Tag Archives: 1894

Valentine’s Day 1894

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Valentine’s Day is but a week away. Any plans? If they involve reading, then I have a list of suggestions for you at the bottom of this post.

As for me, I expect we shan’t be going to a fancy restaurant or the cinema, ice skating or laughing in the park because we don’t have any of those things on the island. If we do go out, it will either be to the bar where two TVs play at once, or to the café by the playground where there’s always a children’s party to go with your onion rings, or we’ll go to our taverna for some chips, which is about all they cook at this time of year. Chips and liver.

I am wondering, though, if and how I could use Valentine’s Day as a background theme to one of my mysteries. (Let’s shorten it to VD; it’s easier to type.) It’s been done before, as you will see from the list below, but there’s no reason VD can’t be used as a theme/background/plot device in an original way.

I went to have a look at the National Newspaper Archive to see what the nation’s thoughts were on VD in 1894. By then, the sending of cards was very popular, and VD was celebrated. There are articles in the papers telling us that it is not as well observed as it used to be, in a religious sense, but the exchange of fancy, anonymous cards and greetings on VD was popular. Poems were much involved, too, especially in Britain.

I found this, then, current thought in the Aberdeen Express, on February 14th, 1894, and it made me smile.

To-day (sic) is St Valentine’s Day, and we notice, with great regret, that here, there and everywhere in print, ancient and very superstitious doings are advocated, by means of which the gentle saint is to aid and abet lovers and other foolish folks. We need not point out to our readers that all these things betoken vanity and gross ignorance, and that the only correct way of invoking the aid of the “holy blessed martyr” is to place two bay leaves, after sprinkling them with rose-water, across a pillow, and repeat the formula:

Good Valentine be kind to me,
In dream let me my true love see.

I imagined that was written by a strict and dour Scotsman of some cloth or other (we notice with great regret… superstitious doings… vanity and gross ignorance). Lots of bluster and fear of God behind the voice. But then, he made me laugh by cutting his dour tone and telling us how to cast a spell. Maybe he wasn’t a man of the church after all.

What he gives us is an idea for something you could do on Valentine’s Day, and if you don’t have a special someone whose pillows you could sprinkle, then surprise a neighbour, or even a stranger. I am sure it would lighten their day.

Enough silliness. I am away to beaver away on Delamere Eleven, but I will leave you with the list – the promo list of 30 titles where Valentines come in the guise of murderers and assassins.

Click, browse and share, and I’ll get back to chapter ten…

Killer Valentines: MM Assassins and Murderers

Genres: General Fiction / LGBT and Romance / LGBT

There are 30 titles, including Deviant Desire, which is one of only a few historical fiction-themed covers, as far as I can see. It’s hard to see what with so much naked flesh also going on… Looks like there’s a mix of genres within the MM murderings.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/killervalentines/2g4p3u3ub1

1893

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I’ve been tinkering with some ideas for another Clearwater Tales. This time, it would feature five characters from stories from Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere, and a station master. So far, I have managed to write one complete story, and the prologue. I wanted to have this ready for Christmas, but I fear that it may be next Christmas, as another Delamere idea is starting to form, and I may have to work on that instead. So, I am dithering, and ‘1893’ is not progression, but it might.

That is currently where I am at with writing anything, pottering with bone and researching another. We have a trip coming up over Christmas so I will be away, and I will probably get straight back to the next story after that, and continue to potter in the meantime.

1892, The Clearwater Tales, Volume One

Five characters from the Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere Mysteries find themselves taking the train to Cornwall for the 1892 Larkspur Hall Christmas Eve ball. To pass the time, they each tell a story from their past.

1892 can be read as a short, standalone novella, and there’s no need to have read the Clearwater, Larkspur or Delamere series to enjoy the story. However, you might gain more from reading 1892 if you already know the characters and their histories.

Read, 1892, The Clearwater Tales, Volume One.

In the meantime, why not read the opening of Baxter’s tale (very much a first draft), and then have a browse through the promo at the bottom of the page, and after that, have a good weekend.

THE INVESTIGATOR’S TALE

That was the year of the dear Queen’s Jubilee, and I was sixteen. I’d not long been chucked out of me home by me dodgy parents, and it was a bit before me mum got done in and my dad went off the wrong end of mental. I’d got myself all set up with some, er, night work that we’ll say no more about, but thanks to that, I was able to afford a room in a court in Bluegate Fields.

Now then, that’s not an area for everyone. Well, you’d think it was an area for everyone in the flippin’ city, what with the rooms kipping ten bodies, and the kids at your feet like swarms of hungry ants. So many people crammed in, finding a room wasn’t easy, but I managed it. Yeah, so they called it a slum, and a couple of years ago that Booth do-gooder called us all “lowest class, vicious, and semi-criminal,” but there you go. Anyway, he didn’t know what he was talking about. We might have been low class and some of the Irish girls were vicious, but no-one was “semi” criminal. We were all good at what we did. Not only that, but we didn’t mind the noise and the stink; you got used to that in Shadwell. So, I moved in.

Thing was, the place was not far from St George’s church, and the bells kept me awake at first. Mind you, so did the fights downstairs.

Mrs Scratch, see, she’d somehow got the whole ground floor where she had a kitchen she let the others use. She rented out the rooms down there to a couple of Polish in with a German family, and Stalking Ken, the yard-docker who did the fencing, was down the other end, sharing with a horde of little whatnots he’d got from somewhere dreadful. France, probably. Oh, and her name wasn’t really Mrs Scratch. I never knew her real name, but she used to scratch herself around the madge area. Sniffy Sid, one of the whatnots Stalking Ken had taken in, he used to stand at her kitchen door all day watching her thump bread dough about, scratch her whatsit, sniff her fingers and get back to work. He was fascinated, young Sid. So fascinated, he came to think it was what every woman did when they were making bread, and when he was eight, he got himself a job sweeping the bakery floor. That’s the big one off Cable Street. Still there should you want to visit. They’ve stopped putting chalk in the flour now, so the bread’s almost acceptable.

Anyway, Sniffy Sid, he sniffed himself to work on his first day, sometime around three in the morning, I think, because I was just coming in from turning a few bob, and I wished him luck. Well, he didn’t have much of it, but then, he didn’t have much of a brain either, not Sid. There he was, sweeping up, when he sees one of the women has started banging her dough about, and that’s not a euphoniumism, I meant she was knocking back her bread. Seeing that her hands were covered in flour, Sniffy Sid gave a sniff and went into action. Knowing women liked to scratch down there when baking, and seeing as she couldn’t, he did it for her.

Next thing he knows, he’s dazed, bleeding, and out on the street. Poor lad, and all that before four in the morning. Some people, eh?

PROMO

MM Romance & Fiction Pure MM romance is on the cards with this select selection of titles from some old friends, such as Anne Barwell and Jem Wendel.