It has never occurred to me before to write a brief history of the Van Daan family for my readers. It occurred to me today when I was trying to catch up with the #HistFicXmas fun prompts on social media. I love doing those things, they’re a great was for an author to connect with readers, but sometimes the question is just too big for a Twitter post.
Prompt number 11 was Christmas = Family. Tell us about your MC’s (main character’s) family.
Well. Where do I start?
Funnily enough I’ve just posted this year’s free Christmas story which tells for the first time, the story of how Paul van Daan’s parents first met. Through casual mentions through the book we’ve learned that Franz van Daan was a wealthy merchant and businessman from Antwerp who made a fortune in India then another in the City and married a Viscount’s daughter. When I originally sketched out Paul’s background I hadn’t really thought in any detail about when or how an upstart Dutchman from new money came to marry into the English aristocracy. The Yule Log explains all of that.
I’m going to base this post firmly in 1813 which is where I’m up to in the Peninsular War Saga. At this point, the Van Daan family is separated by war. There are also internal tensions which will presumably have to be worked out once the war is over and Paul returns home. In the meantime, for #HistFicXmas this is a brief introduction to the family so far.
Franz van Daan is Paul’s father. He’s now in his seventies and still actively involved in running his business empire although Paul is beginning to think it’s time he slowed down a bit, especially after he recently broke his leg in a fall on the hunting field. Franz has been a widower for twenty years and has never shown any interest in marrying again. He lost his beloved Georgiana along with his young daughter Emily to smallpox when his younger son Paul was only ten. Since then he’s divided his time between his London house and his estate in Leicestershire and is gradually leaving more of the business to his older son Joshua to run.
Joshua van Daan is ten years older than Paul which makes him around forty. He’s been married to Patience for eighteen years. Until recently, they had no children though Patience had a series of miscarriages, but she recently gave birth to a daughter, named Emily after Georgiana’s mother and Paul’s sister. Joshua is a much loved older brother to Paul, a great support when he first came home after his enforced service in the Royal Navy. Their good relationship has been strained recently however, due to Patience’s disapproval of Paul’s unconventional second wife.
Patience van Daan is in her thirties and is described as a pleasant woman. She came from a good family and there’s an implication that her marriage to Joshua was arranged in a very traditional way. Even so, the couple seem happy and she and Paul had a good relationship until she was introduced to Anne. The two women seemed friendly enough at first but Anne’s determination to make her own decisions about the raising of her step-children caused things to cool and a furious family argument about the provisions in Paul’s will made tensions worse. In book eight Patience tries to stop the children travelling to Portugal during winter quarters.
Anne van Daan is Paul’s second wife and my female MC. She’s nine years younger than him and when they met he was already married. He married Rowena, his first wife, because he had seduced her and she was carrying his child. He had an affectionate relationship with Rowena, who bore him two children but he was unfaithful more than once. Anne was also previously married to Lieutenant Robert Carlyon who treated her appallingly. Paul and Anne were finally free to marry after Rowena died in childbirth and Robert was shot while trying to murder Anne. Since then, Anne has travelled with the army, putting up with the terrible hardships of campaign life to be with Paul. She is described more than once as the heart and soul of the regiment. Formidably intelligent, she is willing to turn her hand to doctoring, nursing, administration and diplomacy – anything in fact that doesn’t involve housekeeping.
Paul currently has five children living at Southwinds under the care of their Aunt Patience. There is an older girl who may or may not be his daughter from a brief affair when he was a student at Oxford. We know little about her apart from the fact that Paul chose to take financial responsibility for her and that her mother has since married. As far as we’re aware, he has never met her.
His eldest daughter Grace arrived in his life when she was a toddler. She was the result of another of Paul’s casual liaisons, this time with Nell Kemp, the wife and then widow of a soldier. Nell remarried to a sergeant of the Highland regiment and Paul had no idea she had borne him a child until Sergeant Fraser was killed at Assaye and Nell died of fever soon afterwards. She asked one of the women to take Grace to the 110th to find her father. Paul, newly made captain and badly wounded during the battle, was about to sail home to recover. He chose to take Grace with him and developed a close and loving relationship with her. Grace is now eleven, a strong-minded child who is only too aware of the disadvantages of being born out of wedlock. She loved Rowena as the only mother she had ever known but it is Anne who really seems to understand her and there’s a suggestion that these two are going to make a formidable team as Grace grows up.
Francis is Paul’s oldest son with Rowena, named for his grandfather Franz. He almost two years younger than Grace and the pair are inseparable. Francis seems to have inherited his father’s temper and passion for justice as well as his irrepressible high spirits and he and Grace are constantly in mischief. He’s fiercely protective of her and has been known to punch other children who tease her about her illegitimacy. Both his uncle and his grandfather think he should be sent to school but Paul is adamant that he’s still too young. Francis is desperate to go into the army and follow in Paul’s footsteps. Anne thinks that two of them might be a bit tough on the army.
Rowena is three, the image of her dead mother and was inclined to be shy and very clingy with Patience. Since travelling to meet Anne however, she seems to be developing more confidence. She is particularly devoted to her younger brother William and keeps a protective eye on him even at such a young age. She doesn’t remember her mother and both Anne and Paul are determined to make sure that Rowena’s children know all about her.
William is two, Anne’s first child and has his mother’s dark hair though he still has the Van Daan blue eyes. It’s too early to know much about his personality. The same can be said for Anne’s latest child, little Georgiana who is not yet a year old. She was born prematurely after the appalling retreat from Madrid and Burgos and her birth was difficult enough for both Paul and Anne to hope that there won’t be any more too soon.
That brings me to the end of the current members of Paul’s family. Other family members are mentioned from time to time. We know that Franz had an older brother Andries who was also in trade divided his time between Antwerp and Cape Town and there is a brief mention in book one of his daughter Christina. Paul’s mother was an only child but we know that her father’s title was inherited by her cousin Edward and his family are presumably still neighbours of the Van Daans in Leicestershire. Anne also has a big family living in the industrial town of Thorndale in Yorkshire and it’s possible we’ll see more of some of them in future books.
After a shaky start and far too many youthful wild oats, Paul van Daan has proved to be a devoted husband and father and very much a family man. I’ve enjoyed getting to know his father and mother in this latest story and if all goes well I’m hoping you’ll get to know his children better in future books. I’m not convinced that the Van Daans history with the army is going to end in 1815…
Horses
Paul hung on grimly, hearing the shouts of the men around him, and a furious volley of fire back at the enemy. Bringing Rufus finally under control he slid from the saddle feeling physically sick and ran his hand down the animal’s sweating neck.
There are too many other horses involved in the Peninsular War Saga to list them all, but one of the most popular appeared in the Manxman series, when Paul’s battalion were sent to Denmark. For such a short campaign he chose not to subject his horses to the misery of a sea voyage, but managed to hire two horses from a local inn. One of them was a young horse called Felix. The other was Luna, an overweight piebald mare. I found it very entertaining to send my gallant hero trotting around Denmark on the equivalent of a Thelwell pony and my readers absolutely loved the story of Luna, especially how it ended. It’s probably the first time in the books that we glimpse just how sentimental Major van Daan really can be about animals.
The other horse to play a very significant role in the books doesn’t arrive until book six and makes an immediate impact. I didn’t have to invent a name or description for Lord Wellington’s favourite mount, since Copenhagen was real. This is one horse that Paul is not particularly fond of.
Jannie the Budgerigar.
Old Kirk Braddan Church and Cemetery
I found myself at Old Kirk Braddan earlier this week when I had an hour to kill before meeting my 
There has been some form of religious worship on this site for fourteen centuries and stones from the first Celtic Keeill (Chapel) can be dated back to around 400 AD. Old Kirk Braddan was rebuilt on the site of an older church in 1777 and is dedicated to Saint Brendan or Braddan. Unlike many other eighteenth century churches, it was never updated during the Victorian era and retains its original box pews, gallery and a three decker pulpit, with a lectern, minister’s pew and pulpit above. It remained the parish church until 1876 when it was replaced by the new church.
The church contains a number of Celtic and Norse crosses from the period 800-1265, which were found around the parish. Several of these bear a ring chain design which is associated with the sculptor, Gaut, son of Bjorn, who came from the island of Coll in the Hebrides and settled on the Isle of Man. Gaut is considered one of the best carvers of his time which was between 950 and 1040 AD. One of the crosses bearing his designs has been translated as “Gaut created this and all in Mann”. His carvings are of a style seen in many Celtic and later Scandinavian crosses.
Beyond the Manx crosses, towards the altar, there’s an impressive memorial up on the wall, looking surprisingly elaborate for such a simple church.
I was aware of another memorial in the churchyard which is known locally as the Atholl monument. Since Murray was the name of the local Dukes of Atholl I went scrambling around among the overgrown graves. It took some time because the place is beautiful; a tangle of greenery dotted with moss covered stones. This is no modern, neatly laid out graveyard, but a piece of history. Many of the graves are sadly difficult to read but one or two are clear enough to give an indication of the long history of Kirk Braddan. 
The Atholl monument turned out to be a large obelisk in the centre of the churchyard in honour of Lord Henry Murray, fourth son of John 3rd Duke of Atholl who was born in 1767 and died in the December of 1805. Lord Henry was the Lieutenant-Colone Commandant of His Majesty’s Regiment of Royal Manx Fencibles.
In book eight of the Peninsular War Saga which I’m currently writing, Oswald is about to have a difficult time at the siege of San Sebastian. I’m delighted I’ve found out about this now as it will give me a different sense of connection to the man. Incidentally, his second wife had a distinguished career of her own as a Victorian artist who specialised in fairies – a terribly Manx thing to do. I’d heard of her many times and seen her work but I had no idea she was married to one of Wellington’s generals. It’s like discovering that two old friends know each other.
Back out in the churchyard, I wandered around admiring the snowdrops and making up stories in my head about some of the older graves. I wish more of them were legible. There are no neat paths laid out between the stones in this graveyard. It’s a little sad but also very beautiful compared to the neat rows of stones in a modern cemetery. As I was on a historic tour there was one more grave I wanted to see, also from my era but very different. Fortunately this one is well labelled now and the inscription very plainly copied.
With time running out, I made my way back to the car, careful not to trip over a fallen gravestone in the tangle of grass and plants. I love ancient churches and graveyards and I’ve a feeling there are a few more I’ve not yet properly explored on the island so expect further posts. I especially love those which would have been here, an important part of island community life when my Manx sea captain and his wife first met in 1806 or returned to visit in 1811. Standing in these quiet places imagining those people gives me a very real sense of history.
Here comes 2023 at Writing with Labradors and a very Happy New Year to all my friends, family and readers.
I’d already effectively finished book 7 of the Peninsular War Saga at the end of 2021 and passed it on to my editor. Poor Heather had a somewhat fraught start to 2022 since she knew how desperate I was to get another book out after a year’s gap. She worked very hard despite some health problems of her own and the book was published in April. A
I went back to 
In addition to the two books, I wrote my usual three free short stories this year. Valentine’s Day took us back in time to the winter of 1808-09 and 
With travel opening up again, I fulfilled a long-held wish and signed up for a Waterloo tour with 
Other trips during the year were more about catching up with friends and family after such a long separation during lockdown. I still managed to slip in some historical visits though, with a trip to the Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, Maritime Greenwich in London and the Military Museums in Winchester, where I acquired a Rifles bear to add to my desk army.
Another thing I’ve been able to tick off my list this year is that all the books are finally available in paperback and I have new covers for both of my Regency romances. My long-suffering editor, Heather Paisley of 
On a personal level, I’ve mostly recovered from the effects of the various lockdowns. I’ve made a start of book 8 of the Peninsular War Saga. It’s called An Unattainable Stronghold and follows the 110th into the Pyrenees and the storming of San Sebastian. After that, I’ll be going back to the Iris to join Hugh Kelly and Alfred Durrell along the coast of northern Spain where they are joining Sir Home Popham on his campaign to annoy the French and the Spanish equally. I’m very much looking forward to the biography of Popham currently being written by my good friend 
The year had a sad ending when we heard that my uncle, William ‘Bill’ Bryant had died. Bill was a huge personality, very much part of my childhood and will be very much missed. He raised a family of history lovers and I laughed aloud during one of the eulogies about his passion for watching war films, despite the fact that he must have seen Zulu and the Battle of Britain a thousand times. The final piece of music played at his funeral was chosen by him, and we both laughed and cried as we left the service to the rousing sound of the Great Escape.
Welcome to the Jolabokaflod- an annual tradition here at Writing With Labradors. Every year since 2017 I’ve offered some of my books for free on Amazon kindle as a Christmas gift to my readers, old and new.
Number One London Tours
Features of the landscape like the covered way which is still partly visible, waist and head-high crops and surprisingly steep ridges help the story of the battle unfold far more easily than looking at maps. Gareth had maps a plenty though, to demonstrate each stage of the fighting as we reached it, starting from Papelotte and moving around the various parts of the field. He had also brought a copy of his fantastic
Interspersed with clear, easy to understand descriptions of troop movements and the various attacks at different stages of the battle, were the individual stories from both Gareth and Kristine about the men who fought, suffered and died at Waterloo. I’ve seen many of these accounts before but hearing them read out on the ground where the action took place gave them a whole new meaning.
It was also horribly easy to imagine the aftermath, with dead and wounded strewn across the field. Injured men staggered towards anywhere they might find help and too many of them fell by the wayside. The memorials to the different armies and regiments as well as to a few individuals which are scattered around the battlefield highlight the poignant truth that most men who died at Waterloo had no marked grave, no memorial and quite possibly may not even have been buried at all.
When we emerged, it was dark. Kristine had bought some flowers and a few of us walked up towards the Lion’s Mound which is lit up at night. It looked spectacular and despite all the jokes about it spoiling the battlefield, it felt like a fitting memorial that night, not to the Prince of Orange or Wellington or to any of the other individual commanders but to the thousands of anonymous men and animals who died on that field two hundred and seven years ago. 
We placed the flowers on the edge of the field, not on any particular monument but just on a spot where any man might have fallen and stood quietly, listening on a phone to John Tams singing Spanish Ladies, a haunting folk song. A version of that song existed in 1815 and might have been sung by the campfires by men who did not survive that day. It seemed an appropriate memorial to the ordinary soldiers and the perfect way to end Waterloo 2022: the Battlefield Tour.
I have no idea whether there’s something political about this, whether it’s considered Napoleon was the most important person at Waterloo given that he was an Emperor or whether they just don’t think Wellington or Blucher memorabilia will sell. I do think it should probably be redressed, but if it’s a marketing decision then I guess that’s a good enough reason. All the same, Napoleon as a dog was a bit much for me.
Across the busy road from the Wellington Museum is the elaborate church which was there at the time of the battle and used, like many churches, as a hospital to receive wounded men. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I have a thing about old churches and this one was particularly peaceful, with a number of memorials to the men who fought and died during the Waterloo campaign. Memorials at this time tended to be paid for either by the family of the dead man or by subscription through the various battalions and regiments, so not surprisingly more of them relate to the wealthier regiments. Very few of the memorials even mention the NCOs and enlisted men apart from this one in the church, which may well be the first of its kind.
After lunch we moved on to Napoleon’s Headquarters in the farmhouse of Le Caillou, where Napoleon and his staff spent the night of June 17, 1815. The museum collection is spread over five rooms and tells the story of the Emperor’s actions in the hours before Waterloo. There are a number of artefacts relating to Napoleon, though Gareth queried whether some of the furniture was authentic given that the Prussians reputedly set fire to everything on their way through after Napoleon’s departure. Still, it gives a good sense of how the farm might have looked at the time.
In the garden outside the farmhouse are one or two memorials. There is also an ossuary, which is a small building intended to serve as the final resting place of human bones. Ossuaries are often used where burial space is scarce but in this case it has become a depository for bones found on the battlefield over the years. I’ve seen photos of this but found the real thing unexpectedly moving.
Our next visit was to the small but very good museum in Ligny. It covers both Ligny and Quatre Bras and gave a very good sense of what happened on 16th June in these small villages and towns as the French inflicted a bloody defeat on Blucher’s Prussians and fought to a stalemate against Wellington’s Allied army. I was shocked at the extent of the casualties at both battles. Somehow I’d always had the vague impression that these were just skirmishes ahead of the main battle, but they clearly weren’t. All three armies were weakened by what happened on this day and it must have had an effect on what happened at Waterloo.
Waterloo 2022 – the Waterloo Museum and Hougoumont and we don’t hang about on the 
The museum gives an excellent overview of the history of the French revolution, Napoleon’s rise to power and the various coalitions and wars which led inexorably towards the Waterloo campaign. There are fabulous displays of weapons and uniforms from troops on both sides of the campaign, maps and models depicting the events of 1815 and the famous Waterloo Panorama which was painted in 1912 by Louis Dumoulin, and occupies a circular building. It is 110 metres in circumference and 12 metres high and the soundtrack plunges you into the midst of the battle. Despite, as Gareth assured us, a number of inaccuracies, it’s genuinely impressive and I’m glad we managed to see it before it closes for restoration later this month.
Our final stop for the day was the Horse Guards museum and were in time to see an inspection parade. After that it was back to the hotel in preparation for an early start on the Eurostar to Brussels the following morning.