Christina Rossetti Part I

Christina Rossetti was born in London in 1830 and died in 1894.
Her family were of Italian origin.   Her father was a political exile from Italy and the family was artistic. Her brother was the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was a member of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. The family was not well off, but at first they lived in modest middle class comfort. Her father was a teacher at Kings College and Christina was given a good education at home. Then her father became ill and had to resign his job, and suffered from poor health and depression.
Her mother and sister had to teach, to provide for the family. Maria, the sister became a live in Governess, and her mother set up a school.
Christina became more isolated at home. She feared that she would have to become a governess, too. Like the Bronte sisters, she was shy and devoted to her family. She began to suffer health problems and depression, but she was very interested in her brother’s artistic work and she herself wanted to be a writer. She wrote poems and stories from childhood. She began to have her poems published form the age of 18.
She found consolation for the difficulties of her life, in religion. She was a devout Anglo Catholic, although she did suffer from religious crises during her life. She led a sheltered life, mixing with some of her brother’s friends but also maintaining friendships by letter. Her work is often considered to be as good as Elizabeth Barrett Browning... and she is felt to be one of the most gifted women poets of the Victorian era.
In the 20th century, critics have reevaluated it, looking for feminist and Freudian themes in her poems. She was a lively child, with passionate emotions, but grew more guarded and somewhat repressed. She had a breakdown in 1845, and some writers have believed that it might have been triggered by family problems- some have even theorised about a possible incestuous advance from her father. Other biographers have noted that by giving her a “health problem”,  she was now excused from having to work outside the home.
However she did in later life have several health issues that were clearly of physical origin and not the vague "illness and delicacy" that afflicted some Victorian women.  She had Graves Disease, suffered from lung weakness  that was feared to be TB, and in the end died of cancer.

 It is clear that she suffered from a strong sense of sinfulness. Her depression and ill health meant she had a narrow life. Her faith was important to her, but all the same, she felt a conflict between the restrictions of a generally conservative religious belief, the “propriety” expected of a middle class young lady, with her own artistic ambitions and desire for success in her work and her taking pride in her poetry. These problems of her over scrupulous nature and her inner conflicts shows in a novella called “Maude” which she wrote at the age of 20 but which was not published till after her death.

Rough Music my story on Amazon

Rough Music is “band” story set in the US, in the late 1970s. It’s about a country rock band and its 2 lead singers and how they cope with life on the road. It’s not a conventional love story, but more about marriage, life in the music world and life in the later 1970’s. YOu can find it on Amazon.... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

More on Arthur

I hope to write some more blogs about 20th and other Arthurian novels in the near future. I have read many, some good, others not so good. One of the developments in the 20th and 21st century is the feminist Arthurian novel which concentrates on Guenevere or the women in the stories. One of the first of these is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Mists of Avalon” which covers the women in the legends and is in my opinion a bit inclined to skew the story. It favours paganism over Christianity, and makes claims that paganism gave women more freedom than Christianity did. Another very good trilogy is Persia Woolley’s one on Guenevere which depicts her as a Princess from the North, who is intelligent, and an active partner in ruling the Kingdom with Arthur. Sharan Newman another American writer also has a Guinevere trilogy, which has more fantasy elements. more will follow

Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian Trilogy

Gillian Bradshaw was born in America in 1956 and is well known for her historical and historical fantasy novels. She spent some time in Chile, then studied at the University of Michigan.  After that, she did a further degree at Cambridge where she met her husband.  She settled in England and wrote her first novels, the Arthurian Trilogy know as “Down the Long Wind”. (She later turned to Classical Greece and Rome, and wrote another novel (Island of Ghosts) about Britain, during the Roman Empire.) But her first works are among my favourite Arthurian tales. Her novels have fantasy elements, involving Morgawse, Arthur’s half-sister, and Gwalchmai, her son, but it is mostly set in a realistic Dark Ages Britain, with Arthur portrayed as a warrior who has been “raised to the Purple” and taken the title of Emperor of Britain, and tried to Unite the warring British small kingdoms against the Saxons.
 Arthur is not a king but a “bastard reared at a monastery”, the son of Uther, the former king. He is married to Gwynhwyfar, the daughter of a Romanized nobleman. Medraut in this novel as in much of the legend is the son of Morgawse by her half-brother, whom she seduced because she wanted to destroy his kingship. In this trilogy, Gwynhwyfar’s affair is with Bedwyr, since Lancelot was not an original character in the legends... So some authors have chosen to use Bedwyr as “Arthur’s friend with who becomes his wife’s lover”. Bradshaw gives a picture of Dark Ages Britain, and sticks closely to the lines the traditional Arthurian story, with Medraut fomenting trouble in Camlann, setting the warriors at odds and revealing Bedwyr’s affair, so that he splits the kingdom. While Arthur is abroad he seizes power, and then fights his father, but both men are killed during the Battle of Camlann. Gwynhwyfar becomes a nun…and later an abbess of a convent in Northern Britain....

Arthurian stories

Arthur is a very popular mythological figure in the “Matter of Britain”, the legends which tell of the origins of Britain as a nation. However there is no historical evidence that he existed. The legends became very popular with the publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s’ “History of the Kings of Britain”.   This was published in the 12th Century, around 1138. We don’t know how much of the “facts” in this work are from Geoffrey’s imagination, or from earlier sources.
 Arthur is depicted as a King who fought the Saxons and then established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Gaul and other countries. Other characters who appear in Geoffrey’s version are Arthur’s wife Guenevere, his wizard Merlin and his father Uther Pendragon. He was associated with Cornwall, being conceived at Tintagel. Chretien de Troyes added Lancelot to the story, there was a French cycle of stories which covered the adventures of Arthur’s knights and Guinevere’s love affair with Lancelot. In earlier texts, poems and “histories”, Arthur was not always depicted as a King, but as a warrior. He is referred to as Dux Bellorum, (Leader of Battles), which has led some writers to speculate that there was a historical figure called Arthur, but that he was not a King. He might have been a soldier who fought the Saxons, or other British kings, and might have been raised to the rank of Emperor, by his soldiers and accepted as such, as long as he defended the country…

 In the 15th Century, Thomas Malory wrote a version of the story, combining all the legends, in “Morte D’Arthur”, which has fixed the story for many generations. It as an immensely popular work, depicting the characters as 15th century knights rather than the Dark Ages warriors they might have been. Castles, beautiful ladies being rescued etc.….are part of his version of the story, but they are of course historically inaccurate. Over time, the “Arthur story” became less popular and by the more "rational" 18th century, there were few works on him.
 But in the 19th century, with the revival of interest in medieval history and culture, there was a resurgence of “Arthurian interest”. Tennyson’s cycle of poems revitalized the story, though it’s been said that he depicted the king as a 19th Century gentleman. Tennyson re tells the Lancelot story, of Guinevere’s falling in love with her husband’s Knight, and having an affair with him, which led to the breakup of the Kingdom. There were other 19th century writers, such as William Morris, who wrote Arthurian poems, and the Pre Raphaelites drew on the legends for many of their paintings. However in the 20th Century, the legends have become even more popular and there are literally hundreds of new works about Arthur, some of them “fantasy” novels which emphasize the supernatural aspects of the story. Many others are “historical” ones, which attempt to give a realistic picture of medieval life, with Arthur as a Roman or Romano- British warrior…. More to follow!

Charles II

Charles II is probably best known for his bawdy and “sexed up” court. He was a complex man, who had had a very difficult childhood, and in many ways he was attractively “unroyal” in his manner. But he had a darker side. He was determined to rule as a King, although he knew that he could not be the absolute monarch his father had tried to be. But he was a much more skillful politician than his father or brother and managed to rule without Parliament, but without alienating the political classes as they had done. However he could only do that with French aid. But on the lighter side of his character, he liked women and one of his great pleasures was being with his mistresses. They were often witty and charming social creatures as well as bedmates. His Queen wasn’t smart or light hearted enough to take part in the court’s amusements of witty talk and debauchery, but Charles – even though she had no children – never parted with her. I’ve posted on 2 of Charles’ well known mistresses on this blog Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, and Nelly Gwynne. I hope to do some more posts on other royal favorites. His mistresses included the French Louise De Keroualle, Lucy Walter, the mother of his son, James Monmouth, Moll Davies, Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin, and Catherine Pegge and Lady Shannon. His brother, James II, although he was a devout almost fanatical Roman Catholic, had numerous mistresses, but Charles joked that his ladies were so plain that he felt sure they had been allocated to James by his confessor, as a penance.

Nell Gwynne 1650-87

Eleanor or “Nell” Gwynn was well known as one of the first English stage actresses and also as a mistress of Charles II. Not much is known of her early life as she was born in humble circumstances. Her mother was probably a bawdy house keeper, and it’s believed that she was born in either London or Oxford, probably around 1650, during the reign of Cromwell. Nelly and her sister Rose probably grew up in Covent Garden, London, in poverty. Her father was said to be a Captain, but the truth is that nothing is known of him. As a child Nell probably worked at various occupations. It is said that she was a street seller, and also that she worked at her mother’s brothel, serving drinks. Puritan England was a dull place and amusements such as theatre were considered frivolous or immoral, and were banned. But in the early 1660’s with the restoration of Charles II to his throne, he licensed two theater companies and permitted women to act on the stage. Previously, as in Shakespeare’s day, the women’s parts were usually played by boy actors. Nell and her sister Rose started out as orange girls at the theatre Royal, Drury Lane. “Orange Moll”- a former prostitute, had a license to sell oranges and other sweetmeats to the patrons of the theatre, and Nell had a lively personality and a witty tongue, so she soon developed great skill at the selling job. It called for liveliness, quick wit and charm. Soon, she used her connections with the theatre to move into the acting profession. Nell had had no education, as a girl from a slum, but she had a sharp intelligence and in spite of being illiterate, she learned parts quickly and became very popular on the stage. Charles II often attended performances, as did members of his court. 

Nell realized that she was better at comedy than drama and serous theatre, so she found herself cast mostly in comic roles. She also played “breeches parts” where the female character adopts men’s clothes for some reason, and hence was able to show off her figure in male attire. During her early years as an actress, she became the mistress of the well-known actor, Charles Hart, and he nurtured her budding career. A few years later, she left the theatre for a time, to become the mistress of the wit and rake, Lord Buckhurst, who took her away from acting and gave her an income. However, she soon returned to the stage and seems overall to have had very few lovers. It was difficult for a woman to make her way even in the world of theatre, without a male protector but Nell seemed to be reluctant to take many lovers and supported herself. 

In 1667/8, the Duke of Buckingham seems to have interested himself in Nelly, since he wanted to counteract Barbara Castlemaines influence with the King. Barbara was Buckingham’s cousin, but she was a greedy and hot tempered woman. She and he were frequently at odds, and the Duke wanted to get Charles involved with another mistress who would put forward his pint of view. However, Charles was not the man to be faithful to any mistress for long. He and Barbara had been lovers for some years and had several children but the affaire was cooling. He began a short affair with Moll Davies, an actress from another theater. However, he met Nelly and began to take a fancy to her. Her quick wit and saucy tongue attracted him, and her forthright frank manners, the contrast between a girl born in a London slum and court ladies, made her seem charming. In 1670, she bore a son to him, but still returned to the stage for a time. She was less demanding than Barbara Castlemaine but she did have her price. 

  She asked insistently for a house and pension, and honours for her children. Some courtiers commented that Nell, because of her social position, her low birth was not “treated with the decencies of a mistress” but rather like a whore. Charles was not faithful to any of his women, but he was generous with money and they were part of his court and had much more influence there than his wife. Catherine of Braganza was a rather “mousy” young woman, who had been brought up in a restricted conventual culture. She was not sophisticated enough to handle a royal marriage to someone like Charles, or to deal with his many glamorous highly born mistresses who outshone her. As a Roman Catholic, and a wife who was unable to produce children, she became isolated at Court, and Charles, while reasonably kindly to her, mostly ignored her. In the early 1670’s Nell became part of the court and gave up acting. She had another son by Charles; the two boys were called Charles and James Beauclerk. However, Nell had to persist in asking for them to be given titles, as was usual for the children of his mistresses. She was not well born enough to have a lot of influence with him, but he was fond of her. In the 1670s however, he met Louise de Keroualle, a young Frenchwoman who had been one of his beloved sister Minette’s ladies. After Minette’s death, she came to court and after lot of prevarication, became his mistress. Louise was generally regarded as an agent of the King of France, and was not well liked. However Nell was popular, especially among the common people from whom she had sprung. 

Yet  in spite of her lack of likablity, Charles was deeply in love with Louise, and regarded her as a more important romance than Nelly. 

 Nell was still involved with Charles and used her sharp tongue to put down the haughty French mistress. She remarked that Louise gave herself airs and was always telling the world how many grand relations she had, so “why did she lower herself to be a courtesan?” 

She added that she had had few lovers though she was brought up in a bawdy house and "it was her profession."  She called Louise “Squintabella” because of a slight cast in her eye, and “The Weeping Willow” because of her tendency to cry. When her carriage was attacked by a mob who had mistaken it for De Keroualle’s carriage, she called out “Pray good People, be civil. I am the Protestant whore.” 

As time passed, Charles divided his attentions between a few mistresses, Hortense the Duchess of Mazarin was a favorite, he never entirely broke with Barbara Castlemaine, though their affair had ended... and he had Louise and Nelly. But in 1685, he died suddenly. Among his last words he asked his brother to “Not let poor Nelly starve”, and James II paid off Nell’s debts and gave her a pension. Her son James had died in childhood and her older son Charles had been given the title Duke of St Albans. Two years after Charles’ death, Nelly had a stroke and died, at the age of 37. She is remembered as a talented comedy actress, and a witty lively woman with a kind heart. It is said that she persuaded Charles to donate land for the Chelsea Pensioners hospital.

Mel Tillis 1932-2017

Mel Tillis was born in Tampa Florida in 1932. In the 1950’s he was in the American Air force where he started to write country music. When he left the services, he did a number of jobs and continued to write. However, he had developed a stutter as a child, when he had an attack of malaria. The stutter didn’t affect him while singing but it mean he was less likely to get work as a singer. His songs were hits for other artistes, particularly “Detroit city” which was a big hit for Bobby Bare and also for Tom Jones. Another song that was a success for another artiste was “Ruby Don’t Take your Love to Town”, which he wrote for Kenny Rogers. This is still one of Kenny’s “big songs” and has been associated with him all his life. It is about a Korean War veteran who is injured, and in a wheelchair who is begging his wife not to be unfaithful. Detroit City is also hard edged, about a southerner who (like many men from the south during the 1950s)–has had to leave his family and loved ones, to go to Detroit to look for work, and how he longs to return home. Mel’s songs did very well for other singers but he wanted to perform himself. He also was on shows like Heehaw and began, like many singers, to have an acting career. He had a turn for comedy and used his stutter as a comic device. In later years, he joined with Bobby Bare, Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed, to form a group called the Old Dogs, who did an album about the funny side of growing older. The songs were written by comedy and writing genius Shel Silverstein. Some of the songs were about male problems, in getting old – “Lord Ain’t it hard when it ain’t” and “Too Old to cut the mustard”, and “Couch Potato” and “She’d rather be homeless”. Mel continued performing and built up a portfolio of business interests, as he grew older. He had several children, including song writer Pam Tillis. His health began to decline in the last year or so but he had a long and productive life. he passed away at the age of 85. May he rest in peace

Mel TIllis RIP

Just heard of the Death of Mel Tillis. One of his biggest hits was the song Detroit City, about a poor Southerner who goes north to Detroit to make cars and wants to come home. Mel was a great singer and song writer. RIP.

Loretta Lynn Part II

Some of her best known songs were about having a difficult husband or marriage, not schmaltzy love ballads. Loretta’s husband was not always faithful and she wrote some of her songs about fighting for her man, or telling him off for drinking and fooling around. They included “Fist City” and “You ain’t woman enough to take my Man”, and “Don’t come home a drinking, with loving on your Mind”. Other songs she wrote or sang were considered scandalous and not played on the radio. She had a wryly comic song, (“One’s on the Way”) written by Shel Silverstein, about a woman, who is stuck at home, with too many kids, a husband who is out with his buddies, and another baby on the way. She was aware of “Women’s Lib” and she wasn’t hostile to it... But she clearly felt that while well to do women were starting to have careers, and comfortable liberated lives, it wasn’t that way for working class women. There were plenty of women in America who were still a long way from “Freedom”. They still married too young, had too many pregnancies, and didn’t have careers. If they worked outside the home, it was probably in a low paid part time job. And Loretta’s songs spoke to these women. Her song “The Pill” was considered shocking and was banned on radio. But she wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of what a woman artiste could sing about. She spoke up for women, just as Dolly Parton fought for women’s rights to be sexy and free, and not just dutiful housebound housewives. Both women were feisty and feminist, in their way. while in the 50’s women in country were often decried for being sexual, in the 60’s and 70’s, Loretta was singing about women who loved their kids but were tired at times and cross... Or who told off the women who tried to flirt with their husbands. In 1980, Loretta’s first autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter” became a hit film with Sissy Spacek In the lead. Tommy Lee Jones played Doolittle. She also formed a singing partnership, with Conway Twitty, and they duetted for many years.

Loretta Lynn Part I

Loretta is one of the women singers, whose career took off, in the 1960s, and who changed the image of women in country. Her life was often stormy and difficult, and yet she has had a successful career and gutsily made her way through hard times. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, in 1932, she was one of a large family of children born to Theodore “Ted” Webb, who was a coal miner and small farmer. Like Dolly Parton in Tennessee, she was born into poverty, and was never ashamed of it. It gave her material for her songs. One of Dolly’s most heart rending songs is Coat of Many Colours, where she writes about how her mother made her a coat out of rags and bits of cloth, because they couldn’t afford a new one. And how when the kids at school laughed at her coat, Dolly compared it to Joseph’s coat in the Bible. Loretta’s most famous song is Coal Miner’s daughter, about her father and mother and how they reared their family, somehow managing to find enough money to keep them and giving them love in spite of their poverty. Her father gave up mining, and moved to Indiana, where he rang a store, but he died at the age of 52 from “black lung” or “Coal workers' pneumoconiosis”. Loretta was married very young to Oliver Lynn, whom she variously called “Doolittle” or “Mooney”. He was a young working man, who had just returned from World War Two, and when she was 15 or so, they married. Doolittle worked hard, but he was rough and abusive to her, at times and he had alcohol problems. But their marriage endured until he died... Loretta later claimed that “he never hit her but she hit him twice” -. And in spite of all the storms of their life, they stayed together and she nursed him in his later illnesses. They had 6 children in all; the first ones were born when she and Doolittle were an impoverished working class couple, trying to make a living. They moved to Washington a year or so after the marriage, when she was pregnant with their first child. Three more children were born in in the next few years. She loved to sing and Doolittle believed she had talent, so he bought her a guitar and insisted that she learned to play it. In the late 1950s, she started her singing career, with Doolittle pushing and helping to manage her. Her brother played with her in a small band, and in 1960, she cut her first record. She wrote her own songs and they were inspired like Hank Williams and Audrey, by her stormy relationships with Doolittle. Her songs were about the life of impoverished rural women of the time. Women who married young, were poor, and had too many pregnancies, whose husbands were abusive or unfaithful or drank.

June Carter Cash 1929-2003

(Valerie) June Carter was born into the Carter family, in 1929…in Virginia. Her father being Ezra Carter and her mother Maybelle, who was a seminal figure in collating and recording folk and country songs. From childhood she -with her sisters Anita and Helen - was part of the Carter family act. However, she felt that her gift was for comedy rather than music, in her early years. In 1952 she married her first husband, singer Carl Smith, by whom she had a daughter, Carlene, who performed as Carlene Carter. Her second marriage was to a policeman, “Rip” Nix, by whom she had another daughter, Rosie. During her second marriage, she and her family became part of the Johnny Cash act, and June and he fell in love. Johnny was married to the mother of his four daughters, Vivien Liberto....who was reluctant to give him a divorce. He also had drug problems, which made June nervous about committing to him, though she loved him.
 One of her admirers was Elvis Presley who fell in love with her, and she later said that Johnny had been jealous of her friendship with the young rock star. June was always well liked, in the country world, as a warm hearted sincere woman. She was involved in charity work, in Nashville and in Jamaica where the family also lived. She was godmother to Hank Williams Junior. She had a strong, earthy and powerful voice, rather than a sweet or girlish one. She was fun loving and was a talented comedienne. In 1955, she decided to take some time to study acting, and she moved to New York, working under Lee Strasberg. She did take on several acting roles, in later life, often in TV movies with Johnny... as he also had a moderate career in TV movies, television and also some movies.
 In “The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James”, June played Jesse James’ Mother,.  In Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, she had a regular role as the wife of Johnny’s retired gunfighter, who moves into the town. She also played Johnny’s wife, when he played a bogus evangelist, in Little House on the Prairie. In the 1960s, she wrote a song which later became a hit for Johnny, “Ring of Fire” with her cousin and friend Merle Kilgore. It was about the passion of a forbidden love. In 1968, June finally agreed to marry Johnny, and they remained married from then until her death in 2003.
 In 1970, they had their only child, a son, John Carter Cash. Their marriage had its ups and downs, but he depended on her for support and companionship. He never fully overcame the drug and drink problems though he kept on struggling with them, with his wife’s help and also depending on his Christian faith. He also developed severe health problems as he grew older. With his tendency towards addiction, when he was ill and need pain relief, he was always in danger of becoming addicted to the pain medications. June was devoted to him, and to an extent put her own career to one side, to be there for him. She usually toured with him, and they would always perform their duet hit, Jackson, and a few other songs together. June was a talented dancer, and would sometimes perform country style dances during the act.
 As Johnny’s health grew worse, he still kept on working, as much as he could. He and June were pleased about plans for the making of the film “Ring of Fire” about their life, with Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. June and Johnny spent more time in Jamaica, where they had a property, for him to enjoy warm weather and to relax. However, he was determined to work as long as he could even if touring was out of the question. In 2002/3 June’s health got poorer, and she had lost her two sisters, Anita and Helen, in the late 90s. In 2003, she had what was meant to be routine surgery to repair a heart valve but she died. Johnny was devastated, as he was now in very poor health and had lost the woman who had been by his side for almost 40 years.
 He missed her terribly and only survived her by 4 months. June had been working on an album, for the first time in years, which was later produced by her son John Carter (Wildwood Flower)… But her legacy isn’t just in country music. It lies in her love for her family and especially for her husband, and her warmth and kindness.

Dolly Parton Part III

In the 1970’s like many other country artistes, Dolly turned to a more “pop” sound in her songs. She made a concerted effort to have “crossover hits” and was usually high in the charts. In 1980 she began a movie career, as one of the leads in the very popular film “Nine to Five”. Her next big film was “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” with Burt Reynolds and she began to duet with Kenny Rogers, with whom she had a good deal of chemistry. Their song “Islands in the Stream”, made it to the top of the charts. Dolly’s records still performed well, but as she grew older, like most of the singers of her generation, some record companies saw her as a back number. However, her acting, song writing and business activities kept her before the public eye and she was immensely rich. Much of her work was critically acclaimed… such as her 1987 Album, Trio, with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. In 1998/99, she returned to her roots with bluegrass music, and an album “Hungry Again”.
 Some years ago when she was performing in London -my partner went to see her and was very disappointed that there were such crowds, he didn’t get a chance to speak to her. But she came and apologised to the people who hadn’t had the chance...which I think was very typical of her. She was warm and approachable and worked hard for her fans. She is involved in charity work, in her native Tennessee, encouraging young girls to stay in education. Although she is now getting older, she is still lively, beautiful and sexy and full of energy…

Dolly Parton Part II

In the 1960s, Dolly had a regular slot on Porter Wagoner’s TV show as “Miss Dolly”, and this added to her growing success as an artiste. However, while she and Porter worked well together, she had always envisaged a solo career and did not want to be seen as his support act. They duetted together and were very popular. Dolly’s “sexy” image was a little unusual for country singers at the time and she was outspoken about how sex and sexiness were important to her. She often mentioned in interviews, how as a kid she had wanted to be like the local “bad woman”, because she thought that wearing make up and flashy clothes were beautiful, not tawdry or shocking.
 One of her early hits was a song called “Dumb Blonde” - and many people thought of her as being  “a dumb and pretty sexpot” –as per the image. She dressed gaudily, wore wigs and had a glitzy look which emphasized her sexuality.
But Dolly was no dumb blonde. She wasn’t highly educated, having only just finished high school. But she was intelligent and shrewd and very hard working. She loved country music but she was determined to be successful, in terms of making money as well. She showed that a woman artiste can be both a creative song writer and a smart businesswoman who could handle her finances well. And have a sexy image as well. In spite of her over the top look, curvaceous figure and flirty manner, I’ve always found that women seem to like and admire Dolly, even women who aren’t particularly into her music. She comes across as warm, lively and funny and as she’s grown older, it is very clear that she is indeed shrewd, clever and a real businesswoman.

Dolly Parton Girl Singer Part I

Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in rural Tennessee. She has been known to joke that she was the “only person who left the Smokey mountains and took them with her”, because of her large bosom. I’ve written a lot about country artists in this blog but so far, I haven’t mentioned the female ones. Women were considered of less importance in certain country circles, in its earliest days. Although Sara and Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family were two seminal figures, women were often “put down” as “girl singers” and considered to be just eye candy or at best pretty singers.
 The conservatism of country meant that women were supposed to be mothers and home makers. There are plenty of schmaltzy country songs about Motherhood! But if they stepped outside that path, to become career women or to have unconventional sex lives, they were often criticised.
 In the 1950s Kitty Wells’ song “It wasn’t God Who made honky-tonk angels” was a defence of women who were attacked for sleeping around, when men did the same thing. Dolly however is one of the most famous women in country music. In addition she has had great success with her cross- over hits in the Pop charts. She is a keen businesswoman, making a fortune from her theme Park “Dollywood”. She has also had a career as an actress.
Born just after World War Two, she came to maturity and became famous in the early 60s when roles for women were changing and she took advantage of this. She came from a poor and large family but she had a strong singing voice, and at an early age music was very important to her family. At the age of ten she was singing on local radio and TV programs. In 1964 at the age of 18, she moved to Nashville and had an initial success as a song writer. She worked with her uncle Bill Owen and her songs did well. In 1966 she married Carl Dean whom she met soon after her move to Nashville, when she was washing her clothes in a laundromat.
 Carl has always been determined to avoid publicity. He is rarely seen but he and Dolly have now been married for over 50 years, in spite of gossip about their marriage. She also began to sing, but at first was felt to be suited to light and pop type songs. Her voice, while good, was not as exceptional as many other women singers. But her heart was always in country and in the early 70s, she recorded one of her most famous and heart felt songs, Coat of Many Colours” based on a childhood incident where her family were too poor to buy her a new coat.

Minnie Pearl (1912-96)

Minnie Pearl was born Sarah Ophelia Colley, in Tennessee, in 1912.  Unlike her stage persona, Sarah was from a prosperous business family, and had studied at a “young ladies” school, where she majored in theater and dance.  She was well educated and intelligent. For a few years, in her early life, she taught dance, and then produced plays and musicals.  During this time, she began to develop the “Minnie Pearl” character. In 1940, she made her first appearance at the Grand Old Opry, with this comical act.

Her character was a “hillbilly girl” from a fictional town Grinders’ Switch, who dressed in homely clothes, wore a straw hat with the price tag still on it, and talked about her “country” friends and relatives. She made gentle fun of “hillbilly life” and about her own inability to “catch a feller”.

Her catchphrase was a loud “Howdeee – I’m just so proud to be here.”

She was well loved by Opry audiences and did comical songs and dances.

In her mid-30s she married Henry Cannon, who ran an air charter service and then became her manager.   She was good friends with Hank Williams senior, who was starting his career in the 1950s.  In later life, she would say to his grandson Hank III who resembles him, “Honey you’re a ghost.”

She appeared frequently in the long running country music show “Hee-haw” and was involved in business ventures, but she was also dedicated to charity work. After she recovered from breast cancer, she was involved in supporting the hospital where she had been treated.

 Her marriage was childless but happy and lasting.

In the early 1990s, she had a stroke and this brought her performing career to an end.  In 1996, she had another stoke and died.  There is a bronze statue of her in the Opry’s Ryman Auditorium, a tribute to her immense popularity

Little Jimmy Dickens

Jimmy Dickens was born in West Virginia in December 1920 and died, having had a long and productive singing life- in the new year of 2015. (2^nd January).

He came from a poor family, and was determined not to become a miner, like his father.  He had seen the hardship of life in the mines.

Jimmy  was a very short man, not quite 5 feet tall.  He adopted the name “Little Jimmy Dickens” in reference to his short stature.  Some of his novelty songs referred to his size, such as “Take an Old cold Tater and wait” Another one was “I’m Little but I’m loud.”

He dropped out of college, to start a singing career,  and in 1948 he was spotted by Roy Acuff of Nashville and moved there. He was one of the first singers to wear the loud glittery rhinestone suits  that were  adopted by many later performers. He became friends with Hank Williams and Minnie Pearl, and Hank gave him the nickname Tater.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and he remarried a little later.  His second wife died in an automobile accident in the 1960s and he then married his third wife Mona Evans, who survived him. 

He was a comedian as well as a singer and was well loved.  He appeared with Brad Paisley and as a host at the Opry.   He went on performing and talking to his fans until a few days before his final illness

Hank Williams Jnr and The Living Proof

I missed the recent movie about Hank Williams Senior, (I saw the Light).  But I’ve seen the original biopic “Cheating Heart “ and I’ve seen “Living Proof” which is about Hank Junior (also known as Bocephus). Although it is a TV movie, I really like it.  Richard Thomas (alias John Boy Walton) plays young Hank Junior and is surprisingly good.  He doesn’t look much like him, but he’s a good actor and makes up for the physical differences (Hank being 6 foot 4 and sturdily built) and the limitations of its being made for TV. 

The book is based on Hank’s autobiographical book of the same name and covers his early years, his time when he was singing his father’s songs and dominated by his mother “Miss Audrey”. It also covers his increasing unhappiness with not being able to do his “own” kind of music, and then his terrible fall in 1975, when climbing on a mountain in Montana.  The fall caused serious injuries to his face and skull and he almost died.  However, with typical tenacity, he fought his way back to life... having numerous surgeries to reconstruct his face, and learning to talk again. It took a long time, over 2 years, for him to get back to some kind of normality… and he then started to wear shades, a hat and a beard, to hide the scars.

Hank junior has enormous talent.  In some ways, as a singer, he’s got a better voice than his father.  He has more power and vigour.

He is also a very talented instrumentalist, playing 8 instruments, very well.  As a boy, he met all the great country singers, who were friends and fans of his father, but he also loved rock music and wanted to do both country and “southern rock.”

One of the visitors in his childhood was Jerry Lee Lewis, who encouraged him to play rock and who didn’t see any conflict between loving country music and also rock and roll.

In the 1970s and 80s, Hank worked with Waylon Jennings and Charlie Daniels, and he was hard working and prolific.

His songs were raunchier than his father’s work, about drinking, having fun and hell- raising.  Though in most of his music, there are poignant reminders of his father’s work.  One of his albums -“Whisky Bent and Hell bound” contains the title song, which refers to drinking in a honky-tonk and listening to Hank Williams.

 It also contains the songs “Women I’ve never had”, “The Conversation” and “White Lightning” by the “Big Bopper”, which is about making moonshine.

One of his best-known songs is “Family Tradition”, in which he refers to the fact that he and his father both “lived out the songs that they wrote”, and liked to “get drunk and sing all night...”

I’ve never seen Hank junior live, but I hope I will one day.  What impresses me most with the snippets I’ve seen of his concerts are his vigour as a performer and his obvious enjoyment of his work... And his talent at adapting lyrics, on stage which is of course an old country tradition.

I’m very glad that he’s still going strong. 

Anne Boleyn

I have always wanted to write a novel on Anne Boleyn, but these days there are so many of them.. So a while ago I wrote a "long story" about her possible romance with Tom Wyatt.  its on this blog....as a separate "Page".  I am not writing for publication at present, so I hope readers might enjoy this...

Willie Nelson...

Willie Hugh Nelson was born in Texas in 1939, and he’s still performing. As a boy, he was reared by his grandparents because his parents split up during his infancy.  His mother left and his father remarried.  He and his sister Bobbie lived with their grandparents but Willie dreamed of escaping from the poverty and isolation of life in the South at the time.

He started to play country music as a kid, writing songs and playing in a band. He went to High school and did time in the American Air force, but left due to health problems.  After that, he went to University but dropped out after a year or so, because he was working as a DJ and starting to have some success with his music. He married young and had a son Billy (who later committed suicide), and struggled to make a living. He was in and out of various jobs and in and out of the music business.

In 1960 he moved to Nashville and hung out in Tootsies Orchard lounge where he hung out with musicians and song writers, trying to get a start.  He sold his song “Crazy” which became a hit for Patsy Cline. His marriage was stormy and there was a story that his wife tied him up with skipping rope during a row.   (Other accounts say she sewed him up in a feathered filled comforter)....

In 1963, he married his second wife, Shirley Collie and bought a farm outside Nashville. Shirley was also a singer, and toured with her husband but their marriage broke up in 1971 when she discovered that he had fathered a child with another woman. However she worked with him after the divorce.
Willie was increasingly successful but was never very good with money. 

His ranch near Nashville burned down in the early 70s and he decided to leave Nashville.  He went back to his native Texas and settled in Austin. In the early 70s he released a concept album Phases and Stages, about a divorce, partly seen through the eyes of the husband and then from the wife’s standpoint. He and Waylon Jennings began to collaborate on songs in the “outlaw country” genre, so called because it was more raucous and real, and didn’t conform to the “Nashville conventions” and sound. He also worked with Merle Haggard, with Johnny Cash, and eventually in a super group, the Highwaymen which consisted of him, Waylon, Cash and Kris Kristofferson. Some of his hits included City of New Orleans, Hello Walls, Pancho and Lefty, Mama, don’t let your Babies grow up to be Cowboys…

He liked to experiment with his music, working with different artists such as Ray Charles and Neil Young.

But he ended up in trouble with the IRS.  By 1990, he owed them millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Many of his assets were seized and sold but he managed to clear his debts within a few years.

Willie is notorious for his love of touring, one of his most famous songs being “On the Road again. “ And he kept on working hard, even as he grew older, to earn money.

During the 1980s, he began an acting career, first in the Film, “Electric horseman” and later in a remake of Stagecoach with Johnny Cash.  He had a busy career in TV and films, taking part in an episode of Miami Vice, in a film based on his own life called “Honeysuckle Rose” and in a film version of the Dukes of Hazzard. 

As well as his music, and acting, Willie is a generous man, with a lot of charity interests.  He -together with John Mellencamp and Neil Young started “Farm Aid”, a charity to help American farmers and he has worked with other charities. He is an advocate for liberalisation of marijuana laws, having smoked weed much of his life.. and having gotten into trouble with the police over it many times.  He also promotes the use of Biofuels and solar energy.

he is still out there singing, and performing with his guitar Trigger... And has always been well known for being generous in the time he spends with fans, after his gigs. 

Parnell and Katie O'Shea Part II

Parnell and Katie became lovers, and around 1881, O’Shea found out about it, and forbade her to see him.  However, the relationship went on.   It seems possible that when she became pregnant with her first baby by Parnell, she resumed marital relations with Willie.    Parnell ended up in Jail, for a time, due to his political activities. Katie due to her Liberal party connexions, (since her family were traditional liberals) was involved at times in negotiating between Parnell and Gladstone.

While he was in jail, he was paroled in order to attend a family funeral, and at the time, his first child by Katie, a baby girl called Claude Sophie, was taken ill and died.  He visited Katie and saw the baby.  Willie however seems to have believed that the baby was his, and had her baptised as a Catholic.

Katie later claimed that Willie himself was frequently unfaithful to her, and they continued to live apart.  however, since they were both financially dependent on “Aunt Ben”, it seemed impossible to get a divorce.  Willie could have divorced his wife for infidelity... but she would have had to claim some other reason, as well as adultery, in order to sue him for divorce.

Since Mrs Ben Wood was very old, it may have seemed to all three of them, Parnell, Katie and O’Shea, that it would be better to wait a while and to go on with their triangular situation.  Aunt Ben was a very proper old lady and would have been horrified at the idea of her niece being involved in an affair or getting a divorce.  Willie was never well off and may have reasoned that if he waited till Mrs Wood died and left her fortune to Katie, he could ask for some financial inducement to allow himself to be divorced for “adultery and cruelty” or some other cause.

Parnell was devoted to Katie.  He was sincerely patriotic and passionate about his work for Ireland, but his private happiness mattered a great deal to him.  Katie was not very political, she was happy as a wife and mother, though she did enjoy the “secret political negotiations” to help her lover.  as time went on, Parnell lived secretly with Katie in Eltham, a London suburb, where she had a house near to her aunt.   She had two more children, daughters, by him, Katie and Claire.  Many people in political circles knew about their affair but it was not known publicly.  Since Parnell was a protestant, leading an Irish party of mostly Catholics, his behaviour was dangerous.  The Roman Catholic church had enormous influence with the Irish voting public, and would have been horrified to know that their political leader was a long term adulterer who was contemplating marrying a woman who would have to get a divorce to become his wife.

However since divorce was still scandalous, it is hard to blame Katie for not wanting to be the guilty party in a divorce...  Parnell worked hard during the 1880’s with the Land Campaign and convinced Gladstone that Home Rule was an inevitable step forward.  He was a skilled political leader, with a disciplined party behind him, and it was hard to argue that the Irish were “backward” or not fit for self-government, when they were playing the political game so successfully. Parnell was eager to reform the land system in Ireland, but as a landlord himself he was less radical in his beliefs than the socialist Michael Davitt, who considered Land Nationalisation.  He was himself an “improving landlord” at his Avondale estate, but he could see the argument that in the Irish context, it might be better to allow tenant farmers to buy out their farms and to be “peasant proprietors”.   But he was less interested in land reform than in getting Home Rule for Ireland.  This would not have meant complete independence but it would have been a stepping stone, giving the Irish some power of self-rule. 

Katharine O’Shea and Parnell Part I

On a trip to Ireland, I read a book about Katie O’Shea, Parnell’s mistress and later his wife.  I hope to blog later about Parnell, but I want also to write about his wife...

Parnell was an Anglo Irish landowner, who inherited an estate in Wicklow, and tried to develop it, so as to improve the conditions of his tenants.  However, in the late 19^th century, generally speaking relations between tenants and landlords in Ireland were very poor.  Memories of the Famine were still very much alive and in order to protect themselves against rural poverty, tenant farmers did not usually divide their farms among their children as had been common before the “Great Hunger”.  Tenants had few rights and were often desperately poor.

Irish landlords were often relatively poor and because of this, and because of differences of religion and politics, many of them did not do much for their tenants.  They did not try and encourage better farming methods or rural industries.  So when farmers could not pay their rent and were evicted, or had children who could not find work on the land, emigration to America or England seemed to be their only option.

Parnell was one of the better landlords, who did try to help his tenants.  On inheriting Avondale - he took an interest in planting trees, and in developing a sawmill and industrialising the area.   He also like many gentry took an interest in politics.  However, in spite of his conservative Anglo Irish background, he adhered to the Nationalist rather than the Unionist side. 

during the Land Wars, he worked with Michael Davitt, agitating to help the tenants in fighting for land reform, so that they had more security of tenure, and could see themselves as co-partners in managing their farms.  The various Land Acts that came in at the time led in the end towards the farmers being given loans to buy out their farms from the landlords, so that Ireland eventually became a nation of “owner-farmers” rather than a country where much of the land was owned by the upper classes.

However Parnell’s ambitions extended also towards securing Home Rule for Ireland.  As a young man, he was not interested in literature or history, and knew little of Irish history.   But he learned. He developed politically and became a skilful “Operator” who welded the Irish Party into a weapon that was able to influence the Tories and Liberals, on the question of Home Rule. 

Gladstone came to believe that Ireland would ever be peaceful or prosperous until she had some degree of self-government... And Parnell wielded enough power in the House of Commons to be able to push the Liberal Party towards bringing in a Home Rule bill.

By 1890, he had achieved a great deal of success on this issue.  But his private life became public knowledge, and brought him down.

In 1880, Parnell, a bachelor, met Katharine O’Shea, the wife of an Irish Nationalist MP.  Willie O’Shea was a member of a Catholic “gentry” family, who had been a captain in the British army.  He had married Katharine (Katie) Wood in 1867.  She was the daughter of a Liberal gentry family, but was one of many children… and the family were comparatively poor.   They had had three children but within a few years, the marriage had become distant and not very happy.  Willie was not making much money, he was probably unfaithful and they had grown apart.

Katie was not a militant feminist, she woud have been contented as a wife and mother but she grew disenchanted with her husband.  In the 1870’s she had become companion to her rich and elderly Aunt Mrs Benjamin Wood or “Aunt Ben”.  The old lady was fond of her, and paid for a house for her and for rooms in London for Willie... and it was expected that she would leave Katie the bulk of her large fortune.

Katie kept her aunt company, read to her and was occupied with her children, but in 1880 she met Parnell, who was becoming known as an important Irish politician.  As a society hostess, she made a big effort to get him to go to one her parties, but he was shy and unsociable and didn’t want to attend social events. She succeeded in persuading him to come, and within a short time they had fallen passionately in love.  Parnell was awkward and often seemed cold to people he met, but he had found in Katie a woman he could love and communicate with. 

RF Delderfield (re posted)

Ronald F Delderfield, author and playwright, was born in Bermondsey in London, in 1912. His father worked for a meat trader in Smithfield Meat Market, and then became involved in local politics, being the first Liberal to be elected to Bermondsey council. His father supported the Liberals, and Ronald also was mildly liberal in his political views. In 1918 the family moved to suburban Croydon, were they lived until 1923, when they moved out of London, to Devon. His father was able to get him into a small public school, West Buckland, where he got a good education and which became the model for Bamfylde School in his novel “To Serve them All my Days”. 
His father and a friend bought a small local newspaper, in Exmouth, and used it to support their political views... and to cover the local news. 
Many of Delderfield’s novels are based on his real life experiences. His two “Avenue” novels, which are set in Croydon, from World War I to World War II, are based on his childhood in that area. Jim Carver, hero of the novels, is a working man, who gets into Labour politics after seeing the horrors of World War I… He works as a driver for a big company, but devotes most of his free time to trying to “improve the world” and his political views shift as the 20s and 30s progress. He becomes friends with Harold Godbeer, who is a middle class man and more of a Tory, who works as a managing clerk in a firm of solicitors. Harold admires Jim for his war service and his work in the ARP in World War II, and Jim takes on some of Harold’s more conservative common sense views. 
In his novel Diana, Delderfield uses his own and his father’s experiences as working at a local small-scale newspaper. John Leigh, from a poor family, takes a job as reporter for a small paper, in Devon, while being in love with the rich and spoiled “Bright young Thing” Diana. 
Delderfield moved from newspaper work to writing a play, in 1936. He began to have some success, (like Esme Fraser in the Avenue novels) and then went into the RAF for his war service. After the War, he settled in Devon and went on with his writing career. He married and adopted two children. He enjoyed country life, and many of his characters give up town life and move to the country, particularly to Devon, and take up farming. He started to write novels in the 1950s, and wrote many different sorts of books. However, in all his writing, he was conservative in his story telling, he was not into “fine writing” or experimental fiction. In the 50s, he wrote the 2 Avenue stories, which follow the fortunes of several people who live in the Avenue, mostly working or lower middle class people. Archie Carver, the son of Jim, makes a modest fortune in running shops but causes a death through drunken driving and ends up in prison. He feels guilty about this and then takes up property development, after the War and his prison term and he and his father reconcile. 
Esme, the young “hero” of the books, tries his hand at writing, but goes into the RAF, and then buys a farm in Devon, after marrying Jim’s daughter Judith. 
He also wrote some novels based on the Napoleonic Wars, and several nonfiction books about Napoleon, his family and his Marshals. In the 1960’s he wrote two novels about the love affair of John Leigh and the wealthy Diana... which were combined later into one novel and titled “Diana”. he wrote two historical “family sagas”, one based on a Victorian soldier, Adam Swann, who comes out of the army and goes into business, transporting goods, in places where the railways had not yet reached. Adam has a large family who take up various different jobs, and Delderfield can cover the history and social changes of the Victorian and Edwardian era. His eldest son, Alexander, becomes an officer in the Victorian army. His son Giles becomes a social reformer and later an MP. Another son, George is interested in mechanical things and develops a motor car and looks towards motorising his father’s business. 
His next saga, “the Valley” story, is set in Devon, and covers the life of Paul Craddock, who is a wealthy young man whose father made a fortune in business. On leaving the army after the Boer War, Paul turns his back on city and business life and decides to buy up a large estate in the West Country and modernise it. He is also liberal minded and tries to improve life for his tenants and supports various reformist causes. His first wife, Grace, leaves him because she is much more radical than he is... she is a passionate believer in Women’s Suffrage, and she devotes her life to working for the cause until she is killed in World War I.
 Again Delderfield uses his hero’s life to cover the social history of the 20th Century, from the beginning of the century, to the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965. His second wife, Clare, is a simpler earthy girl, a farmer’s daughter, who Is not intellectual and is contented with a life as “the Squire’s wife” in the Shallowford Estate. Paul has seven children, who go into different areas of work, but generally Delderfield's most sympathetic characters tend to opt for  less ambitious jobs like teaching, running a small business, or farming and don’t aspire to high flying careers or making a lot of money in business.  He was not hostile to business, but to an extent, he was critical of "Big Business."  He himself ran a small antique business in later years, and one of his Avenue characters, Edgar Frith is also in this business. 
I’ve always enjoyed Delderfield’s unpretentious prose, and his long readable works and “ordinary” likable characters. 
He died in 1972. Many of his books have been televised by the BBC, during the years when they did “good” costume dramas. These include “Diana”, “To Serve them All my Days”, the Avenue books and the “Valley Saga..

a Band story

A “band” story set in the US, in the late 1970s.  It’s about a country rock band and its 2 lead singers and how they cope with life on the road.  Its set in the 70's because country and rock music was more exciting....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

Don Williams (1939-2017)

Don Williams, known as the Gentle Giant of Country music has died aged 78.  Another one of the greats has gone.  He was a quiet shy man, who was happily married for over 50 years, and who did a farewell tour of the UK a couple of years ago.  His songs were of the sweet and gentle mode of country, rather than songs about drinking and raw life...

Hugh Leonard

Leonard was an Irish writer, journalist and playwright, who was born in Dalkey, near Dublin in 1926.  His mother was unmarried and had put him up for adoption.

 His birth name was John Joseph Byrne, and he was known as Jack... but he was adopted by a working class couple, Nicholas and Margaret Keyes and took their name.  However when he started writing plays, he used the name Hugh Leonard.  His adoptive parents were simple people, who had not been able to have children... and their marriage was often stormy.  His father was a gardener.  Jack was a bright young boy and won a scholarship to a better school, the Presentation College, in Glasthule.  He did not do that well academically there, however and realized that he was not likely to get into one of the professions.  He left school and went to work in the Irish Civil Service.  He and his friends escaped from the narrowness of life in 1940s and 1950’s Ireland, by attending the cinema a lot.

On joining the Civil Service, he realized that he had walked into a trap, in that it was dull, with few prospects, and feared that he would be stuck there “until he got the pension”.  His adoptive parents were pleased at his getting into a middle class job, and having financial security.  However Jack began to get involved in community theatre, acting in plays and writing them.   He realized that writing could become his escape from life in the lower middle class.  In his short volumes of autobiography, he gives an amusing picture of the Dublin theatre scene, of acting in drama groups... And of butting heads with the members of the Catholic clergy, who were often involved with local amateur dramatics, because it was a safe social activity for their parishioners, but who were fierce on the subject of “immorality”.  Jack disliked Irish nationalism, and was an agnostic. He gives an account of a meeting with the flamboyant and gay actor Michael Mac Liammoir...

He married Paule, a Belgian lady, and they had one child, Danielle.  Then after 14 years in the Civil Service, he had had a few plays produced and got an offer from a TV company based in Manchester.  He left the job and moved to England. He became a full time professional writer, and was one of the first Irish writers to concentrate on TV work, adapting classic novels, writing comedies and thrillers etc.  In 1970 he and his family re located to Dublin and he also began to write a humorous column for the newspapers.  One of his best works was adapting James Plunkett’s novel about the 1913 Lock Out, as a TV serial.  It was a big success and started the career of Bryan Murray; who later played “Flurry Knox” in the “Irish RM” and Peter O’Toole played James Larkin.   His best known play “Da” bout his adoptive father, was made into a film In the 1980s.

I’ve always loved the Hugh Leonard column, with its wit and pointed digs at his various betes noir.  He disliked the Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne and the politician Charles J Haughey.  He was deeply hostile to the IRA.  His autobiographical writings are short and I wish he had written some more.

His plays and writing brought him a handsome income, but he lost a good deal in the 1980s when he, together with Gay Byrne was “ripped off” by his accountant Russell Murphy, who embezzled money from his clients.

In 2000, his wife Paule died of an asthma attack.  He was devastated but continued to write and work.  Later, he married a younger American woman but the marriage wasn’t a success.

He died in 2008,at the age of 82. 

Beds and Blue Jeans

Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America.  It is a sweet realistic romance about 2 people who grow into a relationship, after they've had a baby, and how they make things work

http://www.amazon.com/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443265304&sr=8-2&keywords=nadine+sutton

Remington Showed us how he looked on Canvas

Frederic Remington, mentioned in "the Last Cowboy Song"  is one of the most famous of American artists.  His paintings and drawings are set in the West... He went there in the 1880s, when the “West was being won”. The buffalo were being slaughtered to help clear the land of American Indians.  Railroads were being built.  There were ranch wars, wars between the large cattle ranchers and the small farmers who were moving out west and breaking up the prairie and raising crops.

Born in New York in 1861, Frederic was a poor student.  He went out west and tried his hand at ranching but found it hard work and realised that it would not make his fortune.  He had spent some time studying art at Yale, but had no real career plans.  He dabbled in business, trying to run a hardware store and then a saloon.  But when he married, he had to try and find a way to earn a living.

He illustrated a book by Theodore Roosevelt who had also worked out West and taken to the adventurous life… Remington’s artistic skills developed just as the American public began to get interested in the West – in its mythology and brief history.  Easterners were beginning to read novels and stories about the Frontier, even if they never went there, and enjoyed his paintings and drawings.

The army was mopping up the last bit of Indian resistance, and Remington went to paint some of the officers. He did not see Indians as “noble”; they were in the way of white expansion. He also went to paint for William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper during the Spanish American war... And was shaken by what he saw of military action and jungle fighting.

 His style of painting was naturalistic and he painted people, cowboys, Indians, soldiers, hunters etc., rather than focussing on the wild landscapes of the West... 

He died in 1909, due to peritonitis, after appendix surgery

Band story, Rough Music

A “band” story set in the US, in the late 1970s.  It’s about a country rock band and its 2 lead singers and how they cope with life on the road.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

Glen Campbell Died August 2017 aged 81.

Glen died the other day, after a long fight with his Alzheimer’s.  He tried with heroic courage to keep on working as long as he could, even when he was forgetting lyrics.  He went on a farewell tour, to give his fans a chance to see him, and to keep active until the illness claimed him.

He spent several years in an assisted living facility, being cared for, as he was too ill to live at home.   He leaves a wonderful legacy of films, great singing, brilliant instrumental work…

Goodnight Rhinestone Cowboy

C S Lewis Part I

Clive Staples Lewis known as “Jack” to his friends was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1898 and died in England in 1963.   Now he is most famous for his children’s fantasy novels with a religious theme -and for being one of the “Inklings” - with his friends like Tolkien and Charles Williams.  Although I have never been a fan of the films or novels, I have read his exposition of Christianity with some interest   Lewis spent most of his working life as a don at Oxford and is also remembered as a writer and literary critic. He started his writing life, wanting to be a poet, and to teach at University. 

My husband was a big fan of the Narnia and other books and liked the fantasy genre –including Tolkien - much more than I did. He had a much better imagination than me and was much more inventive

My personal feeling was that that the religious aspect of the Narnia books (admittedly I had only seen the films) was heavy handed.  He told me that Lewis had not started to think of writing the books with a “religious” idea -but with an image of a faun carrying an umbrella in snowy woodland.  The strange way that most books start in an author’s imagination.

Lewis was born in the North and was the son of one of the Protestant well to do middle class… Albert Lewis was a solicitor.  He had one brother Warren, known as Warnie.  His father was rather distant from him and his mother died when he was a child of 9, so especially when his brother had been sent to school, Jack was a rather lonely boy. 

He loved his native country and as an adult, he visited it every year.  He remembered its beauty - but disliked the aggressiveness and sectarianism of many of the people. 

He was sent to school, a few years after Warnie but was positively traumatised by the schools.  He begged his father to take him away. He found the harshness, regimentation and emphasis on games hateful.  He was an awkward intellectual child who was no good at sports.  He claimed in his autobiography, to have hated the first schools he went to, and found them almost worse than his experience as a solder in World War One...  A recent biographer has suggested that his hatred for the English schools was more to do with his shock at finding himself in England, which he found ugly and over-industrialised, and he hated it, at his first experience of it. He said later than it took years for his first reactions to England to fade away.

Warren went to Sandhurst to prepare for a career in the Army, while Jack (he had dropped the name Clive as a child), finally persuaded his father to take him away from his school and find  him an educator who suited him better.  In 1914, Jack who had been suffering from hill health and was utterly miserable at Malvern College, was tutored by William Kirkpatrick, a former schoolmaster who had decided to work independently as a private tutor.  He was a highly intelligent manm Jack found him much more congenial and intellectually stimulating.  Warnie had been tutored (“crammed”) by Kirkpatrick, to get him into Sandhurst, as he had not done well at school.

In 1916, Lewis got a scholarship to Oxford, and entered college in 1917, but joined the Officer Training Corps, in preparation for service in the War.  He got a commission In the Somerset Light Infantry, and was posted to France.

Tom T Hall

Tom T Hall was born in Kentucky in 1936 and as a teenager he had his own band.  In the 50s he did a stint in the Marines and performed  over the Army Radio. Although he could sing, his great talent is as a song writer.  He is the king of the story song, a narrative about people.

After leaving the army, he had various jobs, as an announcer on radio.  He got a big break in 1963, and moved to Nashville the following year.  He started to have songs that hit it big in the charts. Many of his songs have been recorded by other artists, and have been very well known. 

He was married to his wife, Miss Dixie, for over 40 years.

 One of his big hits includes “A week in a country jail”, (which like a lot of his work was inspired by a real life incident). Like a lot of country songs, it has a comic element.  It is about a hillbilly sheriff who jumps on people who are not really breaking the law and the protagonist, having been innocently sitting in his car at  a red light finds himself being arrested for speeding..  He ends up in jail for a week. Another big hit was  "Harper Valley PTA," was recorded in 1968 by  Jeannie C Riley.  This again has a comedic element about a woman who was criticised by the local PTA for being flighty, wearing a short skirt and being flirtatious and how she reminds the PTA that many of them have been guilty of similar or worse behaviour. Another favourite of mine is his drinking song “I like Beer.” 

He has written songs for children and some which are a bit preachy but his talent at finding something to say about ordinary people and expressing it in lyric and music is amazing.   He has probably had more story song hits than most writers.

 One of Hall’s more serious songs was the “The Homecoming,” a hit for Bobby Bare, about a country singer, coming home after being on the road for years, to see his father after his mother has died...how he’s out of touch with his family and is trying to hide from them how little success he is having.

That’s probably my favourite Tom T Hall song, closely followed by the “Ballad of 40 bucks” which was covered by Johnny Cash, about a man’s death, and funeral and the fact that he owes the man who dug the grave 40 bucks, which he’ll never now collect. 

 Others are “Faster Horses”, “The Year that Clayton Delaney died”, “I hope it rains at my Funeral” and “Who’s gonna Feed those Hogs”.

Flann O'Brien Part II

Flann O’Brien was one of the few serious writers who lived in Ireland, but he made his living partly through journalism and his regular job in the Civil Service. (In fact he rarely went away from his native land even on holiday). 

He was an odd mixture of conformism and a certain cynical rebellion. He was too intelligent to believe that the Gaels were a superior people… he was only too well aware of the country’s poverty and the fact that without the safety valve of emigration, the state would struggle to run with some degree of efficiency.  He himself was a fluent Irish speaker, but knew that the politicians, who claimed to be devoted to the Irish language, often only knew a few words.  It was a burden on schoolchildren who had to learn it, even though it was of little practical use to them.

His newspaper column was often mocking politicians and public servants generally.  He liked to attack inefficiency, hypocrisy and corruption. However in general he was apolitical and conservative in attitude, feeling that human nature was irredeemably flawed and not expecting much of it.  He seemed to accept the isolationist narrow attitudes of many Irish people of the time when he might have been expected to rebel against them. 

He was always a heavy drinker, eventually descending into full blown alcoholism.  This affected his ability to hold down his civil service post, in later years and to write.  It may be one reason why he wrote less as he grew older and his work was less than successful.

He retired early from the service, due to increasingly poor health and having some arguments with the Service bosses about his journalism.  Having only a small pension, and a wife to support, he had to become a full time writer.  However he was having more trouble with producing newspaper columns and while he tried to write fiction, his health problems and his drinking slowed him down.

He had been committed to financially supporting his widowed mother and his siblings for many years. As his brothers and sisters grew up and were off his hands, he finally reached a point where he was free to marry. He married Evelyn McDonnell, a typist in the Civil service. The marriage seemed happy. However his alcoholism made him a difficult husband at times. Also, like many men in Ireland at the time, he was inexperienced with women, living mostly in male bachelor company, as a young man.

He grew up with a very distant father, who was affectionate but far from “hands on”, and he and his brothers were initially educated at home. Flann’s father Michael O’Nolan was a highly intelligent man and an Irish speaker, and they were well taught.  However they were then sent to school and found that they were teased and bullied for being different, a small united group of brothers who clung together.  Also discipline at the Christian Brothers schools and other religious schools was often extremely harsh. In some of his writing, he attacked the viciously cruel attitude of many of the religious teachers who took out their sadistic impulses on their pupils.

Possibly the sudden change from learning at home, with sympathetic family around him, to the harsh atmosphere of a school had a bad effect on him mentally.

Unlike James Joyce, who rejected the narrowness of Ireland in the last years before independence; Flann O’Brien seems to have been unwilling to rebel.  Joyce’s father was not very reliable and it may have been easier for the young James to reject the values of his foolish father and the puritanically Catholic Ireland, than it was for O’Brien to criticise the culture of his well loved father.  Michael O’Nolan, O’Brien’s father was a passionate supporter of Irish independence and of the Catholic Church and the Gaelic Language

Flann criticised the more nonsensical aspects of the language revival, but he was a fluent Irish speaker himself, and was a Catholic...

. Like many Irishmen of the time, he had little contact with women, and married late. He was somewhat misogynistic, and seems to have had almost no women friends, which wasn’t uncommon at the time.  

His life was stressful, and his dependence on alcohol was the only way he could relieve it.  After leaving the Civil Service, in the early 50s, his drinking grew heavier.  Now, he was in and out of hospital trying to dry out, or to recover form illnesses.

He perhaps had indeed peaked too early with At Swim Two Birds, and none of his other novels had been as good… As his drinking problem got worse, he felt that he had dissipated his talent in journalism and had not been able to concentrate on his creative work.  Had the war not happened, he might have made more money and had greater success with the first book and been able to work his way towards becoming a full time writer and producing more and better books.

His marriage seems to have been reasonably happy, though little is known about it, but it is hard to say if marital problems played a part in pushing him to drink more and more. By the 1960’s his alcoholism was a serious problem and he developed cancer, possibly caused by drinking and smoking heavily. He died, on 1^st April 1966..

Hoyt Axton

Hoyt Axton was born in Oklahoma in 1938, to a father who was an officer in the American Navy, and a mother  (Mae Axton) who was famous for writing the Elvis hit, Heartbreak Hotel.  (She also introduced Elvis to Col Tom Parker).  Hoyt was brought up for some time in Florida.  He was in the American Navy for a time and then in the early 60s, he started out singing folk songs, in San Francisco.  

The Folk revival in the 1960s, which led the Irish Clancy brothers to fame, has been portrayed in the film Inside Llewyn Davies..  

 Axton had a warm personality and a deep and sweet country voice, and he started to act in movies and TV, as well as singing.  He had a part in Bonanza, and many other TV shows.

He wrote many songs that were made famous by other singers, but one his best is the well-known “Della and the Dealer”…

He struggled with cocaine addiction for many years, but eventually had a stroke and died, sadly at the far too early age of 61.  I remember Hoyt particular in Dukes of Hazzard, where he annoys Boss Hogg with the song he sings when caught in Roscoe’s Speed Trap.  The song he chooses is called “I’m the cop in a little Southern town”, about a corrupt sheriff

Flann O'Brien and his life part I

Flann O’Brien’s novels were some of my favourites in my 20s and when I got married, my partner got into them too.  He hadn’t heard of him before but when he did read a few - he felt that there was some influence on the British writer Robert Rankin.  (Given that many of Rankin’s novels have bizarre events and a pub somewhere in them!).

My husband and I loved to “swap information” on writers and TV programmes we liked.  He got me to watch Morse; I got him to like O’Brien.  

I recently re-read “An Beal Bocht” which is one of Flann O’Brien’s funniest works… and I have been reading a biography of him, by Anthony Cronin, a fellow writer.

Because he was a very private man, Cronin found it hard to analyse him.  Perhaps there will be a more in depth biography at a later date.

He was certainly an interesting character... Possibly, according to some critics, he “peaked too early” as a novelist and never wrote anything again to equal his first book “At Swim Two Birds”.
This is a “meta fiction” which derives much of its humour from mocking the conventions of fiction.  

The “hero” Dermot Trellis, is a student as Flann was – at University College Dublin. Trellis spends a lot of his time in bed, wasting time and refusing to study – and drinking. James Joyce attended the same university, and his hero Stephen, is also a student at UCD… Trellis is writing a novel but his characters rebel against him.  They write novels too, and attempt to kill him off.

O’Brien admired Joyce but was somewhat hostile to him because of his pretentiousness... He also felt that his own work was sometimes seen as “inferior Joyce”.  “At Swim Two Birds” later attracted a lot of critical attention, but it was published at the beginning of World War II and suffered from that. Paper shortages meant that newspapers were smaller and had less space to bestow on literary criticism. There was a lot going on in the world and a peculiar off beat novel like O’Brien’s was likely to fall by the wayside.

In addition, southern Ireland had adopted a position of neutrality in WWII and this greatly affected people in the country at the time.  In fact, all in all, during the first 40 years of independence, Ireland – having severed its connexion with the British Empire - seemed to  develop a condition of “being isolated form the rest of the world”. 

This involved emphasising that the new “Free State” (and the Republic as it became later) was purer, more religious and moral, more “Catholic” than the rest of the world, particularly England.  It also involved keeping the world at bay and refusing to get mixed up in its affairs.  When World War II broke out, the Irish polity refused to get involved in it, because they did not want to support England and some sympathised with Nazi Germany.  
 In truth, the country was desperately poor, and only survived by keeping the population small.  People emigrated, because there were no jobs, and because the narrow economy simply could not support the people who were there.  In addition, the restrictive and puritanical conformism of the culture stifled people.  Those who were willing to be open to the world, or who didn’t accept the prevailing orthodoxy, took the emigrant ship and took their “non conformity” elsewhere.  Literature was one of the casualties resulting from this attitude.  Most serious Irish writers had at least one of their works “banned” by the Censorship Board; most of them lived abroad part of the time because in any case, such a small impoverished and narrow community couldn’t support writers.

Helen Dore Boylston

Helen was born in 1894 in New Hampshire and died, after years of ill health in 1984, at a nursing home in New England.

She was the daughter of Joseph and Fannie Dore Boylston.   She was a lively girl and her nickname in the family was "Troub" as short for Trouble!
 She trained as a nurse, having considered being a doctor like her father.  She studied at the famous Massachusetts General hospital in Boston.
After her training, she joined a medical unit which supported the British army, and went to Europe.  She worked hard during World War One and found the work satisfying – more so than hospital work.  Then she spent some time, when the war was over, working with the Red Cross in Poland but found the work was done in an isolated fashion. She missed the companionship of war work.

She returned to Boston and Massachusetts General, where she taught anaesthesia, (an interest she gave to one of her characters, Connie).  She had met Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of “Little House on the Prairie” fame when she was abroad.   Rose was working in the literary and newspaper world and she read Helen’s war diary and had it published.

In the 1920s she returned to Europe and the Red Cross again, for a few years - and dabbled in writing, using the various kinds of nursing that she had experienced. In 1926, she and Rose Wilder travelled to Albania in an old car and lived there for a time, both of them writing.  She loved adventure and her work and wondered if, it had not been for the War, she would have settled for the feminine path of getting married and giving up her nursing. But her wartime service had created an appetite for “living life” and adventure in her, and she clearly felt that she could not give it up, to settle into conventional marriage.

I haven’t been able to find a biography of Helen Boylston, but I have loved her “Sue” books from childhood. If I weren’t so squeamish, I might have considered nursing or medicine.

but I’d love also to know more about her than the few internet articles that I’ve traced.

After Albania, she returned to America with Rose, and they shared a house for a time. Helen had inherited some money and wanted to devote herself to writing.

Rose was also a writer who edited her mother’s tales of life on the prairie…and was a political journalist.

Helen had been partly financially independent but she lost money in the Crash and had to return to nursing for a time.

Then in the 1930s, she began her series of “young adult” nursing novels about “Sue Barton”.  They were a hit... very popular with girls who were interested in a nursing career. At the time, few women became doctors but nursing had a shorter training, and many girls were keen on the idea.  The idea of being “angels” looking after the sick or “Florence Nightingale” was very popular among young girls, but Helen’s novels were realistic about nursing and about growing up (within the limits of the young adult fiction genre).

 

Sue is not a rabidly ambitious career girl… yet she wants to work, for a few years once she qualifies as a nurse.  So she insists on going to New York to nurse in the Henry St settlement, among the poor. She wants to “help her husband” in his work when he plans to become a country doctor.  She works with him as hospital superintendent in his new country hospital for the first three years of her marriage but then gives up for some years, to have children.  However, when Bill Barry, her husband, becomes ill, and has to go to a Sanatorium, Sue returns to work as a staff nurse. For the time, she is a good role model for women wanting to go on working after marriage.  She gives up her staff nurse job again, when Bill recovers... Still she often helps out as a substitute district nurse, and it seems likely that (like Nurse Pat Glennon in the last book) she will return to work when her children are older.

Boylston also wrote a series of “Girls career novels” about acting, when she had gotten Sue “married off and having a baby”...  

For this series, she created Carol Page, a budding actress, getting information about acting training from a friend, Eve Le Gallienne. Later she returned to the Barton series and wrote her two last Sue novels, Neighbourhood Nurse and “Staff Nurse”.

I have only managed to find one of the Carol novels, and it’s not as much fun somehow as the Barton ones.  However it is enjoyable and again realistic.

I’d love to find out more about Helen Boylston.  She never married and when she died, she had no known relatives and was a very old sick lady. but she had had a wonderful life and created a very popular and well loved heroine in Sue.