Happy New Year

Posted on 07/01/2023 by Jack Marsh

Happy New Year! I am back to blogging, and kicking off 2023 with an update on what I have been doing.

In the film, ‘Throw Momma from the Train’, Billy Crystal’s character says,

‘A writer writes. Always.’

Well, I say,

‘A writer not only writes but he also researches’,

and that is what I was doing during my Christmas and New Year break.

Athens – a Location for ‘The Larkspur Legacy’

In the next, and final, Larkspur Mystery, some of the characters find themselves in Athens, Greece, and I found myself there only last week. Neil and I went with our logical family, Jenine, and our youngest godson, Harry. (Our elder godson, at 19, opted to stay at home and spend his free time from college with some friends.)

Living on Symi, any journey must start with a ferry, and after walking down to the harbour in the early morning, we took the one-hour crossing to Rhodes. From there, it was a bus to the airport, a 40-minute flight to Athens, and a pre-booked taxi to the area of Thissio and our rented apartment. The next three-and-a-half days were filled with walking, eating, and seeing the sights/sites. Some of those we visited are pictured on the blog today, and one of them will feature in ‘The Larkspur Legacy.’ Even though it’s only for one or two chapters, Athens plays a part, but it is not Athens as we see it now, but as it was in 1991.

One day on our trip, we took a guided walk around parts of the city with a knowledgeable guide, and I asked him what he knew about the city in 1891. From this, I gleaned some information I’d not found in my research, and he took us to the outside of the home of Heinrich Schliemann, the archaeologist who discovered the location of the ancient city of Troy*, among other things. I never knew he was in Athens in 1891, but sadly, he won’t feature in the book because it wouldn’t be relevant.

*[Wiki says: Schliemann was a German adventurer and con man who took sole credit for the discovery, even though he was digging at the site, called Hisarlik, at the behest of British archaeologist Frank Calvert.]

Among the places we visited were the Acropolis (of course), The Temple of Hephaestus in the Ancient Agora, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Philopappos Hill, and the site of the original home of democracy, Pynx, the hill overlooking the Acropolis, and the first official meeting place of the Athenian democratic assembly (ekklesia). We also saw the car museum, ate food Indian, Chinese, Greek and Mexican, and, on our last day, visited the famous flea market.

Imagine the joy of wandering antique and second-hand book shops again as I used to years ago in London.

While doing so, I found two books that I have already ploughed through in my search for details of Athens in 1891; one about the Plaka area, and one about mapmakers and mapping of the Aegean. I could have spent the whole four days in these bookshops, but half an hour was all I could manage, otherwise, I’d have broken my bank.

And into 2023

Now, back home, I have taken up my morning walks again, and although they only cover two miles, they give me 40 minutes of alone time. This morning while walking, I unlocked the ‘How are they going to do that?’ part of ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ which has so far evaded me, and now have notes on how that climax is to go.

So, it’s, again, a Happy New Year from me, and not being one for resolutions, I am making no promises. However, for the first half of this year I intend to finish and release ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, bringing the saga to a close by, hopefully, the end of March. After that, I want to produce a Clearwater & Larkspur Companion to tie up any loose ends and give my readers something extra to accompany both series. The working title is currently: ‘Barbary Fleet and Other Matters; a Clearwater and Larkspur Companion.’

And a quick reminder if you would still like to vote for the Goodreads Awards the polls are still open for a couple more days. The links to the categories are at the bottom of this blog post, click here.

I’ll leave it there. There will be more about the work in progress, ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, on my Wednesday blog when I will update you on progress as my writing world gets back to ‘normal.’ Remember…

The Larkspur Legacy: A New Work in Progress 5.01

Posted on 23/11/2022 by Jack Marsh

As it always is with me, once one book is out, it’s a case of ‘on with the next’, and today is no exception. Actually, I started work on ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ a few weeks ago, because what happens in ‘Starting with Secrets’ has a bearing on what comes next.

While writing the last book, I made notes about the next one, and that led me to a basic plot outline. Since early this year, I have had scenes in my head, moments from the novel I want to get in, twists, ideas and scenarios, and I am still thinking them up. I have, though, started writing, and have four draft chapters already, plus the more detailed outline, though that still has some holes in it. The characters will fill those in later when they start taking over the story.

I’ve also started on my research, and am currently reading this…

‘The Larkspur Legacy’ is going to involve a group of characters aboard a schooner, a clipper or barquentine, something like this…

As you can see, these pages are from The Merchant Schooners by Basil Greenhill, a two-volume look at the history, building, launching and sailing of these vessels. I have already picked up some words and expressions and read several excellent descriptions of boatyards, shipbuilding villages and ships.

So, it’s back to 1891 and chapter five. Before I go, I must thank everyone who supported the launch of ‘Starting with Secrets.’ It went straight to #2 in the Amazon charts of new releases/historical.

Where did that Word Come From?

Posted on 28/08/2022 by Jack Marsh

Where did that Word Come From?

If you have read my previous blogs about how I write, you will know I am always looking up words. I don’t just mean finding an alternative word from the thesaurus, although I do that too, I mean discovering if the word I want was in use at the time I set my stories. (Currently 1888 to 1891.) Recently, I have had to change what I’ve written because some words didn’t exist back then; paperwork, acerbic, acidic, gobbledygook, for example. I also like to look up words to discover where they came from. I guess you might call me an amateur etymologist.

Imagine my excitement the other day when a visiting friend presented me with a present, a Reader’s Digest book, ‘The Origins of Words and Phrases.’ Once I have read the parts about how our language was born and developed and other interesting linguistic facts in the introduction, I will house the book on my shelves alongside my other handy reference guides ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

Talking of such books, I thought I would name a few of them today, in case you want to build up your own reference library and add to your writers’ toolkit. While I am about it, I’ll drop in random examples, and I’ll start with my latest addition, ‘The Origins of Words and Phrases.’

The Origins of Words and Phrases

A dictionary of over 3,000 of the most intriguing, amusing and surprising stories of the origin of some words.

Random example: Lunatic derives from the Latin word for moon, luna. Why? Because it was once thought that people went mad during the time of the full moon. Werewolves and British politicians are good examples.

The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms

Provides clear definitions of phrases and sayings with interesting facts and examples.

Random example: Roman holiday. An occasion on which enjoyment or profit is derived from the suffering of others. Origin; from Byron’s poem, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, where a dying gladiator is described as having been butchered to make a Roman holiday.

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary

This is a great resource for finding old words, those that were in use then (1755) but which aren’t now.

Random example: Gymnospérmous (adj,) [γυμνος and σπερμα.] Having the seeds naked.

Well, I said they would be random! If you want a more up-to-date definition of this word, I managed to find this one: Gymnosperms are other types of vascular and non-vascular plants of the Kingdom Plantae, which produce seeds directly (without) bearing any flower.

Here’s another random one: Réremouse (n.s.) [hreremus, Saxon.] A bat.

An Unkindness of Ravens

A collection of collective nouns arranged in various headings. I could spend hours in this book, but here are a few fun ones:

A worship of writers. A kindle of kittens. A glaring of cats. A glozing of taverners.

Clichés Avoid them like the Plague!

This book is basically a list of our top clichés and where they came from. It doesn’t just go for the low-hanging fruit, it plays hardball, and hits the ground running. You might cry, Houston, we have a problem, but the book certainly kicks ass. When you’re writing, you might find yourself between a rock and a hard place because of not knowing if a phrase is a cliché, so this book is handy for sorting the wheat from the chaff. Yes, you might have to buy it, but then, there’s no gain without pain.

Mark Forsyth’s Ternion Set

Three books by the lexicographer, Mark Forsyth, are both informative and fun to read. I’ll never remember all the information in them, but I dip in now and then to discover the meaning of, for example, syllepsis. Syllepsis is when one word is used in two or more incongruous ways. The author gives an example of the word took being used in nine ways, and I’ll use it to give you an example of my own.

It was late, and the party was winding down, so I took my hat, my coat and my leave.

The set of three books also includes The Etymologicon, ‘A circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language’, and The Horologicon, ‘A day’s jaunt through the lost words of the English language.’ For example: Breakfast (somehow) comes from the Greek word, ariston, therefore the study of breakfast is aristology, and if you like eating breakfast, you are an aristologist.

There, I bet you didn’t know that.

The Vulgar Tongue

This is one of my favourites, and I use it a great deal when writing characters such as Frank Andino, and the new character in the Larkspur Mysteries, Bertie Tucker. This is a collection of slang and cant from 1785. I have a PDF version of it as well as a hardback because the PDF is easier to search. When doing so, I come across words like davy for affidavit. Crank, brisk and pert are all words for a mix of gin and water. A member mug is a chamber pot (or was). Seeing as how I am fast becoming an old fogey, I can tell you that it’s actually a very noble thing to be. Fogey derives from the French word fougueux, meaning fierce or fiery, and referred to retired soldiers.

Knowing your… stuff

I have plenty of other books in my collection, from dialect dictionaries to Brewer’s Fact and Fable, and from Strunk and White’s ‘Elements of Style’ grammar guide to the more succinct Joanne Adams book on the subject, ‘Grammar. Know your shit or know you’re shit.’

The shelves also contain an Oxford English dictionary, a thesaurus, a dictionary of quotations, a rhyming dictionary, and a guide to the English language, among others, and my online reference bookmarks include a glossary of Scottish words and an Irish one. Ship rigging diagrams, men’s clothing of the late Victorian era, a dictionary of idioms, a Cornish dictionary, a Gothic glossary, there’s a whole file about prisons and another about workhouses, and then there are digital, online copies of some of the print books mentioned above.

You don’t need all of these in order to write, but the point is, if you’re writing, words are your tools and how to use them is your craft. Understanding where words came from, and exploring how the language developed is background research for the writer in the way a painter understands what colours go together.

Apart from anything else, reading about words is fun and educational.

I must leave you with that thought now, because I’ve been sitting here for ages without a break, and I need to use my member mug.

See you on Wednesday for the Work In Progress update.

Learning While I Write

Posted on 16/07/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

While ‘Speaking in Silence’ is awaiting its proof reading, and while I am mapping the next book, ‘Starting with Secrets’, I thought it high time I did some more learning.

You may remember that when I started on the Larkspur Mysteries, I introduced a deaf character, Joe Tanner. To better understand him and his language, I signed up for an introduction to British Sign Language (BSL), and passed the basic course. This was useful not only for forming the character, but also for my own learning, and I learnt a little about the history of BSL, particularly that it was outlawed in Victorian times. This meant that Joe would have invented his own version of it, which he and Dalston did as they grew up in the workhouse. That was typical of what happened back then, and is the reason BSL has so many regional variations in its signs.

Jackson Marsh: Researching and Portraying a Deaf Character in Victorian Fiction

Introduction to the Victorian Age

That was then, this is now, and I have now signed up for a course called, ‘Introduction to the Victorian Age.’ It’s a diploma course run by the Centre of Excellence. Recently, my husband passed a Sociology diploma course with them and has now embarked on a philosophy diploma. The Centre of Excellence prices its courses at reasonable amounts, has won five worldwide business awards, and all their courses are certified or accredited. Now and then, they have promotional offers, and last week, we bought three courses for €58.00, where the original price should have been €450.00. So, not a bad deal at all. If you want to know more, head to the Centre of Excellence and have a look around. It costs nothing to investigate, and you will find all kinds of courses from Earth Sciences to Animal Care.

They have 25 different writing course that might interest you.

What am I about to learn?

My course is titled an ‘Introduction to the Victorian Age’, and you might wonder why I am doing this. Having already written 16 books in my Victorian mystery series, don’t I already know about the age? Well, yes, I know some, and I do my research, but usually on specific novel-appropriate topics. For example, I read a great deal about Jack the Ripper when writing ‘Deviant Desire’, and a lot about workhouses when writing ‘Guardians of the Poor.’ I have books on my shelf that range from The Cleaveland Street Scandal to Victorian architecture, and from the Victorian country house to slumming, but I haven’t yet read much on the early part of the era, the industrial revolution and what took place before the 1880s when my books are set. The Victorian era began when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and lasted until her death in 1901. The course I am about to embark on begins with her ascendancy to the throne, Prince Albert and his death, and moves on to look at gender, society and class.

Then there is a module about the industrial revolution and the ‘rise of the factory’, followed by one that covers the labour movement, slums, urbanisation and city improvements. I will then look at crime in Victorian times (can’t wait for that!), punishment, the Whitechapel murders gets its own section (can’t wait for that either), and there is a module about science, religion and fear. Health and medicine, the Empire, the Irish famine in the 1840s are all covered too, as are the arts and culture.

As you can see, there’s a lot in it, but I don’t have to rush. Once you’re signed up for a course, you can take as long as you want to complete it, and that means months or even years, so there’s no pressure. There are marked assessments along the way (marked by qualified tutors), but no need to sit an exam. My aim is to do the modules as and when I can, and use what I learn to further improve my historical accuracy. As I also have copywriting work and two novels in the pipeline, my time is restricted, but I will do my best and I’ll keep you informed on progress as I go.

Here’s the link again in case you want to know more about the courses. Centre of Excellence.

And what of Larkspur? I mentioned I am planning the next in the Larkspur series, and I am. Speaking in Silence should be with you early in August, but I have already drafted chapter one of the next book, ‘Starting with Secrets.’ Actually, I have been making notes on the one after that too, and I’ll be updating you every Wednesday on my Work In Progress blog. My current plan is to write a two-part story to bring the Larkspur series to an end. There will, therefore, eventually be seven books in the series, though who knows? I may write more. The next one, ‘Secrets’ starts off the two-parter, and should be followed by ‘The Larkspur Legacy’, which will be similar in design to ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’ I’ll say no more just now, and will leave it for my Wednesday WIP blog, and turn my attention to Queen Victoria.

P.S Cover reveal for Speaking in Silence is on its way later this week!

Clearwater: The Cornish Connection.

Posted on 15/01/2022 by Jack Marsh

Clearwater: The Cornish Connection.

The Clearwater Mysteries open in London’s East End in 1888, and for the first three books, the action centres around Clearwater House in the west of the city. We don’t get to Cornwall until the end of book four, ‘Fallen Splendour,’ and even then, it is only a fleeting visit. Clearwater’s country home, Larkspur Hall, begins to come to life in book five, ‘Bitter Bloodline’, and is one of the main settings for book ten, ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’ It is, of course, also the star of the new Larkspur Academy series.

But where and what is Larkspur Hall, and where did it come from?

Larkspur Hall is a fictitious stately home in Cornwall, and a question I am often asked is…

Why Cornwall?

My mother moved from Kent to Cornwall in the 1980s, and I made my first visit there when I was about 20. I looked up where I was going and what I could expect, using books in those days, and asked others who had been there what they thought of the place. I was told to expect impressive cliffs, wild countryside, a dramatic coastline and superb, open vistas dotted with ancient monoliths and settlements.

I arrived at night on the train from Paddington, in itself, a romantic journey, and was taken to a remote farmhouse where my mother was living while she and my step-dad renovated a Wesleyan chapel they were converting into a home. It was dark, of course, but the following morning, I was up early to throw back the curtains and catch my first sight of the promised wild and inspiring countryside… and saw nothing but fog for two days.

Ah well, that was still romantically mysterious enough for me, and when the weather improved, it didn’t take long before I was exploring Penwith by bicycle and falling in love with the county. Penwith is the very last part of the last county in England, home to Land’s End and locations with enigmatic names such as Zennor, Kelynack, and Crows-an-wra where my mother’s chapel was/is. It is also where you find Penzance, of the pirates’ fame, but let’s not bring Gilbert and Sullivan into this.

I have returned to Cornwall many times over the years. My husband and I took the children there one Christmas and stayed in a remote farmhouse on the moors near the Nine Maidens stone circle.

On another visit one night, my antique Ford Escort delivered me to a guesthouse somewhere equally as remote just as the radiator blew up, leaving me somewhat stranded. The upside of this was an uninterrupted and unpolluted night sky. I have never seen so many stars. They seemed so close, I could have lit a cigar from them.

These days, living in Greece, I don’t have the chance to visit Cornwall very often, except in my imagination, and that’s a very tenuous link to the next question: Where and what is Larkspur Hall?

Larkspur Hall

The name came from my imagination while I was writing book two, ‘Twisted Tracks.’ I just checked the original publication and noted, with alarm, that I had written, ‘Larkspur is Lord Clearwater’s country house two miles north of London.’ Cornwall is actually over 200 miles from London by car, and Bodmin, where Larkspur is now situated, is 259 miles from Knightsbridge and Clearwater House. I re-released ‘Twisted Tracks’ in 2020 and made the change. Larkspur is now described as being ‘miles west of the city’, and I left it vague because, then, I wasn’t then sure exactly where I was going to place it.

I can’t remember when I decided to put Larkspur on the edge of Bodmin Moor. I think it was while creating ‘Fallen Splendour’, but I chose the location for several reasons.

It is remote, which is helpful when I want seclusion and a sense of being cut off from the world. Very useful for when we have an assassin stalking the grounds.
The distance is handy for when we have a race against time. In the late 1880s, it would have taken up to 12 hours to reach Larkspur from London by train. When the race to stop a murder is on, changing lines, the weather and conflicting timetables all play a part in delaying the hero and heightening the tension.
Bodmin Moor is wild, subject to rough weather, has an ancient history and is romantic. Moors have always been popular with romantic writers (Egdon Heath for Hardy, the Yorkshire Moors for Emily Brontë), because of their combination of loneliness, mystery and tradition.
I like Cornwall. Simple

A beautiful and dramatic sunrise over Bodmin Moor

Is Larkspur Hall based on a real property?

Yes and no. I based it on several. When you read the Clearwater Mysteries, you will find characters mention how the Hall has been added to over the years, how it started life as an abbey, has a square tower, church-like pillars in the grand hall, and what I call a horseshoe staircase, which is actually an imperial staircase. (See photo, for the shape. At Larkspur, the stairs and balustrades are stone.)

An imperial staircase (sometimes erroneously known as a “double staircase”) is the name given to a staircase with divided flights. Usually, the first flight rises to a half-landing and then divides into two symmetrical flights both rising with an equal number of steps and turns to the next floor. [Wikipedia.]

This is a central point for a few action scenes in the Clearwater and Larkspur Mysteries, and appeals to my sense of the theatrical. As does the tower, the ruined church in the grounds, and the maze of servants’ passages. Larkspur is said to have 16 bedrooms, but they are actually suites, so include a sitting room, dressing room and bathroom. Thanks to Archer, the Hall is now powered by electricity and the servants’ rooms all have gas heaters and hot and cold running water.

The inspiration for the outside of the Hall came from several places. Lanhydrock House is one. Although Larkspur is taller and doesn’t have the protruding wings of Lanhydrock, the gatehouse is similar. (See photo.) You could also look at Highclare Castle where Downton Abbey is filmed, but if you do, only look at the front, and move its main tower from behind the building and stick it on the end of the west wing.

By the way, Lanhydrock is just south of Bodmin, and about six miles away from Larkspur.

There is an interpretation of Larkspur Hall on the cover of ‘Bitter Bloodline.’

I have an Ordnance Survey map of Bodmin Moor, and on it, I have marked the Larkspur estate. If you wanted to look up the estate boundary (on OS Explorer map 109), you would find it like this: The northern boundary abuts the village of Waterloo, and runs east to Medland, drops south from there to Fore Downs, west from there to Trago and beyond, and runs northwards back to Waterloo via Trewardale and Trewint. It takes in all of what is now the military land marked ‘danger area’, the A30 doesn’t exist, and I have wiped out several villages and hamlets. Sorry about that.

The Hall would be situated at Pounds Conce, and Larkspur Village would be roughly where Millpool is, but it’s all made up. Having said that, some places mentioned in the Clearwater and Larkspur Mysteries are real. Colvannick and the standing stones, Pengelly Farm, Blisland and many of the ancient sites mentioned in the books.

Which is another segue into…

Standing Stones. Fact or Fiction?

Fact: There are hundreds of ancient sites to visit in Cornwall, including the Colvannick Stone Row, the centre of the first two Larkspur Mysteries. Stone circles, monoliths, ancient settlements, barrows, cairns and fogous can be found almost anywhere in the county, and Bodmin Moor has its fair share. These were the inspiration for the mystery, ‘Keepers of the Past’, where most of what you read is based on existing monuments, history and fact. Most of, note, not all. To find out more, you can read the author’s notes at the back of the book. In the new series, the Larkspur Mysteries, I am putting these notes to give the reader some insight into how I mix fact and fiction. That is something I have been doing since Silas first appeared in ‘Deviant Desire’ looking through the gutters of Greychurch (Whitechapel), while Archer was at home in North Riverside (Knightsbridge), and Fecker was working at the docks in Limedock (Limehouse).

In the up-coming book three, ‘Agents of the Truth’, the characters visit the British Museum Reading Room, the Inns of Court, Newgate and Wormwood Scrubbs prisons, all real and described as they were in 1890. They also visit the Cheap Street Mission (fictional), and meet real one-day famous archaeologists, including Howard Carter, then aged 16. They also get to explore Larkspur Hall and other parts of Cornwall, as will you when you read ‘Agents of the Truth’, due out in February.

The Clearwater Mysteries

The Larkspur Mysteries

The Perfect Day to go to Prison

Posted on 04/12/2021 by Jack Marsh

The Perfect Day to go to Prison

It’s raining here in Symi, Greece today, making it the perfect day to go to prison. I’m not referring to being stuck indoors, because that’s me most days, positioned at my PC happily writing another chapter. I’m talking about research, and, in particular, research into Victorian prisons.

Part three of the new Larkspur Mystery series, ‘Agents of the Truth’, involves a prison. At least, part of the story does. To create authenticity in my imagined Clearwater world of late 1800s Britain, I make sure I do my research, so my world is as authentic as I can make it. At the moment, I am looking into Victorian prisons, and so far, have found two invaluable recourses I want to share with you.

Dictionary of Victorian London

I have a couple of sites permanently bookmarked on my toolbar. One of them is the Dictionary of Victorian London, a gem of a site created by Lee Jackson. There is an entire section there on Prisons, and, as with the rest of the site, this contains authentic reports and first-hand accounts of the subjects written at the time. Sometimes these are earlier than my period, but still in the Victorian era, and it is easy to imagine that not much changed between, say, 1840 and 1890.

Millbank Prison

I still double-check facts, though, in case changes had been made, and that’s a useful tip for anyone starting out on historical research. Always cross-reference. Yesterday, for example, I thought I’d found the prison in which to base my scenes. Coldbath Prison sounded perfect. I loved the name apart from anything else and decided to use that one. Reading further, though, revealed that although the prison in Clerkenwell was extended in 1850, it closed in 1885, and was transferred to the Post Office in 1889. Today, it is the site occupied by the Mount Pleasant sorting office, and I’ve passed it many times over the years without realising it was once a notorious prison.

So, I had to throw Coldbath out with the bathwater and find somewhere else. The Dictionary of Victorian London came in handy again, and there, I found The Wilds of London, by James Greenwood, 1874 – Three Years of Penal Servitude. I’d read some of James Greenwood’s writing before, ‘A Night in a Workhouse’, which was published in the 1860s, was his account of spending a night on the casual word of Lambeth workhouse. That article informed a couple of chapters in ‘Banyak & Fecks’, where Silas, at his lowest, spends a night in the casual ward of the Hackney workhouse. (It’s interesting for me to note that while Silas was doing that, in November 1884, two characters from the new Larkspur series, Dalston Blaze and Joe Tanner, were living in the general population in the same workhouse. They would have been 12 and 13 then and would have only just met, but that’s another story.)

Location of Millbank prison

The James Greenwood piece takes the reader from the court to Newgate, where the author was held, and then later, to Millbank prison and on, later still, to Pentonville and Portland prisons. They are very detailed accounts, and those details have been invaluable when writing a chapter from a prisoner’s point of view. I decided to use Millbank prison for my setting. Millbank used to stand where the Tate Gallery is now positioned, in London, and again, I have been to the site many times without realising there was once a prison there.

Prison History Org

The second site I found was Prison History, a resource for anyone interested in the history of the British prison system. There’s a page about 19th-century prisons, and linked to that, lists of prisons, their details and even their records. The site includes ‘your stories’, which are first-hand accounts from prisoners and visitors both historic and modern. While surfing the site, I found the mention of a book that sounded exactly what I was looking for. A ‘Guide to the Criminal Prisons of Nineteenth-Century England’, by Rosalind Crone, Lesley Hoskins and Rebecca Preston. You can find this for sale online, in hardback, and it’s not cheap. However, if you take the survey at Prison History, you can then email for a free PDF download. This is exactly what I did, mainly because I wanted to thank the site for their resource, but also because I wanted the book. I had it downloaded within the hour and shall delve into it as soon as I have posted this.

Agents of the Truth

There are, of course, many other resources available if you’re researching life in the Victorian Prison. I only highlight these two because they are the ones I am currently working with. But why, you may ask? How does a prison feature in ‘Agents of the truth’?

Well, I can’t tell you too much, but what I can say is, the villain of the piece has spent time in prison, and I wanted to get inside his mind. I wanted to know what suffering he would have endured, and how he might have been treated. As I read through some of the above-mentioned articles and accounts, it occurred to me how similar prison life was to workhouse life. Except, at the workhouse, a person could choose to leave, and was not there as a punishment, even though many workhouses treated their inmates as criminals. The picking apart of oakum, the limited diet, the regimes, all were very similar, depending on what workhouse you were in.

Reading the first-hand accounts of life in a Victorian prison, it’s not difficult to imaging the hardships, the loneliness and the despair, and those are the things that are driving my evil character to do what he does. I’ve done it this way so that the reader might find some sympathy with him because even the evilest villains should spark some sympathy to make them a more rounded and believable character. Not too much sympathy, though, not considering what he is about to do.

On which note, I must get back to Millbank prison in October 1890, and let my villain loose in London…

Remember to catch up with the latest book on my Wednesday WIP blog.

Photos from wikiwand.com/Milbank Prison

The Magic Number Nine

Posted on 23/10/2021 by Jack Marsh

The Magic Number Nine

Last week, I promised I would show you part of ‘Keepers of the Past’ which I cut from the book. (More details of how the book is going are at the end of this post.) The cut section is below in its raw form, before I made any corrections or edits. The book, of course, will be laid out properly. I can’t get WordPress to do indents and things, so, sorry about the layout.

Keepers of the Past: Extract

The scene. Joe is intrigued by the mysterious standing stones and stone circles he has been visiting on Bodmin Moor. Many of them have nine stones, and he has uncovered more coincidences involving the numbers nine and eighteen. These have led him to believe that a friend’s cousin is in trouble. Joe is deaf, so Dalston is interpreting for him. Frank is at the academy because he has an unusual talent for mathematics (and tailoring, but otherwise, he’s uneducated and he swears a lot, be warned).

Joe, Dalston and Frank are in the study where there is a chalkboard. Joe has asked him to explain why nine is considered a magic number.

‘Look here,’ Frank said, taking the chalk from Joe and shoeing him away. ‘This is what I can tell you about the sodding number nine, right? Sit down, pay attention and you’ll be fucking amazed.’
Joe did as instructed, sitting forward in the armchair, his chin on his fists, and his eyes flitting between Dalston’s fingers and Frank writing on the board.
‘The number nine is special,’ Frank began. ‘Dalston, what’s two nines?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Right. What’s three?’
Dalston started counting on his fingers.
‘Nah, you don’t have to do that,’ Frank interrupted and held up his hands. ‘Look, Joe. You want to know what three nines make?’
‘Twenty seven.’
‘Yeah, alright, so you’re a bloody genius. Look.’ Frank bent the middle finger of his left hand. ‘Take down number three, and you’re left with what? Two on one side and seven on the other. Twenty seven.’ Doing the same with the next finger, he said, ‘Take down number four, you’re left with three and six, and that ain’t the price of me fucking hat. It’s what four nines make. Do it with your little finger, Dalston.’
Dalston did, and realised he was left with four fingers on one hand and five on the other.
‘Right, forty five. So it goes on up to ten.’ Frank bent the thumb of his right hand, leaving nine fingers in a row. ‘Ninety.’
‘So, you’ve got a trick to remember your nine times table,’ Dalston said with a smirk. ‘Not exactly genius material, mate. What’s your point?’
‘Want to see another bit of magic, Joe?’
Joe was enthralled, bending his fingers and marvelling at the results.
‘Joe?’ Frank waved in his sightline. ‘Watch this.’
Back at the board, he wrote a list of numbers.

9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90.

‘That’s your nine times table up to ninety, right? Notice anything about it?’ When neither Joe nor Dalston could answer, he added a zero before the first nine. ‘Now? No? Bloody hell…’ Frank sighed and drew a vertical line. ‘If I stuck a mirror between the two fives… between forty-five and fifty-four right there, you’d get the same sequence of numbers going forwards as you would going back. The last five numbers are a mirror bleeding image of the first. Get it?’
‘Yes. So?’
‘It only happens with nine,’ Frank said. ‘That’s why they call nine a magic number. Do it with your three or your seven, five, whatever, you won’t get the same mirror image. And there’s something else. Give us a number with nine in it, Joe. Any one with two digits, that’s two…’
‘I-o,’ Joe interrupted, and signed nine and six.
Frank wrote them on the board, 96, said, ‘Here’s another bit of magic for you,’ and beside it, wrote 69. ‘Take any two-digit number involving nine, reverse it, and take one away from the other… Ninety six minus sixty nine, we get seventy two. Seven plus two makes nine.’
‘Yeah?’ Dalston said, thinking that was just another coincidence. ‘What about forty-nine take away ninety-four? You can’t do that.’
”Course you can.’Frank wrote on the board.

49 minus 94 = -45
4 + 5 = 9

‘Just have to go to the left of zero and into minus. It works there too, see? Anyhow, me point is, Joe, the number nine is a weird one. Oh, hang on, there’s something else.’
More scratching on the board, the shrill squeal of chalk, and a few swearwords later, Frank had produced another list.
‘Joe. We got nine, and we got eighteen.’ He pointed to the numbers as he spoke. ‘One and eight is nine like you say. Then, we got twenty-seven. Two and seven make?’
‘Nine.’
‘Correct. Three and six? Nine. Four and Five? Nine, and so on.’
‘I never thought of that,’ Dalston said, doubt now turning to intrigue.
‘That’s ‘cos you ain’t the fucking mathematical genius, ain’t it,’ Frank tutted. ‘Give us a number. Any number.’
Dalston faltered, scrambling for something that wasn’t written on the board. ‘Seventy six.’
Frank wrote it, and turned to Joe.
‘How old are you, Joe?’
‘Nineteen.’
Frank wrote that on the board, and asked Dalston for another number; a higher one.
‘One hundred and sixty-two,’ came out of his mouth for no reason.
‘And I’m going to write this, ‘cos it’s the year.’
There were now four numbers on the board. 76, 19, 162 and 1890.
Frank stood to the side, reminding Dalston of a schoolteacher, except the ones he’d known were older than twenty and didn’t swear so much.
‘Dalston,’ Frank said, making him sit up straight and expect a telling off. ‘What’s nine times seventy-six?’
‘How the fuck would I know?’
‘Bloody hell,’ Frank muttered, and chalked up the answer. ‘Seventy-six times nine is six hundred and eighty-four.’ He’d worked it out in a heartbeat, and Dalston could only assume he was correct. ‘And the others…’
A few seconds passed, and the chalkboard was now a confusing mess of numbers that blurred Dalston’s vision.

76 x 9 = 684
19 x 9 = 171
162 x 9 = 1,458
1890 x 9 = 17,010

‘Do you see where I’m leading you with this?’
Dalston interpreted the question to Joe, and they stared at each other for a second before Joe made the sign for lunatic.
Laughing, Dalston said, ‘No, Frank, we ain’t got a clue. What are you trying to say?’
‘Ain’t it obvious?’
‘No.’
‘Right! Look here, seventy-six times nine makes six hundred and eighty-four, right?’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Good, ‘cos I ain’t fucking lying. Add up six, eight and four and what do you get?’
Joe gasped and signed, ‘Eighteen.’
‘Correct. Add one and eight?’
‘Nine.’
‘And we’re back to the sodding start. Who wants to go next on this merry-go-round? Dalston, what’s one plus seven plus one?’
‘Nine.’
‘And if you add up the others, you’ll get to some division of nine. Always.’
‘Always?’
‘Yup.’
‘That’s incredible.’
‘No, it ain’t. It’s just how it works, and that, Joe, is another reason some people reckon the number nine is fucking magic. Gets me every time, I have to say. No matter what you multiply by nine, you can always add the individual numbers of the answer and keep going until you got one digit, and it’ll always be nine. One last random one to prove me point, then I’m getting another drink.’
A little more scratching on the board, and Frank finished his lecture with a large random number.

14,892 x 9 = 134,028
1 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 2 + 8 = 18
1 + 8 = 9

He signed his work, Frank Andino, and poured himself a healthy glass of brandy, saying, ‘If you want to know about all your number nine, Joe, then all I can tell you is that it’s a fucking weird one. No wonder they was writing it everywhere, putting up rocks and stuff, but I don’t see what it’s got to do with a bloke getting killed, nor young David’s cousin, neither.’

I cut most of this as I worked on later drafts. Why? Simply because there is too much explanation, and it is not all relevant to the plot. I realised that I’d put such a lengthy explanation in there because a) I thought it was fascinating, and b) in writing the scene, what I was doing was explaining it to myself. In the redraft, the interesting information is still there, but I summed it up in a couple of paragraphs. Although I have kept one or two of the examples, showing digits rather than words, there are fewer of them. This, I hope, will get the point across without confusing the reader, as the above first draft does.

Keepers of the Past: Update

As I write, I am doing my final read-through having completed the various drafts and used ProWritingAid to conduct a line edit. The final draft goes to my proofreader next week, and once it is back, I will have one last read before uploading it all to Amazon. I have the front cover and will reveal it soon. My designer is working on the full cover for the paperback, and I have two illustrations ready to use at the front of the book. Everything is in place, and, with luck, we’re looking at a release date towards the end of the first week of November. I’ll let you know.

Well, that’s it from me for this week. The summer season is winding down here on our Greek island, and we have swapped the fans for the heaters, and the summer wardrobe for the winter one, but the days are still warm, and the sun continues to shine. Have a good week, and I will be back next Saturday. Meanwhile, keep in touch through my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jacksonmarshauthor

What Do I Call My Character?

Posted on 04/09/2021 by Jack Marsh

What Do I Call My Character?

‘No One Can Take Away Your Name.’ So says a character in The Clearwater Inheritance, and it’s true. It also reminds us that when we create a character’s name, it becomes very difficult to change it, especially when writing a series. So, how do you get it correct from the start?

I saw a post in a Facebook writers’ group the other day where an author was asking for advice about naming her characters. She gave a brief outline of each one, and then asked, ‘What should I call them?’ A brief outline isn’t much to go on, so I briefly told her what I do when I need to name a character.

Below are my thoughts on the subject in greater detail, and some of the ways I go about naming characters.

It is important to ask yourself some questions.

When do your Characters Live?

I am currently writing in the 1880s and my stories are set in England. Recently, when working on ‘Guardians of the Poor’, I was inspired by a newspaper article from the time. Mentioned in it was a workhouse official named Edward Capps. I took his name and made him the master of the Hackney workhouse, partly to keep some realism, partly because I wanted a villain with a fairly ordinary, yet slightly odd name, and it is an easy one to read. His henchman in that story is called Skaggot, a far more Dickensian name, and one which reads like a cross between skag and maggot, neither of which are very nice words. Skag is slang for heroin and was in use in the 1880s, and we all know what we think of maggots.

It’s worth remembering that some names in common usage today did not exist in Victorian times, so it’s important to check what era you are writing in, and the name trends of the time. These days, we might find Christian names such as Brooklyn, Phoenix, Brighton and other places as that seem to be a trend. Similarly, names from popular TV shows crop up from time to time. For example, there was an influx of Charlenes and Scotts when Neighbours first became popular in the UK. If you look at censuses from the late 1800s you will find a wealth of Mary-Ann, Charlotte and Victoria, and James, Albert and William. Far more traditional.

What country is the character from?

In Greece, it’s traditional for a couple’s first son to take the name of his paternal grandfather. I am sure the same kind of tradition applies in other countries, and in classes of British society. Sometimes, a mother’s maiden name is used, or a grandmother’s or a more distant relative. One of my brothers is named after a great-great-uncle, my other brother has among his names one of my father’s names, Clayre, which is an unusual name, and none of us knows where it came from.

I have written characters from Ireland, so I needed Irish names, and these can be very different from English names. Some are the same or very similar, for example, I have a character named Karan, and that’s the Irish spelling of Karen, so details are important to bear in mind. Ditto characters from Scotland, Ukraine and Transylvania, and others who appear in the Clearwater Mysteries, have country-appropriate names. My Romanian count wouldn’t have been called Charlie Smith. He is Roman Movileşti from the House of Bogdanesti (or Musat) because he has a lineage dating back to 1392.

Names can also make excellent book titles

An aside. When writing ‘Deviant Desire’, the first of the Clearwater Mysteries, I introduced a character called ‘Fecker’. There’s more about that name below, but his real name is Andrej, and that’s all we know about his name to start with. Later in the story, he appears at Clearwater’s house and is introduced by the footman. I wanted to raise a slight smile among my readers, and so gave the footman the task of announcing Andrej with his full name. Therefore, the name had to be complicated, but appropriate, and I went for Andrej Borysko Yakiv Kolisnychenko. Admittedly, not easy to read, and he was soon known as Mr Andrej, but his name was important. If/when you read through the series, including ‘Banyak & Fecks’ and particularly, ‘The Clearwater Inheritance,’ you will come to see why Andrej has these names, and why they are so important to him. As his mentor says during one of the stories, ‘No one can take away your name.’

As well as considering the character’s country, you should consider his location. There are differences in Christian and surnames between someone who is East London poor and someone who is West London rich. You don’t want to use cliché though. Not every East End scallywag was called Charlie, Bert or Dodger, and not all barmaids are called Betsy, Maisy and Poll. Try and be inventive, and one way to do that is to use nicknames. More about that in a moment.

How old is your character?

As I said, names, like clothes, come and go in fashion. Remember that your character may be 60 now, but when he was born, there may have been a different trend for names. When I was popped out, Toby was hip but unusual, these days, it’s more common.

You have to think, ‘Who were the parents, and what would they have called him/her?’ This gives you character background and some backstory, and a name can say a great deal about a character’s ancestors and parents. Think of the trends at the time and what was popular. Such things can include, the TV programmes of the time, pop singers, royalty, politicians, explorers, anyone hitting the newspapers in your country at the time of your character’s birth.

Parents, after all, are the ones who do the naming.

Take my main player in The Clearwater Mysteries: Archer Camoys Riddington, 19^th Viscount Clearwater, Lord Baradan of Hapsburg-Bran, Honorary Boyar Musat-Rashnov, to give him his full set of names and titles. Obviously, I don’t refer to him by all of them all the time. The official announcements happen only two or three times during 11 books, and most of the time he is known as Archer, Archie, Your Lordship or Lord Clearwater. It depends on the status between characters. Titled friends would call him Clearwater, servants, My Lord, his lover, Archie, and so on.

Archer was named by his father, a hideously military man, who was obsessed with the Battle of Agincourt. Archer’s brother is called Crispin as the battle was fought on that day, and Archer is named after the longbowmen who were responsible for the victory. He’s also got Camoys as a name because he was one of the commanding officers.

So, think ‘Who named this character’ bascule you can be sure it wasn’t you.

Fantasy names

Having said that, you do name your characters, and none of the above thoughts may apply if you’re writing fantasy. There, you can be extra-creative, but be careful. Make sure your names are easy to read. Marthigglysistbour from the planet Zyghrthithril ain’t that easy to visually digest. I am immediately put off a book if the title has in it a difficult-to-read name. The Kronghstyz Series of Sci-Fi fantasies might fill its author with pride, but for me, it would get me scrolling past.

Names to suit characters

This is one of my faves. I love checking out what names mean or thinking about why characters are called what they are. I do this a lot, sometimes just to amuse myself with obscure references and meanings, sometimes because it suits the story.

Jasper Blackwood

This morning, I wrote a newspaper article from 1882, and in it, mentioned a local policeman. ‘It seems to me the man were murdered,’ Inspector Trawlish of the Cornish Constabulary said. The name came out of my fingers rather than my head, but I wanted something vaguely Cornish-sounding and thought of fishing. Trawler would have been too obvious for a detective, but Trawl-ish sounds like he’s not very accurate in his work, so I went with that. Later, I also had a tea rooms owner and she popped out as Mrs Killraddock. I don’t know why. Probably because it also sounds Cornish (and the story is set there in 1890), but looking at it again, I imagine Mrs Killraddock being not very good at cooking kippers. ‘Don’t ask her to make breakfast, she’ll kill yer ‘addock.’

Meanwhile… In The Clearwater Mysteries, Silas Hawkins is named after the priest who delivered him and slapped him into life, Father Patrick. However, Silas’ mother wanted the Priest’s name before he was ordained, and that was Silas. To have called him Patrick O’Anything Irish-sounding would have been a cliché.

Thomas Arthur Payne

Thomas Payne is named because he is from a part of Kent I know well and there, there live a large collection of families called Payne. Simple. It also provided me with a play on words when Tom Payne and James Wright become involved in the detective agency. They were going to call it ‘The Wright-Payne Detective Agency’ until Silas pointed out another meaning.

If you want to find the best examples of names suiting characters, you only have to read Dickens. He was a master of characterisation through naming as you can see with Uriah Heap, Mr Bumble, Uncle Pumblechook, and who can forget Dick Swiveller from The Old Curiosity Shop? Come to that, what about Master Bates (Charlie), one of the boys from Oliver Twist?

We’ll say no more, and move on.

Nicknames

I like to give my characters nicknames for two reasons.
1) It’s what happens in real life, and
2) They can help define characters and relationships.

In the Clearwater Mysteries, Silas calls Andrej, ‘Fecker’ because, in Silas’ Irish accent, ‘He’s a very handsome Fecker.’ The name stuck. Similarly, Fecker, shortened to Fecks, calls Silas Banyak. In the Ukrainian village Fecker comes from, a banyak was a small cooking pot into which you’d put all kinds of stuff to produce one meal. Thus, for Fecker, Silas is a mixture of all things bubbling away and always on heat. Banyak was also the name of a faithful horse that brought him halfway across Europe, so the name also symbolises Silas’ loyalty to his friend.

Beware the Obvious

To finish with, here are a few things I suggest you look out for when inventing names.

Make sure they don’t all start with the same letter. Archer, Andrew, Andrej, Allan, Alice and Amy all appearing on one page, even in one novel, is confusing.
Ensure the name are time and place appropriate
Remember who named them. Two of my characters are named after places. Jasper Blackwood got his surname from the workhouse where he was placed as a baby. Dalston Blaze got his name because he was an unknown child rescued from a fire in a place called Dalston. He was entered into the workout register as ‘The boy from the Dalston Blaze’ and the name stuck.
Ensure that you proofread and keep the names consistent (says he!). It’s easy to miss a letter or not see a typo. I often write Adnrey instead of Andrej and never see it.
Tip: When I am reading through a full MS and come across a typo, I immediately do a search/find for that misspelt word. That way, I can pick up any other instances and correct them before I miss them again.
Don’t make names too complicated, even if it reads perfectly well to you.
Try and say something about your character in their name (see Dickens)
Keep a list of names used so you don’t repeat yourself. This can be tricky in places and times when something like 50% of males were all called by the same name, but you’ll find a way around it.
Consider nicknames, but make sure you explain, subtly, that Silas is also called Banyak, and Andrej is also called Fecker, or Fecks, etc.
Keep nicknames consistent with the character using them. For example, only Andrej calls Lord Clearwater ‘Geroy’. It means noble in his Ukrainian, so it would be inappropriate for others to use it. Only Andrej’s closest finds are allowed to call him Fecker, so nicknames can also show relationships between characters.

Resources

And finally, another tip.

There are hundreds of baby naming websites out there, simply search for ‘popular boy/girl names,’ and you will be set for life. If writing in the modern-day.

If writing in the past, census lists, passenger lists, ‘popular Victorian names’ searches, and so on will all be invaluable.

If writing about Irish characters, or wherever, do the same thing. ‘Popular Irish names…’ or search for names of Celtic saints, if you want something mystical and old. Countries, place names… Be inventive, find them on Google Maps.

Save a bookmark file named ‘character names’ or something, and put in there the links to websites you find that are of use.

There, those were my random thoughts on naming characters. I’m off now to work on chapter 17 of the next Larkspur Mystery (still untitled), where I will be inventing more names because I’ve got something like eight murder victims to think up.

It’s all part of the fun.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be back next Saturday.

Meanwhile, In the Real World

Posted on 19/06/2021 by Jack Marsh

Meanwhile, In the Real World

After the release of The Clearwater Inheritance and the sales promotion that went with it, I thought I’d find myself wondering what to do next. Not so! In fact, I have a few things going on at the moment, and I thought this Saturday’s blog would be a good place to tell you about them.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who took part in the recent book promotion, where we made ‘Deviant Desire’ free for a couple of days. Jenine organised this as a way to publicise the whole series. The idea, of course, was to boost sales of the books that follow in the series, and that’s what seems to be happening. Thank you to everyone who shared the news, wrote a review and made nice comments about the books on Facebook and so on. Keep up the good work.

The Larkspur Series

And on to what comes next… As you may know, I said that ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ marked the end of the Clearwater series, and yet it doesn’t. The characters will live on in The Larkspur Mysteries, and I have already started book number one. It has a working title of ‘Dalston Blaze’ after the main character. In it, we not only meet new characters (three or four so far, and I am on chapter 12 of the first draft), but we also meet up with characters from the previous books. However, you don’t have to have read the Clearwater series to enjoy what’s coming next. In this first book, we’ve already met Silas and James running their detective agency with the help of Mrs Norwood and a new character we met briefly in Clearwater 10, Duncan Fairbairn. Later, our MC, Dalston Blaze, is introduced to Archer down at Larkspur Hall. There, he meets a few other characters from the previous books and on the Larkspur estate, but mainly, he meets others at the new academy, by now (July 1890) being run from the old dower house.

Dalston is 18 and from the workhouse, and I am researching those institutions as much as I can to get some genuine background and flavour. There are flashbacks to life in the workhouse. There are coded symbols and messages involved as the mystery, a villain, of course, and likely as not, there will be a chase before the climax. There is also a friendship/love story, although that’s not the main thrust of the drama. I have already involved steam trains! I don’t know when this book will be ready. I expect it will be at least two months before I start thinking about its cover and publication.

The Haunted Manor

No, that’s not the next book; it’s a model kit I have started building. You might know I like to put together horror figure models, those made by Aurora in the 60s and 70s, and then re-released by Polar Lights and others. So far, I’ve made the Phantom, Dracula, the Witch and the Invisible Man.

I am halfway through the Wolfman but have put him aside because a new one came on the market. It’s not the same line as the others, but I made it when I was about 12 and wanted to have another go. It’s a model with moving parts, originally released by Disney, and it’s called ‘The Haunted Manor, Play it again Tom.’ It’s a man playing the organ, inside of which there’s a lurking mummy. I’ll let you see it when it’s finished.

Summer

That might not be for a while yet, because it’s starting to warm up here in Greece, and the paints dry too fast in their pots. So far on our little Greek island, the summer season has had a slow start. Understandable, of course, and we are hoping for more visitors as travel restrictions are eased. Neil is working at the bar for his two hours per day while I am at home writing, making my model, playing the piano for a friend who likes to sing, or teaching my godson to play. He should be taking his grade one examination at the end of next month, so we’re both nervously excited about that.

When I can, I’ve been taking some walks in the mornings before it gets too hot. I wander up the hill, thinking up the next chapter and occasionally stop for photos. I should do it every day, but I’m still not back in the routine. On the other hand, Neil has been walking and swimming most days, so he’s lost weight put on over the winter, whereas I haven’t. Yet. He’s also going to do an introduction to scuba diving course. Me? Er, no.

And Back to the Books

So, that’s my brief and general news from the desk this week. Next week, there will be something about music, and I am trying to remember which of my books involve music or have something to do with it…

The Clearwater Inheritance, Home From Nowhere, One of a Pair, Unspeakable Acts, The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge (both are musicians), The Blake Inheritance (involves a secret and a church organ), and The Mentor of Lonemarsh House (a music producer and a violinist).

If you’ve not read any of those, you can find all my books listed on my Amazon Author page here.

Have a great week to come, and I’ll be back next week to continue my series of ‘The real history behind the stories’, this time, looking at the music that features in my novels.

The Real History Behind The Clearwater Series

Posted on 15/05/2021 by Jack Marsh

Part 2 – Trains

This is the second blog in a series where I look at the real historical events and facts behind my Clearwater Mysteries Series. Today we talk about my love of train travel, how it features in the books and are joined by my personal Railway Guru, Andy.

There is a lot of train travel in The Clearwater Mysteries, and for two reasons. Firstly, in the era in which the books are set, there were no cars or aeroplanes, travel was steam-powered, horse-driven, by sail, or you could walk. Secondly, I’ve always had a thing for travel, maps and routes. Within that is an interest in steam trains, though I am no expert. It must be in my blood, this thing about locomotives, and if it is, I can identify a good reason why.

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway: A Childhood on the Tracks

It’s ironic, maybe, that I was born in 1963, the year the first Beeching report was undertaken. ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’ sought to streamline the nationalised railways industry and was responsible for identifying 2,363 stations for closure (55%) and 30% of route miles. It’s also interesting that when I was born, my small, fairly remote hometown still had a railway station, and steam trains were still in use on mainlines, although they were being replaced by diesel. However, I can honestly say that the first time I ever travelled by train, it was pulled by a steam locomotive.

New Romney Railway (1966) – YouTube film

A mile from where I was born (in a petrol station and car repair shop, by the way) was, and still is, the central station for the world’s smallest passenger-carrying light railway. That’s the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (RHDR), a 13.5-mile steam railway on a 15-inch gauge. The line was opened in 1927 and later expanded, much used by the military in WWII, and runs today as a popular tourist attraction. When I was at school, my classmates from out of town used it to get to school, and when I was growing up, it was part of my playground. I have childhood memories of not only riding on it but also being at the stations among the steam, playing on the tracks and simply watching the locomotives trailing steam and smoke across the marsh.

As an aside, at some point in the 70s, my godmother, The Dowager Lady Alvingham (on whom Lady Marshall is based in the Clearwater books), showed an interest in buying a castle that stands on a hill overlooking Romney Marsh. At the same time, my uncle, who had a passion for model railways, showed an interest in buying the RHDR. Their plan was to sit in Aunty Dolly’s castle, watching Uncle Hugh’s ‘toy’ trainset chugging across the flatlands below. Sadly, it never came to fruition, but my uncle did give us the model layout he’d built, and my father installed it in our attic. It was a vast landscape about 12 feet by four, had houses with working lights, the Flying Scotsman with real smoke, and provided hours of endless fascination for my brothers and me.

Still Chugging

My interest in train travel is still chugging along. In fact, it is my preferred method of travel. There is something romantic in planning a journey, and sometimes I think I am a frustrated travel agent. I don’t mean popping into Expedia and booking a flight and hotel; I mean looking at a map, working out what railways will get you there, finding the timetables and working out the connections.

Our travel companion, Paddington, at budapest train station

A few years ago, Neil and I decided on a Central European holiday. It was my fault, really. I wanted to travel a few countries by train, so I got out the atlas, Googled a bit, and set to work on a route. Because we live on an island, we had to start the journey by boat and fly to our first destination, Vienna. We were met by Neil’s brother, who lives there, and travelled into the city by train, so that was a good start. After a couple of days there, we moved on, and in the space of a couple of weeks, went from Vienna to Prague to Budapest to Belgrade on a variety of train journeys, some more classy than others.

Me fulfilling a bit of a dream, on a train, in the Carpathian mountains, coming back from Transylvania

Before this, we had been to Romania for my 50^th birthday, flying into Bucharest and then taking the train into the Carpathian Mountains to Sighisoara, the alleged birthplace of Vlad Tepes on whom Stoker based Dracula. We also travelled by train to Brasov and stayed there on the way back to Bucharest, and we did all this first-class because, in Europe, ticket prices are often a tenth of the price they are in the UK and elsewhere.

I mention all this because, in the upcoming novel ‘The Clearwater Inheritance,’ some of the characters find themselves travelling by train and visit, among other places, Vienna, Budapest, and Brasov, and they journey through the Carpathian Mountains.

Across Canada by train, 2020

One of my life’s ambitions was to travel across Canada by train, a five-day journey from Toronto to Vancouver. (We passed through a place called Clearwater, and stopped at a place called Collins.) This we achieved last year, just before the world was overcome by the virus.

Seen in Vancouver

Actually, we left Vancouver at the end of the Canadian leg of the journey, the day after the country went into lockdown. Although our trip wasn’t over, we had to cut the London and Athens legs short as there was no point in going there; everything was shut. Rearranging flights at two in the morning while sitting in an airport, buying boat tickets, finding hotels, and wondering whether we might have to travel from London to Athens by hire car or train… Well, for me, that was like a weird dream come true. The travel agent in me kicked in, and we became like continents on ‘The Amazing Race.’

You won’t be surprised to learn I am keen on ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ by Jules Verne.

——————————————————————————-

At this point I thought it would be fun to invite my good friend Andy over tell us a little about himself. He has become my Railway Guru, always willing to answer my questions and check facts for me as I research the series. I asked him where his love of trains came from and how that seed grew.

I first became interested in railways at the age of 10 when my parents unwisely bought me an “ABC” locomotive spotting book to shut me up on an interminable family holiday rail journey from Birmingham to Ilfracombe. They came to very much regret doing this as my bedroom filled up with railway magazines, models, and bits of actual railway equipment. I was already interested in buses as there was a major bus depot a few minutes walk from my house. Through the teenage years the interests became more advanced with much borrowing of books from the library, and at the same time steam was disappearing from the UK national railway network. No doubt all that reading about how things came to be the way they were encouraged me to take a University degree in history, and then start a career in transport management (buses in this case). A switch to managing freight transport followed, and then manufacturing industry.

So great that your childhood hobby grew into your career. And I know that even now in retirement you have managed to carry on in a new capacity…

The view of the Booking Officer

Yes, after semi-retirement I took up a part-time position at my local heritage steam railway as Booking Office Supervisor, surrounded by 1898 vintage buildings, real working steam trains, and a superb shop selling second hand railway books. I have also added looking at ferries and aircraft to my transport studies.

When not doing this I like reading fiction, often set in the late-Victorian, Edwardian, 1920/30/40s era, and sneering at authors who get their railway facts wrong (and so often their geography too). Being used as a consultant on your “Clearwater” series was immensely satisfying as a result.

Thank you Andy and I really think that maybe it will be your turn next to write a book!

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So back to my writing and how I use trains in the Clearwater Mysteries.

The first time a train appears is in chapter one of book two, ‘Twisted Tracks’.

James Joseph Wright was born on January 10th, 1863, at the precise moment the world’s first underground train delivered its passengers to Farringdon station. As the locomotive puffed and fumed from the tunnel, James’s mother, some four miles distant, puffed and fumed through her own first delivery.

That’s the only time an underground train is mentioned in the series, but overground trains start to feature from then on. I started this book with an ending in mind. I wanted one of those classic ‘fight on the roof of a moving train’ moments and wanted to add in men on horseback riding alongside, someone (James) inching along the outside of the trucks, the villain doing away with the driver, and the train racing out of control towards a fiery end… And that’s exactly what you get.

Archer wasn’t far behind, galloping from the ridge to the rear of the train and encouraging his mount with his crop. The horse knew its purpose and worked with him, delivering him up the embankment to the backplate. The viscount drew level with the last car, stood in the stirrups, and grabbed the rail. With one great leap, he left the saddle and swung his legs across to the car. He landed first time and clambered aboard as the horse veered off and slowed. Archer wasted no time climbing to the roof, and James turned his attention to the engine.

‘Jimmy!’ Archer was above him, fighting the wind for his balance. ‘Warn the driver. Stop the train.’

Everything was shadows and speed, gusts and fumes as James fought his way to the next car. Wooden, it offered a narrow walkway, making it easier for him to pass, but there were no handholds apart from cracks in the planking where he dug his fingertips, pressing his body flat against the side. He didn’t know how many more cars there were before the tender, but the headlamps were still a way off. The driver was expecting to continue straight on and was steaming the engine hard. [Twisted Tracks, chapter 24.]

Fallen Splendour and Other Journeys

Trains appear again in book four, ‘Fallen Splendour.’ For this one, I wanted another tense sequence and included a race against time. In this case, I had to get James from London to the Welsh coast to collect Archer and get them both back to the High Court in London in as few hours as possible. Initially, I thought I had not left myself enough time and thought I might have to rewrite some chapters because the time I had given James to achieve his task seemed unreasonably short. Then I referred to my railways guru, Andy, and he told me about ‘specials.’ Apparently, if you had enough money and clout, you could have the railways put on a special train just for you, and this, they could do with a few hours’ notice. Perfect! Of course, being a Clearwater novel, I didn’t go for just any old special, which is why Archer finds himself steaming through the night in Queen Victoria’s royal carriage.

Bitter Bloodline’ (book five) starts with a train crash. ‘Artful Deception’ (book six) takes us across the English Channel and on a relatively short journey to the Netherlands and back, plus another train journey to Derbyshire. In book seven, ‘Home From Nowhere’, Jasper encounters his first journey by train.

Jasper’s fear soon gave way to intrigue when the train moved, and became awe when it picked up speed. It wasn’t long before he began to enjoy the rhythmic trundling, and the only time he thought he was going to die was when they passed through a tunnel. The

‘ sound was deafening, smoke poured in through the window, and the carriage was plunged into darkness. It was over in seconds, leaving the footman struggling with the window, and Jasper shaking.

Train journeys are also featured in books eight and nine, but when we reach book ten… Well, that’s when I thought it was time to branch out from the domestic lines and go intercontinental.

The Clearwater Inheritance

You know how I am with ‘Dracula’, the epistolary novel to end all epistolary novels in my opinion… I employ a little of this ‘story in journals, letters, and other documents’ style in The Clearwater Inheritance.

Dracula opens with Jonathan Harker writing about his journey from Munich to Bistritz (now called Bistrita), travelling through Vienna and Budapest. Two of my characters take the same route because they are also travelling to Transylvania (though that’s got nothing to do with vampires).

I may have travelled on similar routes, but not, obviously, in the same century or on the same kind of trains, so I had to do some research into how such a journey would have been. You know how you sometimes get lucky? I put a search string into the search engine that read something like this: ‘Travelling in Europe in 1890’, and what should I find in a book collection?

Travels in Various Parts of Europe During the Years 1888, 1889 and 1890, Being a short and practical account, by Gilbert H. W. Harrison (with 24 illustrations).

I couldn’t have asked for anything better and was able to draw on first-person accounts of Folkestone, the channel crossing, Paris, Vienna, Budapest and parts of Hungary as they had been experienced in the same year as my story. I even have my characters stay at or mention hotels and stations Harrison saw and described.

Harrison was on a tourist route, however, and my characters follow the same route until they realise Thomas Cook & Son haven’t grasped the urgency of their journey. There are other delays, and backstory from ‘Banyak & Fecks’ comes into play at one point, as do other pre-mentioned backstories concerting Lady Clearwater’s Romanian/Transylvanian connections and other things to do with Archer’s past. Ultimately, my travelling characters need to get back to England in a hurry.

The map created for ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ based on one from 1912. All rights reserved. Dark lines and lighter solid lines show the Orient Express routes, dotted lines are the characters’ other routes.

Again, I spoke to Andy about this side of the story and asked how long it would have taken from Bodmin in Cornwall to Brasov in what is now Romania in 1890. He came back with suggested times and routes. Finding original timetables is never easy, but I reckon, in the story, I am as close to what was possible as I can be. For the return journey, though, I needed to speed things up a bit and so looked into using the Express d’Orient, the Orient Express as we now call it.

A timetable from The Orient Express

A couple of chapters happen aboard this luxury train, but this is not an Agatha Christie, and the journey to and from Brasov is only one aspect of the story, but again, I tried to be as accurate as possible, at least with descriptions and distances. I had to reschedule the Orient Express to a different day, else the rest of the plot wouldn’t work, but apart from that, the race home is, as far as I can see, accurate, if a little tight. The characters have an awful lot of luck making steamers and ‘very early’ trains, but hey, it’s fiction and fact mixed, faction, you might say, and it was all possible.

End of the line

Is book ten the end of the line for Clearwater? Has the series finally reached its destination? All I can say is, running at 150,000 words, ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ is the longest of the stories, and it does have a sense of rounding things off. It also has a sense of leaving something open for another series set in the same world, and it is that idea I will be considering once this book has been published.

Look out for my newsletter at the start of June, as there will be an extract from the book included as a special preview for those who sign up. (There won’t be any plot spoilers.)

I must go now, but I will add a list of references I have used for my railway research as a guide for anyone who is interested to know more.

Books: