a wedding about preparing for high school prom.  Boys wear suits, girls wear evening gowns and there is a tradition of wearing a buttonhole or corsage of flowers.  Traditionally students have attended in couples although it is increasingly common for groups of friends to attend together.  There are formal photographs, parents often gather for pre-prom events and there is often an ‘after prom’ party which might be organized and supervised but is frequently not, in which case alcohol plays a part.

One of the traditions of prom is the election of a prom queen and king, voted in by the other students.  Not all schools hold to this tradition and there has been some concern that it can lead to jealousy and spite but it has proved popular in many schools.

I was worried about the high school prom for my girl.  I thought she might feel slightly out of place in the glitter and self absorption of the whole event.  That says more about my view of prom than hers; I’ll admit to being a bit of a prom snob.  To me it was an American invention wrapped up with teenage rivalry, too much make up and the prom king and queen being the two kids one would least want to spend an evening with.  Clearly I watched too much American teen TV and movies over the past twenty years.

As so often happens, I was wrong.  Prom queen and king were a couple whom my daughter declares to be totally sweet.  She was nominated herself which she found hilarious.  She had a date; a good friend of hers but most of her friends went as a group and there was no sense of rivalry or teenage angst at the pre-prom gathering.  They were all happy, all enjoying dressing up in glamorous clothes and all delighted to be together.

Astonishingly I felt very emotional.  I’ve known a lot of these kids since they were skinny little eleven year olds and they looked truly beautiful.  According to my daughter, the evening was great, she danced until her feet hurt and so did everybody else.  She got bored with the incessant photographs but was tolerant of them.  She enjoyed herself at a good party where she got to dress up like a princess and be with her friends.

I don’t know if high school prom is always like this, but if it is, I’m a convert.  I’m glad that my daughter had this rite of passage at the end of her compulsory education and I’m happy for her to do it again at the end of sixth form.  It turned out that it wasn’t a popularity contest.

Prom girls
High School prom girls

The thing I really liked is that not once have I heard a single criticism or spiteful remark about anybody else.  Nobody picked at each others hair or dress or make up.  The kids I talked to seemed to have a genuine joy in being together for one last time before they separate to take their different paths.  For my daughter it’s back to school for A levels; some are going to college or into work or apprenticeships.  But on this evening they were all united and having a good time.

We here so much negative stuff about teenagers today.  But this group, on this evening, at this prom, were a bunch of kids I’m delighted to know.  Good luck to them all in whatever they do next.  And just for one evening, I was a very very proud prom Mum…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster – a little piece of family history

The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster happened on 3rd March 1943.  173 people died; men, women and children while trying to hurry down the steep steps to the station which was being used as an air raid shelter.  Growing up in East London with a mother who lived through the Blitz as a child, I can’t remember ever not knowing about this tragedy.  The story was told through my family and with grisly curiosity I can remember being quite young and asking about it time and time again as my mother insisted on holding my hand going down those steps on our way to the underground.  So it was something as a shock to me to discover as an adult how many people in Britain have never heard of it at all.

The story, for me, follows on from my previous post about my childhood in London.  There were endless stories of wartime Britain from my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles.  I’ve often wondered about the accuracy of some of them given how memories change over time.  My mother is gone now as are all her brothers and sisters so I can’t ask for more detail and I wish I’d done it while I could.  But the story of the tragedy in March 1943 was very real.

The winter of 1940-41 was a nightmare for Londoners, with the bombing pounding their city.  On one occasion, London was hit for 57 nights in a row.  In December firebombs hit the city.  Air raid sirens were a constant background to daily life although there were many false alarms, but a lot of Londoners used to go into the shelters for the night just in case.  Many had Anderson or Morrison shelters in their back gardens but they were cramped with no light, little air and no toilet other than a chamber pot.  A lot of people preferred to use the Underground.

Bethnal Green was a new station as the Central Line had been extended from Liverpool Street in 1936, but work had been interrupted by the outbreak of War.  With the track not yet laid, there was plenty of room with up to 5000 bunks.  There was a sense of community with singing, laughter, tea urns and even a library and with bombs falling around them it must have given many a sense of security to be with their neighbours and friends.

Bombing was not as bad as it had been in previous years but on 3rd March 1943 it was expected to get worse as the RAF had  bombed Berlin quite heavily two nights earlier and people were expecting reprisals. With the sound of the Siren and the closure of the cinema, 3 buses had just stopped nearby and their passengers dashed for the shelter. A woman carrying a baby tripped and fell as she went down the steps to the platform. A man tripped over her and a domino effect started. At the top of the stairs came shouted warning of bombs falling and when a new and loud sound was heard people thought it was a new kind of bomb although it was actually a  new anti-aircraft rocket battery being tested in Victoria Park near by.

People panicked and pushed into the shelter unaware of the horror unfolding below them in the dark. The way was blocked but still people poured down. There were no handrails in the middle, no white edgings on the steps and no police on duty. It was dark and the steps were slippery from the rain. Around 300 people were wedged into the stairway – an area measuring approximately 15 x 11 feet. By the time they were pulled out, 27 men, 84 women and 62 children were crushed to death while 60 survivors needed hospital treatment.  In a horrible irony there was no air raid or bombs dropped that night in the East End.

There was a government enquiry although it’s findings were not published until the end of the war to avoid propaganda for the enemy and damage to British morale.  The entrance was poorly lit, with no central handrail and apparently the local council had asked permission to alter the entrance and put in a central handrail, but had been refused the funds by the Government of the day.  After the tragedy new handrails were installed on the steps down to the station. Each step was marked with white paint.

The official statement by the Ministry of Home Security states:

“According to accounts so far received, shortly after the air-raid Alert sounded, substantial numbers of people were making their way as usual towards the shelter entrance. There were nearly 2000 in the shelter, including several hundred who had arrived after the Alert, when a middle-aged woman, burdened with a bundle and a baby, tripped near the foot of a flight of 19 steps which leads down from the street. This flight of steps terminates on a landing. Her fall tripped an elderly man behind her and he fell similarly. Their bodies again tripped up those behind them, and within a few seconds a large number were lying on the lower steps and the landing, completely blocking the stairway. Those coming in from the street could not see what had taken place and continued to press down the steps, so that within a minute there were about 300 people crushed together and lying on top of one another covering the landing and the lower steps.
“By the time it was possible to extricate the bodies it was found that a total at present estimated at 178 had died and that a further 60 were in need of hospital treatment. Statements from a large number of eye-witnesses and members of the police and Civil Defence services make it clear that there was no sign of panic before the accident on the stairs. No bombs fell anywhere in this district during the evening. Preliminary reports received by the Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security indicate that police, wardens, soldiers, W.V.S. and civilians worked hard and well to rescue the victims. Mr. Morrison has instituted the fullest inquiries to establish in greater detail what took place and to see whether any structural or administrative weaknesses have been brought to light”

The injured were taken to hospital in Whitechapel and the dead were taken to the mortuary there on carts and buses.  When it became overcrowded the bodies were stored in St John’s Church opposite the tube station.  Many of the victims were later buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery, which was cleared by members of the Drapers Company with help from the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery in time for the 60th anniversary. Others are buried in Manor Park Cemetery and a few elsewhere.

Because of the government’s desire to keep the tragedy quiet while war was still going on, those involved were told to keep quiet and not say what had happened.  A report was filed by Eric Linden with the Daily Mail, who witnessed it but it never ran. The story which was reported instead was that there had been a direct hit by a German bomb. The results of the official investigation were not released until 1946.  Everybody in the East End knew the truth but in the days without the internet and social media it did not filter out to the country as a whole.  The press were silenced. There was no counselling in those days and PTSD wasn’t recognised.  People were told to just get on with their life.

There is a list of the dead on the memorial website, and one of them was a twelve year old boy called James William Taylor.  Jimmy was my mother’s first cousin, living within a few minutes of her and in the close knit community of the East End he attended Bonner Street School with her and her brothers and was a close part of her extended family.  My mother and her brothers heard about the disaster from some other children on their way to school and were told that the bodies were being taken out and laid out on the pavement waiting to be transferred.  With the grisly curiosity of wartime children they took a detour to see them.  Only later did they find out that one of the hastily covered bodies laid out beside the road was their cousin Jimmy.

Thinking about this tragedy in light of the recent horrible events in London has made me realise how much times have changed.  It is inconceivable to us that families, including children like my mother, were allowed – in fact expected – to cope with the reality of a tragedy like this without help or counselling or even without financial support.  Women who lost their breadwinner in the tragedy faced hard times with their children.

Surprisingly my mother used to tell me that she remembered surprisingly little sense of outrage or anger at the government either for the disaster or the cover up.  Perhaps that was because she was a child but also it was wartime and everybody had been taught that ‘careless talk costs lives’.  There were no internet groups on Facebook to stir up anger and resentment and animosity, there was just the local community which offered comfort and support and practical help to those in need.  What blame there was landed upon the local council since they were not allowed to publish their requests for funding to improve the entrance, given the number of people using it.  But in wartime London, protests were fairly muted.  People had other things on their minds and it was not until after the war that the full truth gradually emerged and public anger grew including a number of court cases.

For many years the only memorial was a small plaque on the stairway, the one which used to spark my curiosity as a child but in 2007 local residents, including many who had lost family in the tragedy and one or two survivors, formed a charity for a proper memorial to the worst civilian disaster of the Second World War.  Their web page is well worth a look, as it tells the story in far more detail including very moving accounts of survivors.

The memorial, called A Stairway to Heaven is finally being unveiled on Sunday 17 December 2017.  More than 70 years after the tragedy, those 173 people, including my first cousin once removed, are being remembered.  Most of those who survived the disaster are gone now, but those who remain have never forgotten.

My mother didn’t spend all her childhood in London, she had two spells of evacuation, but she had vivid memories of the time she was there and she was a good storyteller.  I’m going to write them down and perhaps get my sister and cousins to dredge up their memories of their parents’ stories.  It’s very easy to think there is plenty of time.  I wish I’d asked both my parents a lot more and written it down so that I could remember it more clearly.

As a history graduate and historical novelist, perhaps it should be my job to record the family history as well so that all our children can benefit from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner - Tower Bridge, London
Tower Bridge, London

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner was played at my mother’s funeral a few years back.  It was very appropriate for her, because although for the last few years of her life she moved to the Isle of Man to be near us, she saw herself as very much a Londoner.  She was fiercely proud of it, would defend London as the best city in the world – in fact the best place in the world – against anybody.

A cat called Monty
Monty the Cat

I was in London myself recently for a few days, cat sitting for a friend of my sisters and getting some quiet time after the complete madness of the past few months.  It was as hot as Hades and I spent a few days with my sister catching up, being a tourist and getting sore feet after which she went home and I was alone and peaceful with Monty the cat.  My intention wasto catch up on a lot of admin jobs that I’ve left for too long and then to get a really good way into my new Regency novel.  It was a lovely flat with a balcony and the temptation to doze in the sun with Monty was huge, although I did try to resist.

It’s always odd being back in London.  I’m not so familiar with this part, but we took a bus out through the East End where I grew up, to Stratford and then went on to Canary Wharf and had lunch by the river.  In my childhood, Stratford was our local shopping centre and Canary Wharf was a place we simply didn’t go – it consisted of rotting and boarded up warehouses with a few dingy businesses still struggling on.  I’ve watched the evolution of docklands through my life and it’s been a fascinating process.

Despite being born and raised in the East End, I’m not really a city person.  I don’t mind small towns; Douglas is about right for me.  But I love the countryside and the coast, the feeling of fewer people and wider spaces and not feeling trapped.  I don’t think I’d ever choose to live full time in a city again, especially a city as overcrowded as London now is.

Nevertheless – and maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner – I actually do still love London.  It’s the place of my birth and my childhood.  I love the history and the parks and the odd little corners that many people never visit.  I was so lucky as a child to have parents who adored both history and walking.  Every Sunday, unless the rain was torrential, we were dragged out to the number 8 bus stop at the end of the road, to “go for a walk”.  This did not mean a twenty minute stroll through a park.  It meant a four or five hour marathon through parts of London I would never have known existed.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner: Wellington Statue
Wellington statue in London

We walked through the City and listened to my mother’s stories of the blitz and of her first jobs in old fashioned offices, learning the switchboard and typing on an old fashioned typewriter.  We wandered through the Inns of Court and the world of legal London, with my Dad stopping to read every plaque on every wall.  We discovered hidden gems like the Museum of the Order of St John and Postman’s Park.  On wet days we did every museum in London including ones I’ve forgotten even existed.  We went into obscure but beautiful churches which were always open to visitors back then, and if it was late enough in the day we would stay for evensong before getting the bus home.  When people ask me why I write historical novels rather than any other kind, I find it hard to answer apart from to say I always loved history.  But I know that this is why.  At times, wandering through the ancient streets, I would whinge about the fact that my friends from school were all off ice skating or swimming or just hanging out in the street.  But Mum was adamant that unless there was a genuine reason not to (like a broken leg – arms didn’t count, I once saw her scale the cliffs at Hastings with her arm in a sling) we would all go out together on Sundays.  Church, Sunday lunch, walk or other outing and then home for tea and whichever series was on TV on Sundays.  Saturdays were ours; on Sundays we belonged to her.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner: Tower of London
Tower of London

As I grew older the rule relaxed, but by then she didn’t have to nag me, I was hooked.  At secondary school by then, I visited exhibitions relevant to whatever I was studying, sometimes with the school but sometimes on my own.  I would think nothing – and still don’t – about taking myself off to the British Museum on a free day.  A boat trip down to Hampton Court or Greenwich was a joy.  I loved the Cutty Sark and the Tower of London – just wandering around outside them was enough.  And I adored – and will always adore – the River Thames, where my parents did a lot of their courting.

All of this came from a family with very little.  We lived, for the first thirteen years of my life, in an old rented house with no bathroom or indoor toilet.  We washed in the kitchen sink and bathed in an old fashioned tin bath by the oil stove in the kitchen because there was no central heating.  We ate healthily but with few luxuries on a daily basis although it made a meal out for a birthday or the extra treats at Christmas incredibly special.

When we moved to a council maisonette when I was thirteen, it was luxury.  I can remember squabbling over who would be the first to use the new bath until we realised my mother was already in it.  Curiously, we missed our old fashioned house; the new place had no garden.  My parents were good managers and saved for their old age but we didn’t have that much stuff.

What we did have was experiences.  We had one week’s holiday every year, always in the UK but always somewhere special.  When we were small we went to holiday camps a lot as they were cheap and there was entertainment but as we got older we rented cottages and we explored Devon and Cornwall, the Lakes and Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight and parts of Scotland.  We did it all by coach and bus and train; they had no car.

We went to the cinema to see every good new film going.  We went to the London Palladium to see the Pantomime every Christmas.  If there was a school trip to anywhere, they would find the money for us to go.  My love of music came from endless school trips to concerts, the opera, and to hear Gilbert and Sullivan.  My love of good plays and literature came from school trips to the Young Vic and Stratford upon Avon.  They had never been abroad, but I went to Russia at sixteen with the school because my Dad did overtime to pay for it.

George and Iris Bryant
My parents, George and Iris Bryant

I’m aware as an adult of everything they did for us and everything they sacrificed so that we could absorb as many different experiences as they could afford to give us.  It’s not that surprising that we both did so well.  But I don’t think they thought it was that much of a sacrifice, I think they loved doing all these things with us, enjoyed introducing us to the city they both loved.

They were poor when we were young, got more comfortable as we grew up and travelled a bit more, spent more on themselves although they still never had a car or bought a house.  They ate out a lot, discovered different cuisines and enjoyed it.  They both still walked until arthritis and old age prevented them.  But they never resented poverty or saw themselves as victims.  They were never angry.  They simply worked out what was important to them and what they could easily do without and if they needed more they worked a bit harder to get it.

They weren’t political although they never failed to vote, but they both voted on issues rather than blind loyalty to a party so at different times they voted for all three main parties.  My mother voted for Margaret Thatcher simply on the grounds that it was time there was a woman in charge.  She was a feminist without ever knowing what the word meant, or caring.  My father voted Labour that year.  Neither of them cared what anybody else voted.  Their friends and family could be Labour or Tory or Liberal or nothing at all.  It was considered rude to get personal about such matters as religion or politics.  They were old enough to appreciate the welfare state, the NHS and any help they were given.  They were gracious about it, didn’t see it as a right, said thank you when help was given.  During the IRA bombings they continued to take us to all the same places, do all the same things.  We missed the Ideal Home Exhibition bomb by a few minutes only, but there was no sense of anxiety.  We were in London and that city belonged to us, not the bombers.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner.  But when I’m back here, no matter how much it has changed, no matter how much I know that I’d never come back to live here now, I still feel a very primitive sense of belonging.  This is my city, my home, my childhood.  I feel an enormous sense of familiarity and of love and gratitude both to the people who raised me and the city that shaped all of us.  I’ve lived in many places now and loved a fair few of them.  But when I come back to London, I know I’ve come home.

Blogging with Labradors – even when it’s too hot to do so

Stars of Blogging with Labradors

Blogging with labradors even when it’s too hot to do so is still a better idea than housework which is my official task for the day.  I am going to get back to it after one little blog post, I promise.  The sheer joy of a clean and tidy living room yesterday has spurred me on.  But I feel as though I’ve neglected the boys in these posts recently in favour of history, art, writing and other stuff that they really don’t care about.  And after all, it is named after them…

Toby and Joey are cross with me.  For one thing it’s very hot which they are not keen on.  It might seem unreasonable for them to blame me for this, but they do.  They’re dogs, so they don’t realise I don’t control the weather.  After all, I can provide food and water on tap and cuddles on demand.  And if they are cold I light the fire for them.  Why I can’t turn off the sun, they cannot comprehend but they’re cross about it.

They’re also cross because people are missing.  My son is in Cyprus and my husband is in London and my daughter is out doing revision sessions and exams.  Toby and Joey disapprove.  They’re fond of me, but one human to adore them isn’t really enough, they like a team.  Usually they struggle to decide who to be with when we’re all here, and pace from room to room like large Tigers.  If we have the audacity to be upstairs where they are not allowed they will stand at the bottom and bark, knowing that somebody will come.

Now there is only me, and to make it worse, I’ve gone mad.  The woman who can pretty much be relied on to sit at her desk for most of the day with their beds either side, has started cleaning things.

Yesterday was the pinnacle of my madness and their irritation.  I took the sofas apart and cleaned the living room.  I washed their beds.  I opened windows and vacuumed noisily for what seemed like hours.  They both got up onto the sofa (minus cushions) and sat there in the chaos, refusing to move and looking grumpy.  I think they’d just about forgiven me by bedtime although I had to sit in the living room with them all evening to make it up to them.

Today they are alone with me again, and looking suspicious since I’ve picked up that vacuum cleaner again and taken it upstairs.  They don’t trust me, I can tell.

I feel as though I have gone a bit mad, but the novelty of actually having time alone in the house has gone to my head.  I know I’ll feel better when the house is at least reasonably clean and tidy, and it makes it easier to work if I’m not constantly irritated by the mess so I’m going to get on with it and feel better despite my allergy to housework.

My dogs will forgive me because I’m going to buy them a paddling pool.  It seems mad on the Isle of Man given our usual weather but it is hotter than usual and at their age, heat stroke is a worry.  Also it will be quite nice to put my feet in if this keeps up…  I’ve read a couple of very sad stories this week about dogs dying of heatstroke, not here but in the UK, which has made me conscious of keeping an eye on my beloved boys.

The Dogs Trust gives the following advice about taking care of your dogs in hot weather.

There are many precautions that can be taken to keep your dog safe and well on a hot day.

Don’t excessively walk your dog
Avoid walking your dog at the hottest times of the day – often morning or later in the evenings can be cooler
Always take plenty of water with you when out with your dog
Make sure the dog has shade to cool off in, either inside or when out
Take your dog to the groomers and keep their fur clipped
Dogs can get sun burned – especially white dogs or those with little hair so try and keep them out of direct sun
Think twice about any car trips with your dog – avoid congested roads or busy times of day when they could overheart in the car if you are caught up in traffic
If driving with your dog plan your journey considering cooler times of the day and places to take breaks
Don’t leave your dog in a car – as temperatures rise, dogs overheat quickly and leaving them for as little as 20 minutes could prove fatal

Many of these are common sense and we’re fortunate to have a big shady garden for our two which they love.  But I hope everybody takes care.  Humans aren’t always that sensible in the hot weather either, especially in places like this where we don’t see it that often – we tend to get over excited and go a bit mad.

For example, some of us decide to clean house on a day when we’d probably be better sitting in the shade with our dogs, a cool drink and a nice gentle proof reading task.  Ah well…

The Peninsular War Saga:The Joy of a Series…why one book sometimes isn’t enough…

Cannon

Many thanks to all of you downloading An Unconventional Officer, the first book in the Peninsular War saga.  I really hope you enjoy it.  It’s a long book and it’s the first in a series so I am hoping that you make a connection with the characters and want to read on.  Discovering a new series of books is something of a commitment.  You can read one book, put it to one side with a smile or a shrug, and not worry about it any further.  But to read a series, the story and the characters have to matter.

All of my characters matter to me but I probably have more invested at the moment in Paul and Anne in An Unconventional Officer because I know a lot more about them.  I’ve worked out where they are going and what happens to them and I know what they have to face along the way.  I know about their friends and their family and their children.

I love reading a series.  There’s a real sense of anticipation about the next book.  In terms of historical novels, these are my favourites, in no particular order:

Sir Robert Carey and the James Enys series by P F Chisholm (Patricia Finney)

Falco and Flavia Alba novels by Lindsey Davis

Brother Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters

Lymond and Niccolo series by Dorothy Dunnett

Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters

The Barforth family saga by Brenda Jagger

There are a lot of others but these are definitely my favourites.  I quite enjoy some other series as well.  I like thrillers, and I enjoy Val McDermid, Jeffrey Deaver, Tony Hillerman, Jonathan Kellerman, Colin Dexter, P D James, Tess Gerritson and Elizabeth George.

Sometimes a series starts well and then tails off so that I lose interest.  That definitely happened with the Alex Cross series by James Patterson.  I enjoyed the early ones enormously but then for me, the stories became too similar or sometimes too bizarre, in an effort to keep the series going.  Sometimes I suspect it is time just to find an ending and move on.

Sometimes a series just wears me out.  I’m a big fan of Game of Thrones and have followed both the novels and the TV series with considerable enthusiasm.  But the last book was a struggle and although I’m still enjoying the series, I’m not sure I’ll read the next book when it arrives.  It had become unremittingly depressing and hard to follow even for me, and I’ve waited too long for it.  I think he’s an amazing writer, but I’m just done with them now.

Writing a series brings both opportunities and challenges for an author.  There are challenges of continuity, of making sure no glaring errors occur with events and characters and history.  List making, chronologies and obsessive detail is essential here.  There is the challenge of keeping your readers interest.  No matter how much your readers love your main characters, if all the books are about them and nothing else they are going to get bored.

I think historical novelists have an unfair advantage here, because unless we want to rewrite history, we can’t cheat.  The events of the day are going to happen to our characters whether we like it or not so it forces us to think about how they might genuinely affect our protagonists.  A good example of this is the growing friendship between Colonel Paul van Daan, my fictional hero of the Peninsular Wars saga and General Robert Craufurd, the irascible, brilliant commander of the light division.  There are no spoilers here.  Both Anne and Paul are very attached to Craufurd but anybody can check Wikipedia and realise that at some point they are going to get very upset.  Craufurd died in the breaches of Ciudad Rodrigo and his friends were devastated.  I can’t rewrite that to make my characters feel better…

Those are the challenges.  The opportunities are equally important.  A series means you get to find out what happens next.  You don’t have to tie up all the loose ends in one book.  You can start and end each chapter when it makes sense.  You can explore other characters alongside your leads.  And you can develop people in the way that happens in real life, gradually, in a series of conversations and events not in a three paragraph summary which is all you have time for.

The established wisdom of publishing now seems to be, that with very few exceptions, long novels don’t work.  It is assumed that modern readers simply can’t cope.  In my opinion this has more to do with publishing costs than public opinion and I do understand why a publisher who is struggling with the advent of the internet and self publishing might not be willing to take on a new author. But for me, because I’m a realist, the phrase “you’re not marketable” actually means “you’re new and therefore too much of a risk”.  And that’s fine.  I’ve accepted it and moved on.  But since I can’t stop writing, I’ve decided to put my books out there and see.  And the good news is, they’re selling.  And getting good reviews and ratings.  Not thousands of sales yet, but hundreds.  Not dozens of reviews yet but a few and very good.

“An Unconventional Officer” was a difficult novel to publish.  It’s long.  Less that the Harry Potter book “Deathly Hallows” which was for children.  Less than War and Peace or Catch-22.  About the same as Fellowship of the Ring.  I thought about splitting it into two books when I was trying to find a traditional publisher.  They would either have told me to cut it or to split it into two books.

An Unconventional Officer
Book 1 of the Peninsular War Saga

In the end I’ve published it as it is.  For those of you who give it a try I hope you enjoy it.  I loved writing it and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, most of which will be shorter books covering a shorter time period.

 

 

 

 

Creating a book – an interview with Sarah Hendy on Manx radio

Manx Radio on Douglas Head (Photo by Nigel Williams)

I had a lovely time today recording a radio interview for Manx radio with the fabulous Sarah Hendy whom I used to work with at the Sayle Gallery in Douglas.  Sarah now presents Spotlight, the stations weekly arts programme and asked me to come for a chat about my books and in particular the latest

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s army
Book 1 in the Peninsular War Saga

release, An Unconventional Officer.

It took me right back to my first ever post when I wrote about how difficult it was for me to ‘come out’ and admit that I write historical novels and consider myself to be an author.  I was writing when I was working with Sarah but we didn’t talk about it because at that stage only my closest friends and family knew that I wrote at all.  I’m not sure why, looking back on it, except that it is a slightly unusual hobby.  A lot of people put reading or hiking or cycling at a hobby on their CV but writing tends to raise eyebrows.

I enjoyed the interview.  It helps a lot to know the person interviewing you and Sarah and I know each other very well.  But I also enjoyed some of the questions, in particular the one about the process of creating the story.

I don’t know how other authors put together their novels.  Do they start by typing chapter one and then write through in a logical order until the end?  I’ve never been very good at doing that.  I tend to write a selection of scenes involving my characters and then string them together.  Once I’ve got a fair chunk of the book, I can go back and fill in the gaps, and a lot of rewriting is done then.

It sounds like a slightly mad way of doing things, but my books are very character driven.  One of the comments made by Sarah today was that it sounds at times as if my characters get away from me.  It’s really hard to explain it, but they do.  Sometimes they seem to behave in ways that I find very difficult to understand.  Heroes behave like idiots, heroines lose their marbles at an unexpected moment and a villain who up until now has been completely dislikable will step up and do something good which I then have to deal with.

That’s why writing individual scenes often works well for me.  I can throw a collection of people together in a situation and see how they behave.  Sometimes it works really well and I will incorporate the scene into the book and at other times I decide I don’t want to use it.  But even the unused scenes have developed relationships between my characters and I think that makes the scenes I do use a lot stronger.

The exception to this slightly off beat way of writing has been the Peninsular War Saga.  Initially I began with the same approach but once I got to grips with the research, it was obvious I needed to focus a bit better or the whole thing was going nowhere.  Lord Wellington did not hang about during the war and my poor characters are constantly on the move, constantly busy.  Scenes I particularly wanted to include needed to be ruthlessly adapted to fit in with what the commander in chief wanted.

I didn’t mind.  Wellington was giving the orders here, it’s our job just to get on with it.  In many ways it makes the whole situation more realistic.  The number of times one of my characters needs to march out to battle just as a crisis occurs at home is numerous but completely real.  It must have happened in real life, which is probably why Wellington didn’t really like his officers and men to be married at all, and if they were, preferred their families to be left at home.  He needed his army to focus and became annoyed very quickly at requests for leave to deal with family crises, romantic interludes or personal bereavement.

Wellington remained in the field for the whole of the war apart from the one occasion right at the start when he was recalled with the other commanders to answer for the fiasco of the Convention of Sintra.  While he was away Sir John Moore marched into Spain, a disastrous campaign which ended with his death at Corunna.  I rather suspect that didn’t help with Wellington’s conviction that everything tended to go wrong if he wasn’t there to personally take charge.

With the Peninsular books I now have my characters, and a fairly fixed timeline, and all I need to do is work out what happens to them during that time period.  It’s fairly obvious where Paul needs to be.  Battle follows battle and he’s going to be involved in them.  Occasionally there’s a short break during winter quarters, but I tend to find him a job elsewhere during those periods.  He doesn’t like to be bored.

I’d like to thank Sarah and Manx Radio for letting me ramble on about my books.  It’s something I love to do.  The programme is aired on Wednesday 7th June at 5.30pm.

 

Writing with Labradors… An Unconventional Officer, The Reluctant Debutante and Hilary Mantel

Lynn Bryant and Writing with Labradors
Local news story on Writing with Labradors

Writing with Labradors, and Blogging with Labradors came about as something of a joke when I was first setting up my website.  It’s proved popular and I’ve stayed with it…hence the presence of Toby and Joey in our local newspaper this week.

Anybody looking at this post is going to work out from the title that I’ve a few things on my mind this morning.  One of them is recovering from my birthday yesterday.  Not, as you might think, a wild night out on the town, but a rather lovely meal at home (main course courtesy of my son and his girlfriend, cake courtesy of my daughter) followed by Prosecco and Trivial Pursuits.  You can tell that I know how to live…

I spent some time thinking about publicity yesterday now that An Unconventional Officer has been published.  There was a nice article in our local paper the Isle of Man Examiner about the release and I’ve been asked to do Manx Radio as well.

I can remember one of the first posts I wrote on this blog talked about my concerns regarding publicity.  I’ve never been much of a self-publicist and I honestly thought I’d struggle more than I have, but I’ve made myself do it because once I had taken the plunge and published the books it seemed pointless just to let them sit there and take their chances.  And I’ve actually quite enjoyed it.  For anybody interested in psychology, marketing and reaching the right audience is a nice little challenge.  I’m still learning but I think I’m getting better.

It helps that the books are selling – not in their thousands, but steadily.  It also helps that I’ve had one or two nice reviews and some four and five star ratings on places like Goodreads and Amazon.  There’s something very encouraging about knowing that people are reading and enjoying the books enough to review them.  All my reviews are from complete strangers, I hope they have some idea how much it makes me smile.

One of the interesting things I’m learning is what people like.  I grew up with Regency novels and loved them, and I’ve read a few more recent ones.  The Reluctant Debutante was my tribute to those and I’ve been astonished at how popular it’s been.  I had already thought I would write another Regency just because they’re so much fun, but I’m already planning it.

An Unconventional Officer is also set in Regency times and although it’s a far cry from the London Season of Cordelia and Giles, it is about the war which affected everything during those years.  It’s a longer book than any of the others and is the first in a series which follows the men and women of a fictional regiment through the years of the Peninsular War.  I loved working on this book; it’s a bigger canvas with a large cast of characters and the best part is that I don’t have to say goodbye to them at the end of the book.

I’ve done a lot of research for these books.  Earlier I saw an article in the Guardian which caught my attention about the relationship between academic historians and historical novelists which I found really interesting.  I’m sure there are a lot of academics who dislike historical novels, particularly where they take very obvious liberties with history.  Equally there are non-academics who don’t like them much either.  And there are people who like science fiction and chick lit and thrillers and even, so I’m told, those who love Fifty Shades of Grey.  It takes all sorts.

I think I can understand the frustration of an academic historian.  After publishing a book which took years of painstaking research, gained excellent academic reviews and sold very few copies it must be infuriating to see a novelist selling thousands of books which claim to be based on history but which to a serious historian could seem poorly researched, wildly inaccurate and full of mistakes.

I do have a history degree so I’ve a little understanding of both sides of this argument.  The truth is that some historical novelists are not trying to be accurate, they’re just trying to entertain, putting characters in old fashioned clothing but not caring about period detail or anachronisms or accurate timelines.  It doesn’t mean people don’t or shouldn’t enjoy their books.  It just means that they’re not intended to teach people anything about history.

I’ve read some of these and personally they drive me up the wall.  I can cope with honest mistakes but in some cases I think writers might do better to turn to fantasy where anything goes.  Still, I refuse to be a snob about it.  There are also some very well respected historical novelists whose work is clearly painstakingly researched but I just don’t enjoy their style.  Many people do, it’s a matter of personal taste.

I’ve recently come across an author called Jacqueline Reiter, who has written both a biography and a historical novel about the life of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, the elder brother of the Younger Pitt who spent much of his life in the shade of his more famous father and sibling.  I’ve now read both, and it’s confirmed what I’ve always suspected that it’s very possible to be both and excellent historian and an entertaining historical novelist.  I would defy anybody on either side of this debate to be snobbish about Earl of Shadows which is the novel or to complain that the biography the Late Lord is anything other than a well-written and very scholarly work.  Both historians and novelists could learn a lot from this writer and I hope she goes on to write a lot more.

The books I’ve written so far are period specific and most of them include some real historical characters alongside my fictional ones.  I try to research as well as I can.  For A Respectable Woman I used a lot of primary sources and for “An Unconventional Officer” I read endless accounts of the war written by the men who fought it.  The problem with these is that they are frequently contradictory in themselves; they were written years after the war and people forget.

Wellington’s letters and despatches are a goldmine of information for the Peninsular War books although they’ve obviously been edited for publication.  Even so, given the immense stress Wellington must have been under during those years, did even he remember everything?

In the end, it only matters if you want it to matter.  I love reading history, both novels and non-fiction, as long as it’s well written and enjoyable to read.  I can sift through either and find what I want and the very obvious disagreements between academics over the interpretation of events means that I don’t feel guilty about putting forward my own interpretation in a novel.  My characters might well have their own views about why something happened which contradict modern historians’ thinking, but then they’re not modern historians, sifting the evidence, they’re supposed to be ordinary people living their lives in a different time and like us they’re entitled to their opinions.

I think I’ve done enough musing about marketing and the meaning of life for a while.  Now it’s back to the writing, which in the end is what I love doing most and the reason that all this is happening.

For regular updates on this site including history, travel, book reviews and plenty of labradors (and a few freebies thrown in) please join the e-mail list here.

 

Love and Marriage – an anniversary

Lynn and Richard

Twenty three years ago today I got married and the anniversary has made me think about love and marriage, an important issue in all of my books.

Inevitably it was in a castle.  Dalhousie Castle on the Scottish Borders is a beautiful place, converted into a hotel with a small chapel which as far as I know still does weddings.  Ours was a small affair with only close family and two or three friends.  We went on honeymoon afterwards and then came back and had a huge party with all our friends to celebrate.

I write historical fiction with a strong element of romance so relationships and how they develop are of interest to me.  I also spent years working as a relationship counsellor which meant I saw the ups and downs of more couples than I can remember.  And I’ve been in a relationship now for around twenty seven years.  Believe me, I’ve thought about love and marriage during all this.

It’s the aim of a writer of romance, even if the romance is only part of the theme of the book, to try to make it realistic while still retaining the magical element of falling in love.  A lot of romantic novels end with wedding bells, or at least with the couple falling into each others arms and admitting that after all their trials and tribulations, they want to be together.  There’s something very satisfying about reading the last page, closing the book, and knowing that the couple that you have become attached to (hopefully) have worked it out.

Of course they haven’t.  They’ve just worked out the first bit.  There’s a whole lot of work still to come which a lot of the time we don’t see.  But because I do get attached to the characters I write about, I do wonder what happened to them next.

In historical fiction, the drama of divorce would have been less common.  Certainly before the Victorian era when divorce became slightly more realistic, although still very difficult, only the very wealthy could afford divorce which had to be confirmed by an act of Parliament.  And it was only available to men.

This didn’t mean that couples didn’t separate.  For many it was a quiet affair, simply drifting apart and living separate lives.  There was not always the same pressure for couples to spend all their time together as we have now.  These days, if one partner takes a job which keeps them away for weeks, months or even years at a time, there is often an expectation that the marriage is going to fail.  In the early nineteenth century, married officers and men in the British army might not see their wives or families for years.  Some marriages did end during that time but a surprising number succeeded, helped along by endless letter writing and a determination to keep the relationship alive.

There was probably a different attitude to adultery in some quarters, for men at least.  It was not considered so shocking for a man to have relations with a mistress as long as he was discreet.  In an age where many marriages, particularly among the middle and upper classes, were arranged for reasons other than love, one wonders how often both partners were unfaithful at times.  Some of these marriages worked very well.  Others did not.  There are examples of both of these in the books I’ve written.

I do wonder, though, if some couples pushed through their difficulties and came out stronger when divorce and separation were more difficult.  Some, we know, lived in misery, and I wouldn’t go back to the days when divorce was seen as shocking.  But relationships are tough at times and there’s a feeling of satisfaction in coming out the other side of a difficult patch and feeling close again.

A Marcher Lord - a story of the Anglo-Scottish borders
A Marcher Lord – a story of the Anglo-Scottish borders

I’ve been thinking about the couples in my books so far and wondering how they’d do.  Jenny and Will from A Marcher Lord will do well, I suspect.  Both had parents who made successes of their marriages; Will’s had an arranged marriage and Jenny’s was a runaway love match but both worked.  Jenny and Will would have led a busy and active life keeping castle and estates running successfully and they have already proved they make a good working team.  They’ll argue, but they have shared values and interests and I think they’ll be fine.  I’m planning a second book featuring this couple some time next year and I’m looking forward to catching up with them.

The Reluctant DebutanteCordelia and Giles from The Reluctant Debutante come from different social backgrounds, but she’s already proved that she can make the shift into the Ton very well.  I think both of them enjoy country life.  They might argue about social obligations; she’s probably always going to be more social than he is, have better manners and be nicer to people.  But they share a sense of humour and a love of the ridiculous and I think for Giles there will always be an enormous sense of gratitude to her.  He was in bits after Waterloo and she’s a big part of his rehabilitation. There is a planned series of books set around the lives and loves of some of the men and women of the third brigade of the Light Division after the war, of which this is the second, so I think we will meet Cordelia and Giles again.

A Respectable Woman Kit and Philippa from A Respectable Woman are the most interesting in some ways.  Somebody who has just finished the book and loved it asked about a sequel and it has made me think how this marriage is likely to work.  Of all of them the gap between these two is the widest.  Philippa has a lot to learn about how to be a Countess and for all his protestations that she can do as she likes, Kit is going to need to learn to let her be herself.  I think the key to this one is going to be for both of them to find something to do outside of the marriage so that neither of them feel smothered.  They’re both used to being busy and having a job to do.  The big advantage that they have is Kit’s mother, a very wise and understanding woman who is going to be a big help to Philippa.  I think they’ll be all right but I suspect there might be a few fireworks along the way.

An Unconventional Officer - love and war in Wellington’s army
Book 1 in the Peninsular War Saga

Then we have Paul and Anne who began their journey in An Unconventional Officer.  There is a lot about relationships in this and the subsequent novels in the Peninsular War saga.  There’s no point in speculating about Paul and Anne because their story doesn’t end with the book, it continues through the series.  We’re going to see how Paul and Anne and the other characters cope with trying to be together in the middle of a war and it’s not always likely to be easy.

 

 

George and Iris BryantI’ve been lucky enough to see an example of a very happy marriage with my parents.  They’d been married for over fifty years when my Dad died and there were definitely ups and downs.  But they stayed devoted to one another.  Theirs is a story I’d like to write one day

 

In the meantime, Happy Anniversary to the man I married.  23 years and we’re still here.  It feels like something to celebrate…

For regular updates on this site including history, travel, book reviews and plenty of labradors (and a few freebies thrown in) please join the e-mail list here.

The Isle of Man TT 2018

The e vents of this week reminded me of this blog post I wrote about the TT this time last year. I wanted to share it, as it gives a bit of a flavour of what it’s like to be living in the middle of this madness.

Yesterday, in practice, we lost Dan Kneen, a local rider from Onchan who looked very much on the verge of a breakthrough this year in terms of podium places. Steve Mercer, another favourite, has been taken to Liverpool in critical condition. I feel unbelievably sad about it, but it doesn’t stop me going out to watch the racing, which is difficult for many people to understand. I wondered about sharing this again, but I decided I would, because I still feel the same way about this event. It is part of the island, part of my home and over the past sixteen years has become part of who I am.

Dan Kneen’s father issued a statement after his son’s death, and this quote says it all for a lot of the riders and their families.

“Dan would want us to be strong and for the Tyco team to crack on, they have my full backing. Let’s think of the happy times with Dan and smile when you think of him. Thanks to the marshals and medics and everyone involved. Thinking of Steve Mercer as well. Best wishes for all the other TT competitors. The TT show will go on.”

I’m really hoping the rest of TT 2018 is a safe one. In the meantime, this is my post from last year.

With the excitement of launching my books onto an unsuspecting world, having pneumonia and surviving GCSEs and AS levels with two teenagers, the arrival of the Isle of Man TT 2017 has rather crept up on me this year.  It wasn’t until I spoke to somebody in a government office yesterday and heard the familiar cautious words “well it might be ready, but you know it’s TT” that I remembered that for the next two weeks normal life is going to stop.  Welcome to the Isle of Man TT 2017 – a spectacle like no other but a bit of a distraction when you’re trying to live a normal life.

Isle of Man TT
Isle of Man TT

The Isle of Man TT 2017 has nothing to do with writing historical novels but living where we do it will certainly impact on my ability to concentrate.  Sitting at my desk looking out of the window I can actually see the TT course through the trees and when practice and racing are on it gets noisy.  When we first moved into this house Toby the Labrador took exception to the bikes and kicked off every time they came past but fortunately he’s got very deaf now.  This is difficult when calling him for any reason, but it does make race days easier.

In addition to the actual racing, we’re very close to the historic grandstand which means that every single biker who comes over for TT will, at some point, be clogging up the traffic at the end of our road.  During road closures we can’t get out at all so we park one of the cars around a back road since there is a pathway which we can walk through.

Traffic during the TT festival is hideous, and gives us locals something new to moan about although to a woman who grew up in London, I was baffled when I first arrived here.  I’ve absorbed a bit of Manxness in the past fifteen years and now find the heavier traffic just as horrendous as everybody else since we’re not used to it.

Despite all this, I actually like the TT.  We used to entertain every year with a houseful of enthusiastic bike fans and every night was party night.  These days we’re very sedate.  House guests don’t work with two exam stressed teenagers, and because the exam timetable is set in the UK where this half term is different to ours, the kids are actually doing exams during TT week which would be tough with visitors.  It’s tough anyway, their school is on the course so they are sometimes sitting there trying to do simultaneous equations with the deafening sounds of bikes screaming past.

I still like to go out to watch the racing.  There’s a social feel to watching the TT.  Given that Richard is a brilliant photographer and particularly good at motor sport shots, we like to go to a variety of places, some easier to get to than others.  Personally I love the popular spots like Braddan Bridge and Union Mills church where you get get a cup of tea and there are proper toilets.  Must be a sign of age.  Richard is far more intrepid and I’ve climbed fences, scrambled up hills and sat on a mountain in freezing fog waiting for it to lift so that the racing can start.  Last year I ended up half crippled after pulling a muscle climbing over a fence, a reminder that I’m fifty four not twenty four and I really need to think about what I’m doing a bit more.

We’ve met some great people watching the racing, both local and from the rest of the world.  Everybody chats, everybody is friendly and it’s the best atmosphere ever.

And sometimes people die.

Every now and then, I come up against that fact and it shocks me.  It doesn’t shock me because it happens.  It shocks me that after fifteen years of doing this, I’m not shocked by it.  I’m saddened.  On one or two occasions it’s been someone I’ve met personally.  It’s often people I know a lot about.  People come to the TT year after year.  It’s like an addiction for the riders, passed down through the generations, and a death in the family doesn’t stop them.  The Dunlops have lost two family members to road racing, but Michael and William Dunlop will be out there again next week.  They risk their lives for a passion and we watch them do it.

Every year, magazines and news articles talk about the death toll and speculate on whether something so dangerous should be allowed to continue. I can understand why they say it.  For people with no love of the sport, and there are many even on the island, it must seem completely incomprehensible, in these days of enforced safety in so many areas, that every year a group of people go out and race around country roads, within centimetres of stone walls and lamp posts at speeds well in excess of a hundred miles per hour.  Even being a spectator in these conditions is potentially dangerous.

For all that, I love the TT.  The men, and a few women, who come here to race aren’t usually the superstars of sport.  They’re ordinary people, mostly amateurs, who work all year for the chance to compete on these roads.  They know the risks and they know the possible consequences, but like a mountaineer always looking for a higher peak and a bigger challenge, they keep pushing themselves to ride faster, to break lap records and reach that next elusive goal.  It’s an amazing spectacle and I wouldn’t change it.

Despite exams and recovering from pneumonia, I’ll be out there watching again this year.  We’re missing John McGuinness who recently came off at the North-West 200 and is injured.  We should have Guy Martin back this year, definitely one of the characters of the sport.  And there will be the newcomers, learning the course with their eyes on future glory.

I hope it’s a good year, which means that the weather is good, the races on time and everybody stays safe.  There’s nothing like the TT and no place like the Isle of Man and for anybody who likes motorbikes you should come here and see it at least once.

Although it might slow my writing down for a week or two…

For those of you interested in TT photography, have a look at Richard’s flickr site, there are some amazing shots.

For regular updates on this site including history, travel, book reviews and plenty of labradors (and a few freebies thrown in) please join the e-mail list here.

Scrivener – the writing software that changed my life…

Quill pen

I thought I would surprise everybody with a review of scrivener for novel writing today.  I love Scrivener,  which I now use to write all my books.

I am a technology cave woman.

I was going to call myself a technology dinosaur.  For one thing, I really like dinosaurs and aspire to be one.  My occasional thermonuclear explosions at home when the mess in the house reaches a critical mass or I can’t get any peace and quiet to finish my chapter have led my family to compare me to a pterodactyl, a sub-species apparently known as the Mumadactyl.

But I’m not really a dinosaur with technology, because eventually, after a lot of swearing and moaning and kicking off, and after more tutorials, online instruction and lessons from the man I married who has the patience of a saint at times, I do get it and I can use it.  That’s why the dinosaurs became extinct and I probably won’t.

I don’t love technology.  I get no pleasure from a new gadget.  Every upgrade to whatever I’m using at the time is greeted not by excited cries as I go through to find out what new and useful features have been added, but by a muttered grumbling sound as I go through to painstakingly relearn a familiar task now that some complete and utter moron has changed the way it looks and works.  When my husband tells me that something is intuitive, I usually snarl at him.  Walking is intuitive.  Using any form of technology whatsoever, including a microwave, is not.  I have to learn it and if I don’t use it very regularly, I have to learn it all over again when I’ve forgotten it.

This shocks many people since I’m clearly bright.  “How can you not remember that?” they say.  “It’s like remembering a phone number.”  Well I don’t remember those either, although ask me to talk you through the causes of the Boer War which I last studied back in 1982 at University and I can do it in a heartbeat.

Just occasionally though I come across a piece of technology which looks as though it might be so useful that it inspires me to fight my way past my instinctive resistance to making my life more complicated.  I learned, eventually, how to use an iPhone, an induction hob and wordpress to design this website and all of those have been well worth while.  And finally, after about six months of cursing, I want to announce that I officially love using Scrivener.

Scrivener is an eBook creator.  With it I can write my novels, format them, muck about with them, easily move between various versions of them and once I’m ready to publish them I can compile and upload them with remarkable ease.  The interface is clear and once you’ve worked out what things actually mean, it’s well organised and makes a surprising amount of sense.

You can do an awful lot with Scrivener, not just novels but non-fiction books or even photo-albums.  I will freely admit I don’t use half of these various functions, but if I should ever need to in the future, they exist.

Scrivener supports almost all of the main files eBook writers use including HTML, MOBI and PDF.  You can upload sounds, graphics and videos onto your projects and it seems to be relatively easy.  But the thing I love about it is the file structure which enables you to put your book together but also to store research notes and other material in a way that is quick and easy to access.  I’ve really only just got to grips with this aspect of it, but as a writer of historical fiction it’s crucial to be able to keep good research notes and character lists and now I have everything I need to hand in each binder instead of searching through endless word or excel files for a list or a reference.

I won’t pretend it was all plain sailing learning a new tool.  I’ve been using Word for so many years that I was genuinely terrified that trying to adapt to something new would slow me down.  But now that I’m getting the hang of it I love how easy it is to organise things.

A cave woman, you see, not a dinosaur.  Eventually, after a lot of whinging, cavemen and women learned how to use tools.  I’m not convinced that the dinosaurs ever did…

For regular updates on this site including history, travel, book reviews and plenty of labradors (and a few freebies thrown in) please join the e-mail list here.