Jane Seymour Henry's Third Queen

Jane Seymour was the wife of Henry VIII and the only one to give him a son. But she is a rather shadowy figure. Most of Henry’s wives are strong personalities, in their own right. Jane was born in Wiltshire to Sir John Seymour and his wife Margery and was one of a large family. Her family were distantly related to Henry. Her eldest brother Edward and another brother, Thomas were both courtiers. They were involved in politics during the reign of Henry VIII, and Edward VI. Jane's birth date is unclear but it's probably around 1507. Like Anne Boleyn she was a lady in waiting to Katherine of Aragon. Unlike Anne, she does not seem to have had much education nor did she travel abroad. Little is known of her early life. She was said to have had a romance with a young country gentleman called William Dormer but he married another woman. Jane seems to have been a conservative-minded Catholic and to have been loyal to Katherine, when she was queen and afterwards. She remained at court, and was a maid to Anne Boleyn… but it is probable that she never gave the new queen full loyalty. In the last months of Anne’s reign, stories emerged of Henry’s having a flirtation with Jane. Anne attacked both of them. She was increasingly hysterical and frightened, after her miscarriage in January 1536. She feared that having lost another child, Henry might now try to put her aside as he had done with his first wife. Jane seems to have been coy, with Henry, telling him that she would not be his mistress. She said also that if he wanted to give her a present, he should do so, when she had received a good offer of marriage. End Part I

Lord Byron part III

Byron visited Malta and Greece. He was interested in Greece particularly as he had been schooled in the classics, He spent 2 years travelling and then returned to England in 1811, and his experiences brought him material for long dramatic poems…. On his return he published Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, whose hero is like Byron, a young man sated and bored with his homeland, who seeks adventure, travelling in foreign lands. Byron sympathised with the Greek people, and supported the cause of Greek independence. He found the Ottoman Empire’s culture interesting as well, particularly since there was greater sympathy for homoerotic relationships. He seems to have been sexually attracted to women, but to have disliked them and preferred male company. When he published Childe Harold, he awoke find himself famous. It had a great influence on future writers and painters. Byron had the entree to Regency society, due to his birth. His poem made him adored and lionised in the highest social circle. He seemed rather bored with social events and concentrated on writing more poems. His next poem was the Bride of Abydos, which had a Turkish theme. He became involved in a very public love affair with the socialite Lady Caroline Lamb.. who fell madly in love with him. She followed him about to parties, making scenes. He grew bored with her and continued to have affairs with other women, and to live extravagantly, running up debts. Byron’s mother had died in 1811. Now, he began to think of trying to find a wife, who might have some money. He began to court an heiress, Annabella Milbanke, who was unusually intelligent and interested in mathematics. Byron was attracted to her but his chief motive in thinking of marriage was probably to sort out money problems. He did not have a high opinion of women’s intelligence. During his courtship of Annabella, he renewed contact with his half sister, Augusta Leigh, the daughter of his father's first marriage. He and Augusta had not known each other well until this time, so they met almost as strangers. It seemed that a mutual attraction flared up which may have led to an incestuous affair. The half brother and sister were very close and fascinated with each other. It didn’t bode well for Byron’s marriage. Within a short time of the marriage, they both knew it had been a mistake. Byron was depressed and gloomy, he drank heavily and was so erratic that Annabella thought he was mad and began to fear for her life. Their separation, and the rumours about Byron's affair with his sister, caused a lot of scandal in Society. Annabella produced a daughter, Ada, but she and Byron were estranged. There may also have been rumours about Byron's attraction to young men. He left England and went to live mainly in Italy. He had other relationships and then went to fight for Greek independence.. He had a passionate affair with a young man and died young. Lady Byron put about stories that he was mad and bad which damaged his reputation. He insinuated to her that he had been having an affair with Augusta... and talked so wildly that she was afraid of him.

Scottish names

Scottish names are mainly derived from Scots Gaelic a Celtic language which is similar to Irish. There are some distinctive names which have passed into general UK culture and become popular everywhere in the UK. Alison is a variant of Alice which was used in the Middle Ages. It is the name of a character in the Canterbury Tales and was very popular in Scotland. Another girl's name is Kirsty which is a Scottish abbreviation of Christine and which has now become an independent name. The name means “Christian”. Jean comes from the medieval French name Jehane (for Jane) but has been much used in Scotland. However, Janet is the Scottish version of Jane. Jessie was often used as a nickname for Janet. Fiona is a very popular name which was invented by the Scottish writer William Sharp. He wrote as Fiona Macleod, and the name was meant to be a feminine version of Finn or Fionn which means “fair”. There are also several male names, including Innes which means island. Another one is Keith which means forest and has become very popular all over the UK. Kelvin is the name of a Scottish river and was taken as a title by William Thompson, who was a pioneering scientist and engineer. Thomson was born in Ireland but worked in Scotland and when he became the first scientist to be ennobled, he took the title Kelvin after a river he knew. It became popular and lost its Scottish associations. Kenneth means handsome. It was a royal Scottish name and is well-known all over the English speaking world.. It's also famous as the name of Kenneth Grahame, author of the Wind in the Willows. Kyle which means a narrow channel, has become more popular in the US. Hamish is a Scottish version of James which means “Supplanter”. Douglas is a very popular Scottish name. In the Middle ages, it was also used for girls, one female Douglas was Douglas Sheffield, a lady of Queen Elizabeth’s court, who was the mistress of Robert Dudley. The name means “dark water” and was originally a surname, the name of one of the Scottish noble families.

George Lord Byron part II

As a boy, Byron fell in love with a young woman who was a little older than him - Mary Chaworth. However he overheard her remarking “Do you think that I could care for that lame boy?” He also had many emotional attachments to other boys… which may have had a sexual component. He went later to Cambridge and also formed close friendships with young men of his own class. He did sleep with women, but he did not like women very much and found more pleasure in male companionship. He developed liberal political views and sought friends who shared them. He enjoyed sports such as boxing and horse riding which he pursued eagerly. At college he was happy but annoyed his mother by gambling and spending too much money. In 1809, he went on a Grand Tour, which was the custom for rich young men and which was supposed to educate them in the ways of foreign countries. The ongoing Napoleonic wars restricted where he could travel.. He started out from Portugal and planned to go to the Eastern Ottoman Empire.

George Gordon Byron

Lord Byron is famous as a poet, aristocrat and radical activist in the Regency era.  He was a talented man, but had a wild streak which led him into self indulgent behaviour and scandal and he ended up living in exile… His father, Jack Byron was a naval officer who also led a scandalous life. Jack Byron was married twice, once to a divorced aristocrat Amelia, Lady Camarthen. Amelia had an affair with Jack and was divorced by her husband because she became pregnant by her lover. A few weeks after the divorce, Jack married her and their first child was born shortly afterwards. However Amelia died a few years later leaving him with only one living child, a daughter Augusta. In 1785, he married again to a Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon probably for her money. She had inherited an estate but within a short time, the estate had to be sold to pay Jack's debts. Their son George Gordon Byron was born in London in January 1788, and the couple were now comparatively poor….Their marriage was far from happy and Jack died a few years later. Catherine was unhappy, had a difficult temperament and was struggling with poverty… and trying to pay off her husband’s debts. Jack was heir presumptive to a barony and so the young George had some prospects of inheriting a title and some property. However when the old Lord Byron (known as the wicked Lord Byron) died in 1798, Catherine took her son to the ancestral property, Newstead Abbey, only to find it was run down and uncomfortable. She leased it to various tenants, in order to find money to give her son the usual upper class education. She was a foolishly indulgent mother but Byron did not care much for her. He was embittered by the fact that he had been born with a damaged foot and was lame. He lacked discipline, and this probably led to his problems in later life. He went to Harrow in 1801 but in spite of being intelligent, he was a poor student.  Due to his lameness, he had difficulties with games but he threw himself into sports in an attempt to compensate for his disability He liked cricket, and was later to take up boxing.

Anne Bronte V

Anne's Tenant went to a second edition, though it was not as popular as Jane Eyre.. Charlotte continued to believe that her sister had been wrong to undertake such a gloomy work.. but Anne believed she was right. In 1848, the sisters realised that there were rumours going around that all the Bell books had been written by the same person and to stop gossip in the publishing world, Charlotte felt that they had to go to London and let themselves be seen and known by their publisher. Emily refused to go but Anne and Charlotte made a trip in the summer and spent a few days in London. They tried to maintain their anonymity but rumours leaked out that the Bell books were the works of the daughters of Patrick Bronte. They none of them liked the loss of privacy. A few months after their visit, Branwell fell ill and died, probably from TB exacerbated by his drinking. Then Emily caught a cold at his funeral and developed TB which killed her within a short time. She refused medicines and doctor. Anne's health began to weaken - she fought against the illness... She took the medicines offered but she was obviously mortally ill.. She and Charlotte and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte's friend, took a trip to Scarborough a town which Anne loved.. and she died there at the age of 29. She left very few writings, her poetry, and her 2 novels.. both of which were rather heavily moralistic.. but given time, her gifts might have developed. She is buried at Scarborough....

Anne Bronte Part IV

Anne's novel was short and in my own opinion not that interesting, compared with Charlotte's or Emily's work. Emily's novel got some critical attention but did not sell well and was also criticised for its violence and amoral characters. Anne was working on her second novel, Tenant of Wildfell hall.. which was largely written as a warning against drink and debauchery. It was very popular but many were shocked by the subject matter. It is the story of a young girl who marries a rake, believing that she can improve him. But he gets worse. Anne's depiction of the husband's drunken ways, and Helen's leaving him roused a lot of criticism. Charlotte felt that her sister was wrong to choose such depressing and sordid subject matter but believed that Anne had done it with the best of intentions.

Charley Pride RIP

 Charley was born in Mississippi to a family of share croppers and was one of the few African Americans to become a famous country singer and a member of the Grand Old Opry. He has just died at the age of 86 of Covid 19 complications. He went on performing till late in life.. Some of his biggest hits were Kiss an Angel Good Morning and "Is there anyone going to San Antone.."

Anne Bronte Part III

Anne returned home to look for another job, and met Willie Weightman her father’s new curate. Willie was a lively but sweet-tempered young man. Mostly, the girls didn’t like their father’s curates, finding them narrow minded, and pompous, but all of them liked Weightman. He was pleasantly flirtatious and sent the sisters their first Valentines. It seems that Anne was attracted to him and may have fallen a little in love with him. Its not clear if he was interested in her but he was a poor curate and not in a a position to marry. He seems to have been the only young man that Anne was interested in. Sadly he died young. Anne found another position as governess with the Robinson family. She seems to have been happier in this job than in her previous one.. although the children were not easy to manage. She persevered and began to get on well with them, and became fond of the daughters of the house and respected by their parents. However, Branwell then secured a position as tutor to Edmund the son of the family and during his time there, he fell in love with Mrs Robinson, who was 17 years his senior. It's not clear if Mrs Robinson returned his love or if they engaged in an actual affair but when Mr Robinson found out that something was going on, he dismissed Branwell. Always prone to violent emotion and somewhat unstable, Branwell went to pieces after his dismissal, drinking and moaning about his love to everyone. Anne left her job. She was unhappy about her brother's relationship with Mrs Robinson. They all worked on serious pieces of fiction. Emily was writing Wuthering Heights, Charlotte was working first on the Professor and then on Jane Eyre.. and Anne contributed a slighter novel called Agnes Grey. It was a short work, which would be published in a 3 volume set with Wuthering Heights and was based on Anne’s first experiences as a governess.

Anne Bronte Part II

All four children wrote their stories based on the toy soldiers that Mr Bronte had brought for them.. Then when Anne was around 11, she and Emily broke away from the world created by the 4 of them and they developed their own world, Gondal. Emily and Anne were very close, though Anne was much gentler than her sister. Charlotte and Branwell continued to write their Angrian stories. Branwell wrote stories about battles and war, and Charlotte began to write romances and love stories. Anne and Emily created Gondal, a world where women were more prominent and powerful. When Emily wrote her one novel, it was one where the women characters were passionate and dominant. Anne moved into the social realm. Emily worked for a time at Miss Woolers’, with Charlotte, and then when her health broke down, Anne replaced her at school. She did well at school academically but she did not make any friends. She had a quiet determination that made her keep on with difficult and distasteful tasks. She took her first job as governess at the age of 19. She and Emily seem so very different that it is odd that they became allies, but I believe that Emily used Anne as a model for the more "worthwhile" traits of the Linton family, in Wuthering Heights. She could see that her little sister had a good gentle nature and that these were valuable traits, even if she lacked the passionate nature that other characters had. Anne's first job as a governess did not go well. The children were spoiled. Anne could not teach them and found them impossible to deal with but she stuck the job out until dismissed, because she knew that she would have to work for a living. She showed more determination, in her quiet way, than Emily could muster...

Anne Bronte part I

Anne Bronte is the youngest of the Bronte sisters and she’s not one of my favourite writers. Some have claimed that she was more talented than her sisters but I can’t agree. She was probably a little closer to Jane Austen in her style of writing… in that she did not give us scenes of passion and drama but concentrated on the quieter aspects of social life. She was born in 1820 near Bradford, where her father was curate. Her mother had given birth to six children in about 6 years and when Anne was a baby, she died of what was probably uterine cancer. So Anne had no memory of her mother. The family had by then moved to Haworth where they were to live most of their lives. Her father was deeply shocked by the death of his wife and with his large family (He later called it a "small but sweet family") he felt the need of a new wife to look after them. However his attempts to remarry ended in failure as he was in many ways a man who was socially clumsy. He then relied on his sister in law Elizabeth Branwell, to keep house and look after the children. Aunt Branwell as she was known, was a strict woman, with a sense of duty and the children respected her rather than loved her. Anne who was the quietest of the family, seems to have been her favourite. She was too young to go to school at Cowan Bridge like the other children, so she stayed home, and was educated there by her father, Miss Branwell and later a local art teacher. So she missed the tragic experience that Charlotte and Emily had had, of being at a school where the children were half starved and badly treated.

Arthurian names II

Some male Arthurian names have become popular but many of them are too long, and hard to pronounce and "medieval sounding" to have any attraction for people nowadays. However there are a few that are still liked. The name Arthur is still popular and was very much more so in Victorian times. The Arthurian legends were a big part of Victorian artistic culture. Most Pre Raphaelite painters used the stories as subjects for their work and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle of poems was massively popular. The name’s meaning is obscure however.  It may be from the Celtic word Artos meaning Bear or possibly, since Arthur may have been from Roman stock, it may come from the clan name Artorios. It can be abbreviated to Art or Artie… and is still used. In the Victorian era, the Duke of Wellington was called Arthur, which made the name popular. The Duke became godfather to Arthur Duke of Connaught, one of Queen Victoria’s sons… Lancelot is the faulty knight who in spite of great talents and is unable to resist his love for Guenevere, Arthur’s queen. His name is obscure, it may come from L’ancelle, meaning “servant” or it may be a Celtic name which has been altered beyond recognition through the French language. It is less popular than Arthur but in modern times the variant Lance has been used. One of Arthur’s nephews is Gawain who is a hero in his own right. Although Gawain is supposed to be from Scotland, the name is Welsh in origin. It is probably dervied from Gwalchmai meaning Hawk of May… However in modern times the Scottish version Gavin has been very popular. Geraint and Gareth are also names of Arthur’s knights, and may come from the same origin possibly meaning “old”… One of the less attractive knights in the story is “Sir Kay”, who is in most versions Arthur’s foster brother. Kay is something of a bully… But his name may come from the Roman name Caius which has been occasionally used.

Arthurian names

There are many names in the Arthurian story cycle that are rarely if ever used, such as Galahad, the name of Lancelot's son.. but there are others which have become popular. Its hard to decipher where the names come from as they may be Celtic names which were altered when the stories were written down in French..  There is a Welsh name, Elain which means fawn or hind, which may be the original name of the character Elaine. Elaine itself is a version of the French name Helene, which in English is Helen or Helena. Elaine is the name of the Maid of Astolat who falls in love with Lancelot but he does not care for her because of his illicit love for Guenevere. In some versions of the story she tricks him into a sexual encounter and conceives Galahad, or he marries her which makes Guenevere jealous). Guenevere's name means White (Gwyn) and "smooth or yielding". and has never been all that popular as a name. It is sometimes abbreviated to Gwen. Other variants which were more popular are Jennifer (a Cornish version) or Gaynor or Ginevra. Another woman character is Nimue, the enchantress who lures Merlin into imprisonment and sleep In some versions of the story she is portrayed as a girl who falls in love with Merlin and learns his secrets of wisdom and magic.. and looks after him till he dies. In modern stories, her name is often given as Ninian which was the name of a Pictish saint. Nimue is one of the names which is rarely if ever used. Ironically the most unsympathetic woman character in the Arthurian saga has a name which has become quite popular in modern days, particularly in the US. Morgan is a name used by girls and boys, though I think its now more common as a girl's name. Another variant of it is Morgana. Morgan le Fey was portrayed particularly in the 19th century as the evil enchantress who hated Arthur and tried to destroy him who learned Magic from Merlin but used it for bad purposes. The name comes from Mor, meaning sea and "Cant" meaning circle or edge.. so it is related to the sea... Morgan is Arthur's older half sister in some versions who lures him unwittingly into a liaison which produces Mordred his illegitimate son. Mordred hates his father and tries to take over power from him... I hope to write some more about Arthurian names in another blog post....

Emily Bronte Part V

Emily seems to have been a lot happier once she came home and devoted herself to keeping house and to her writingCharlotte's second spell in Brussels was not successful. She fell in love with M Heger, the husband of the mistress of the school and although the relationship was quite innocent, she ended up coming home, and being miserable for some time afterwards. Emily however never seems to have cared for any real life man or anyone apart from her sisters and her father and brother. She observed the few people that she knew well and mulled over their emotional attachments. She dwelt on the intense passionate loves that she saw or heard about, and what she read in books and heard in stories about the Yorkshire people. While inexperienced in love, she pondered on it and wrote about it. She heard stories of the past in Yorkshire, from her father and Tabby Ackroyd, the housekeeper. There were stories about family feuds and love affairs and these all went into the cauldron out of which she created Wuthering Heights. Emily's family were going through a difficult time in the years after her return from Brussels.. but she herself was contented with her work as housekeeper and writing. The girls went on with their writing and at the end of each day, they talked and walked round the parlour, but Emily was secretive and did not share all her poetry even with her sisters. One day Charlotte accidentally came across some of her poems and was struck by how good they were, as she said, they were "unlike the poetry women generally write”. Emily’s work was rough hewn and emotional. Charlotte was desperate for something active to do, and she tried to persuade her sister that the poems should be published. Emily was angry at her privacy being intruded on, but Anne produced some of her poems and indicated that she would be interested in trying to get them published. Emily gave in and the girls began to work on their poetry, editing their work and choosing the best ones of all three of them. They found a publisher and paid for them to be published in book format. It attracted some critical attention but only sold 2 copies. Emily was by now working on Wuthering Heights, her one serious work, and was less hostile now to the idea of publishing.

Emily Bronte Part IV

Charlotte had taken jobs as a governess and knew how difficult it was, for a woman of her intelligence to live in someone else's home, to put up with spoiled children, and to be snubbed by the parents who were often rude to governesses. Emily stayed home most of the time, not taking any jobs, outside, but she did earn her keep by helping with the housekeeping. The girls decided that if they set up a school, they would need more education and accomplishments. So they wished to go and work and learn at a school abroad. Charlotte had made friends at Miss Woolers with Mary Taylor, the daughter of a rich businessman, who was now attending a school in Brussels. So she asked her Aunt Branwell to lend them some money to go to a Brussels school. It was decided that Emily should go with Charlotte. Emily knew that she would not enjoy living abroad and going away from her home. It's not clear how practical was the school scheme. The parsonage was not very big and Patrick was reclusive in his habits, and Branwell was not likely to be any help. So it's possible that the school would never have worked out. Aunt Branwell was however willing to lend money and the girls went off to Brussels. Emily took advantage of the opportunity to learn more. She worked hard and won some admiration from the husband of Madame Heger. In spite of her intelligence, she had been a terrible speller, and she probably benefitted from a more rigid teaching scheme. She taught music to younger pupils, and wrote several essays in French which have survived. She did not seem to care for the city or the other pupils. She was abrupt and gruff with people and just wanted to use the time to study and improve her writing. She made no friends at the school or in the English community. When Aunt Branwell became ill and died, the girls returned home. Emily never left again. She devoted herself to her writing and took over the housekeeping.. assisted by the aging Tabby and a couple of young girls.. including one called Martha Brown.

Emily Bronte Part III

Emily’s short time at Miss Wooler’s school set a pattern for her life. She rarely left home, and seemed to become ill and unhappy when she did so. For a short time in 1838 when she was 20, she worked at a school as a teacher, but her health broke down and she returned to Haworth. The Brontes’ servant, their nanny and housekeeper Tabitha Ackroyd, was getting older. Emily began to take over the work of housekeeping. Aunt Branwell was getting older also, and Emily seemed to enjoy the practical side of keeping house, cooking and cleaning. However it had always been expected that the girls would go out as governesses or teachers and earn their living. Miss Branwell had made a will dividing her own small fortune among the 3 girls. However, it was becoming apparent that Branwell had personality problems -he could not be depended on. He was not likely to make his fortune as an artist or writer. The girls thought of opening a school, which would mean that they were in charge and could control their lives and reap all the profits…

Emily Bronte Part II

Emily continued her education at home after the disastrous time at Cowan Bridge. She was intelligent. Patrick Bronte was a well educated man who allowed his daughters to read freely...They loved books and were eager to educate themselves. Then they began to make up stories about a set of toys that Patrick brought them home from a trip to town. They read the newspapers and were eager supporters of the Duke of Wellington. They based the stories at first on what they read in the news. Creating a private world of fiction wasn't uncommon for some literary children in the 19th century.. but the Brontes took it to great lengths. They not only wrote down and acted out their stories but they also created little magazines got up to look like printed ones. It was obvious that all four of them were going to write. After a time, where they all joined in writing stories of Angria, the world they had created, Emily and Anne withdrew from the partnership. They created their own fictional island of Gondal... All the Brontes were interested in love and heroism and they lauded the wild and free world they had created over the narrow civilised world. Most of Emily's poems from Gondal have not survived but her land was ruled by queens, and women were powerful and passionate in her fiction. However in real life, Emily was shy and awkward and had little interest in other people outside her family. All the Brontes were shy. Branwell was the most sociable and he made male friends with whom he socialised in pubs. The girls were more restricted and met few people. Charlotte had gone to school in her teens, this time to Miss Wooler's school. However Emily went there and was so unhappy that she became ill and had to go home.

Emily Bronte part I

I've often toyed with the idea of writing a novel about Emily Bronte, but so little is known about her life that it is difficult. There have been a few works but I haven’t enjoyed any of them. Bronte left almost nothing after her early death but her one novel Wuthering Heights and some poetry. She wrote very few letters, had no personal friends outside the family and seemed content with a very narrow and isolated life in Haworth, Yorkshire. She was born to an Irish father Patrick Bronte and a Cornish mother, Maria Branwell. They moved to Haworth when she was a small child, and soon afterwards her mother died. The loss of her mother may have been a trauma for her, as she was very young but just old enough to have memories of Maria. Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s sister, came to live in the parsonage to look after the 6 children and was a good but unimaginative woman. They were grateful for her help and care but she never seems to have become very close to any of them. She had come from a middle class family in Cornwall who had had a social life. In Yorkshire, the Brontes were not that well off and did not socialise much. Patrick was an intelligent man. He liked to try his hand at writing. He wrote fiction and poems - but he had his oddities and became increasingly reclusive after his wife's death. He was devoted to his clerical duties but apart from some church related socialising he lived quietly. He ate apart from the children who were all shy and who were nervous outside the family. Emily seems to have resembled her father, being intelligent but unusual and reclusive. Then when she was only 6, another disaster overtook the family. She was sent to school with her older sisters, to a small private school for girls which was cheap. It promised education for the daughters of clergymen. Patrick was conscious that although his job as curate of Haworth brought in a modest income, he had no money to leave for his girls. They would have to become governesses if they did not marry. He wanted them to get a good education, and sent them to Cowan Bridge school. The school was badly run however and the children were ill treated, badly fed and cared for. Soon, the 2 older girls Maria and Elizabeth, became ill and both were removed from the school and died at home. Charlotte and Emily were also brought home and Patrick was reluctant to send them away again. Charlotte never forgot the harshness of the school. She blamed the people who ran it for her sisters’ death and her own poor health. Emily said nothing about it, but it may well have a been a second trauma in her life. She saw her sisters grow ill and die, and saw the cruelty and neglect. Her one novel touches on cruelty to children. Heathcliff is treated as an orphan and a “gypsy” child.

Gatsby

Fitzgerald originally intended the book to be called Trimalcho, after a freed slave in ancient Rome, who makes money. It ended up as a modern morality tale about a poor boy who walks out on his impoverished family and re invents himself as a gentleman by becoming an officer in the Army and serving in the War. He goes to Oxford for a short time and on his return to America, he makes a fortune. However it's clear that he has made his money by very dubious means, working with gangsters and the men who fixed the World Series in baseball, a shocking scandal at the time in America. He lives an extravagant life with vulgar loud parties and conspicuous consumption and hopes by befriending Nick Carraway that he can renew his affair with Daisy. He does so, because Daisy is unhappy with Tom, who is unfaithful to her, and has never entirely forgotten Gatsby. Her husband is not keen on him; he thinks that Gatsby is vulgar and dubious...She is drawn back to Gatsby, and her attraction towards him is mingled with her materialistic desires.. He is now rich and glamourous as well as the man who has loved her. Nick is embarrassed to be embroiled in the affair but has grown fond of Gatsby, and wants him to be happy. He is also drawn into a romantic flirtation with Jordan Baker even though he knows she is casually dishonest. Tom pursues his affair with Myrtle Wilson who lives with her husband, in a working class district near to the Gatsby house. Myrtle is in love with him and desperate to get away from her dull husband, but to Tom she is just an amusement. Wilson becomes suspicious of his wife's behavior and to get away from him, she rushes out into the road. She is knocked down by a car which doesn't stop. Wilson is distraught at her death, he is a lonely man with no friends or family. Nick realises that the car that killed Myrtle was Gatsby's car and he finds out that Daisy was driving.. However Tom who is by now aware of his wife's relationship with Gatsby tells Wilson who owned the car. He doesn't realize that Daisy was actually driving. Wilson goes to Gatsby's house, and shoots him. It is only then after his death that Nick finds out the details of Gatsby's past life, of how he came from a poor family, and got into crime and dubious behaviour to escape poverty. Gatsby's elderly father turns up to see his dead son, but noone comes to the funeral although in the days of parties, there were hundreds of guests at the house. Daisy seems to shrug off her affair with her lover and returns to her marriage to Tom. Nick is shocked by Tom and Daisy's indifference and carelessness, an illustration of Fitzgerald's maxim that the "very rich are different to you and me" because they can shelter from the consequences of their bad behaviour by using their money to protect them... As a result, they develop a callousness and lack of conscience. He organises Gatsby's funeral, and is pained at the way that nobody turned up apart from old Mr Gatz, Gatsby's father...He feels that in spite of Gatsby's involvement in crime, he was at least capable of love for Daisy and was more generous than most of the people who hung off him. He remembers Jordan's dishonesty and he decides to leave the East and go back West...where the old American values are still honoured.

Harlan Howard Three Chords and the Truth

 Harlan Howard was one of the most prolific country song writers.  He was born in 1927 in Detroit, Michigan.  He was brought up on a farm and like most country children one of the few entertainments available was listening to the Grand Old Opry on the radio.  He loved the music and started to write his own songs at an early age.  He left school early, already and eventual joined the US army.

After his time in the army, he began to write songs and worked at various jobs, to earn a living while he tried to get them sold.  He's famous for defining country music as "three chords and the truth."  It was a simple form of music, but what made it special was that it was about the truth of human life and emotion......It was about ordinary people and  their problems and stories....

In the late 1950s after a few years of struggle, Harlan began to sell songs that were successful.  His first hit was Pick Me Up on Your Way Down, a jaunty love song about a girl who mixes with the rich but will return to her old lover when they fail her.... .  He then had another success when Ray Price had a big hit with Heartaches by the Number.  He moved to Nashville in 1960 and signed a writing contract and had a great deal of success in the 1960s.  He was married more than once and one of his wives was the country singer Jan Howard...

He understood music and loved country, because it was a truthful take on ordinary people's lives, about the problems that they had, not big ones but little ones like loving someone who didn't return your love, poverty and worrying about your children, infidelity, divorce, heartache and pain... Another of his big hits was Busted which was recorded by Johnny Cash, about a man who is falling into poverty...and one of his greatest songs was the Patsy Cline number I Fall to Pieces.  

He lived in Nashville and died there in 2002.  

F Scott Fitzgerald Part III

Fitzgerald began to work on the Great Gatsby, a novel about a man who (like himself) loves a girl who is from a richer family. Gatsby sacrifices his whole life in order to try and win her love. He is from the Mid west, from a poor family, but he tries to improve himself and make money. Then like Fitzgerald, he goes into the army, and he does serve in Europe during the War. He meets Daisy Fay - a Southern Belle, whose family think he’s not rich enough or grand enough for her. Daisy seems to return his love but she is swayed by her family. While Gatsby is posted off to service in France, she marries Tom Buchanan, a rich member of the WASP elite. They live abroad for a couple of years and have a daughter. They are distantly related to Nick Carraway, the narrator of the book. When Nick moves to New York, he rents a cottage on Long Island, and starts to work in the bonds business. He reconnects with Daisy and her husband, but he is bewildered by their marriage which seems to be in trouble. Tom is a former college athlete, not very clever, who has racist and right wing views. Tom also has a mistress, a working class married woman called Myrtle Wilson whom he takes to New York. He invites Nick to join them on their pleasure excursions. Nick being a Mid Westerner from “provincial conservative America” is a little shocked by Tom’s behaviour. He can see that Daisy is unhappy. She has a friend, Jordan Baker, a well to do society girl who plays in golf tournaments. He notes that there were rumours of Jordan cheating at her games, but he feels that “dishonesty in a woman” is not of much importance. In the early part of the novel, he is fascinated by the morals or lack of them of postwar America and New York, later he will become more moralistic. He has travelled some distance mentally from his family in the West, who had made a comfortable fortune from a business, which was based on solid goods and services. However the bonds business is a new area of work. He is learning about it as he goes along and is aware of its strangeness and fragility, and that it is not related to real life work and business. It is about the manipulation of money and selling bits of paper…and it will lead to the Wall St Crash at the end of the 20s. The book is a short one but the plot is complicated. Nick finds that his neighbour is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds parties in his fancy mansion every weekend. He has all sorts of people at them, actresses, society people. Nick wonders about him, as noone seems to know the source of his wealth. It's rumoured that he’s a bootlegger or that his money has come from some other dubious source. He and Nick are similar in that their money comes from something that noone understands...Nick finds that Jay is using him to get to meet with Daisy, and that Daisy was the girl to whom he was engaged, when he was posted down south during the War. Jay went on to serve in France, but on returning to America, he found that Daisy had married Tom Buchanan. He still loves her and wants her back. Daisy left him because he was not wealthy or blue blooded, he acquires great wealth and creates a party social lifestyle in hopes that he will be able to attract her back and make her love him again.

F Scott Fitzgerald and the Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald’s work in advertising helped to give him an income. Still Zelda was afraid that he wasn’t well off enough to support her. Her family were dubious about him, because of his heavy drinking and his Catholicism, and were not sure that he was a suitable husband. She broke off the engagement, and he continued to write, in spite of his worries and problems. However within a short time he managed to complete his first full novel This Side of Paradise and it was a bigger success than he might have hoped for. They were able to marry and Zelda became pregnant. Fitzgerald based many of his brittle unstable socialite female characters on his wife, and in 1921, he was working on his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned.” Zelda gave birth to their only child, a daughter named “Scottie” in late 1921, but by now she and Fitzgerald were drinking heavily and her behaviour was erratic. Their drunken antics were well known but at first people were indulgent and the couple were popular in literary circles. The drinking did not damage his writing. It was beginning to tear at his marriage however.  The couple rowed frequently and were extravagant.. and Fitzgerald had to write short stories which he did not like much, to keep them solvent… In 1924, after a disastrous attempt at writing plays, he and Zelda moved to France where he started to write The Great Gatsby. Many American writers were living in Europe, particularly France after World War One. Life was cheaper there and they felt that the old culture of Europe was more inspiring than that of America. They were referred to as a “Lost Generation” - living away from their roots, drinking, and taking drugs, and losing themselves in wild behaviour. Some had served in France during the War, or had been involved in it somehow, like Hemingway and had seen the destruction of life and of conventional morality.. and felt that there was nothing to live for but pleasure. American idealism and indeed puritanism were still alive within them, despite their frantic seeking after superfical enjoyments.

F Scott Fitzgerald Part I

F Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896, and is regarded as one of the most influential novelists in the 20th century. In some ways, he was ill educated and erratic. His novels are short and not weighted by great learning. However his work reflected the age of post War America and Europe where old certainties had been destroyed by the painful experience of a World War. He was born in Minnesota and his family were well to do, having made a fortune in the grocery business.  By American standards, he was upper middle class. The family were of Irish ancestry and Catholics and he was educated at Catholic schools. They had moved to Buffalo New York when he was a boy and like the narrator of "The Great Gatsby" Nick Carraway, he was in essence a mid Westerner who found New York city fascinating if amoral and frightening at times. His father worked for Proctor and Gamble and the family also had private money. In 1908 they returned to St Paul where he had been born and he continued his education, later going to the prestigious Princeton University. He was an intelligent boy, somewhat spoiled by his parents and he wanted to be a writer. He enjoyed the social life of Princeton but wasn't academic. Fitzgerald met a young society girl called Ginevra King when he was at Princeton and fell madly in love with her. For 2 years from 1915 to 1917, he courted her and wrote her love letters, and she would become the model for some of the “society women" in his books. He left Princeton in 1917 to join the army, but he never served in combat. However his army time became part of the background of Jay Gatsby, who also joined the army, and served in Europe. Fitzgerald was posted to Alabama, where he met another young socialite, Zelda Sayre. Again he fell madly in love and became obsessed with this beautiful Southern girl. Fitzgerald had been advised that it was unwise for a poor young man like him to pursue Ginevra King, who was from a rich family… but when he fell in love with Zelda she returned his feelings. Fitzgerald had never had a job other than his brief army service and he had not yet started on his writing career. He and Zelda became closer and sexually intimate. When he was discharged from the Army, he started to look for work as a reporter but ended up in advertising, which was a job which used his writing skills.

Oliver St John Gogarty poet, playwright and doctor Part I

Oliver St John Gogarty was born in Dublin in 1878, to a well to do middle class family. He was born at a time when the Irish Catholic middle class was beginning to develop, to emerge after years of suppression, and become prosperous. Some of the richer members of that class mingled with some of the Protestant middle and upper classes. However, Dublin was still a very poor city, with the worst slums in Europe. In spite of nationalistic feelings, many of the Catholic business class had little interest in helping the poor....Oliver's father was a doctor who had a good deal of property and was well to do. He was sent to Clongowes Wood school, run by the Jesuits, who provided education for the better off Catholics. Gogarty was highly intelligent but as a young man he tended to focus on sports and having a good time, more than on his studies. He enjoyed football, cricket, and cycling and was a good swimmer... He went to Trinity College, to study medicine like his father. Oliver also began to develop an interest in politics and became a member of Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein party which promoted Irish nationalism and campaigned for self rule. He was beginning to develop into the polymath he later became. He had literary tastes and while studying medicine he began to write poetry and to mix with the literary salons of the capital. He enjoyed society as well as his work, and in mixing with poets like WB Yeats, he became friends with the young James Joyce. He was popular at college and socially because of his lively wit and personality and a certain flamboyance. Oliver's friendship with Joyce ended when Joyce stayed with him and another student at the Martello Tower in Sandycove Dublin. The other 2 engaged in horseplay with a loaded gun and Joyce was terrified and left. In his novel Ulysses, Joyce portrayed Gogarty as "stately plump Buck Mulligan", and Gogarty took it badly, he was by then a respectable and well known figure in society and in medicine (which warred with his love of fun and pranks and his more liberal side) and did not want to be associated with the scandalous books.

Rosemary Rowe novels

Rosemary Rowe was born as Rosemary Aitken in 1942.  She was born in Cornwall but spent much of her early life in New Zealand. She taught English language and wrote some text books on the subject. Later, she turned to writing fiction. She has written historical novels set in Cornwall under her own name, and then began a series of historical mysteries, as Rosemary Rowe. The novels are set in Romano Celtic Britain, in the early years of the Roman conquest. The amateur detective is a mosaic maker, Libertus who lives in Glevum (Now Gloucestershire). Libertus is a freedman, formerly a Celtic nobleman, he was taken as a slave and then given his freedom many years later. He takes up a trade as a mosaic maker and becomes involved in solving mysteries for his Roman patron, Marcus, (who is an arrogant and not very generous man). He tries to find his wife Gwellia, who was also enslaved. He finds Gwellia and they set up a small business together, with Libertus also solving mysteries on the side. He and his wife also adopt one of their slaves as a son, who marries and gives them grandchildren. The series gives a picture of life in Britain, and the Roman empire at the time.. covering the differences between Roman and Celtic life... The severities and arrogance of the Roman Empire and its laws contrasts with the more rural and looser style of life of the Celts. Rosemary has written over 20 Libertus novels and they are mostly light and enjoyable reads.

Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh died recently, at the age of 83. She was a well known novelist, and also wrote several detective stories. She was chosen by the Sayers estate to write continuations of the Peter Wimsey novels and published four. The first was a continuation of Sayers' unfinished novel Thrones Dominations which is set soon after Peter's marriage to Harriet. Sayers only wrote a few chapters, and dropped the work and finally gave up writing detective fiction. Walsh wrote a reasonably good mystery novel.. and wrote three more.. set during and after World War II. She also wrote 4 light detective stories, set in Cambridge with an amateur detective who is a nurse at St Agatha's college, Imogen Quy. She started to write in her mid 20s, having been a teacher for a time.. When she was at home with her first baby, she began to write fiction. I'm sorry to hear of her death.

Simon Brett Crime Author

Been listening to some radio plays recently, and realised that I had read the books. They are light detective stories, written by Simon Brett. Simon was born in Surrey in 1945, and has written many detective novels. He went to Oxford. Then he took a job at the BBC and worked on radio drama. He has worked as a producer and script writer for the BBC for many years. He was involved with producing and adapting the Peter Wimsey dramas, and mixing with the actors for this gave him the idea for a detective who was an actor. I have particularly enjoyed his Charles Paris stories. Charles is a not too successful actor, who gets involved in detecting crimes, usually murders. His books started in the 1970s and give a picture of the theatre and TV acting through the last 20 odd years. Charles is a bit of a drinker, talented but not very successful as an actor. He's separated from his wife Frances but they never get to the point of divorce. He investigates murders among the theatrical community, and in doing so, we learn a bit about acting for the BBC, in the theatre and in the occasional film. The first few are set in the 1970s and give a vivid picture of London and the theatre world just after the Sexual Revolution and the pill coming along, with lots of affairs and thespian jealousies... In later years, he has written more but allowed Charles to remain middle aged, rather than aging normally. He also has another series set in the earlier 20th century about an upper class pair of twins, who also investigate, (Blotto and Twinks) but I dont enjoy them as much as Charles Paris. Other series are set in Middle England, in the traditional small village in the country, including "Mrs Pargeter" and the Fethering Mysteries. He is well worth a read. Brett has also written a few radio drama serials, about middle class families and their lives and loves. One is about three sisters, one of whom is an actress.

Ray Sawyer 1937-2018

I've blogged before about Ray Sawyer, of Dr Hook..... but today I'd like to write another short piece on him. Ray was a versatile songster and clearly loved singing and performing. He was often thought of as "Dr Hook" because of his eye patch.. but he was not the lead singer of the band. Dennis Locorriere was the lead and had a better voice - Ray's was more of a country voice and he liked to sing the more country numbers. He released a record called Ray which was mainly country numbers, penned by various writers. After leaving the band, he settled for some years in Nashville where he wrote and then went on tour as "Dr. Hook featuring Ray Sawyer", under license from Locorriere. He went on singing till he retired in 2015, due to declining health and his voice had begun to fail. He then lived with his family in Daytona Beach Florida.. till his death at the end of 2018. Ray was born in the South, in Chickasaw Alabama, in 1937 and loved music as a boy. He used to go into blues clubs, to hear African American music and started out singing blues....

Margaret Irwin

Margaret Irwin was a novelist who wrote historical novels. She was born in London in 1889 and was brought up after her parents' death by an uncle who was a teacher in Clifton, Bristol. She had a good education for a girl and went to Oxford. She was close in age to Dorothy Sayers who also studied at Oxford and became a novelist. In 1929 she married Jack Monsell. He came from an Anglo Irish family and was a children's novelist and an illustrator.. Jack produced some of the covers for her books. She began to write in the 1920s - one of her books was a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh. Like Georgette Heyer (who created the genre of Regency romance) Irwin was known for researching her works and for achieving a degree of accuracy. She mainly wrote about kings and queens, and one of her most famous novels was "Young Bess" published in 1944, about Elizabeth I. She wrote 2 more novels about Elizabeth, "Elizabeth Captive Princess" and "Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain. The books are rather romantic, depicting Elizabeth in a very favourable light, as a rebellious young girl and a patriot. The trilogy ends with her becoming queen. She wrote more books about the Stuart dynasty and their supporters. There is a novel about the Scottish Marquis of Montrose and his romance with Louise, the daughter of the Stuart Princess Elizabeth. Elizabeth became queen of Bohemia but ended up living in exile. Irwin also wrote a romantic biographical novel on Mary Queen of Scots and her marriage with Lord Bothwell. It is rather hagiographical about Mary and exaggerates her feelings for Bothwell, but it has been well liked. Her best work is probably the Elizabeth trilogy which has been republished in recent years. Part of it was made into a film in the 1950s as "Young Bess" with Jean Simmons. Margaret died in 1967, having lost her husband some years earlier.

Roy Orbison Part III

Roy was beginning to realise  how exceptional his voice was and it was so well suited to performing Heartbreak songs. One big hit was "Only the Lonely" and another was Running Scared about a man who was afraid of his girlfriend leaving him. He toured in the UK and was somewhat surprised and annoyed to find that the Beatles were now famous yet at a concert he performed 14 encores and the Beatles would not let him go out on the stage again. During that time however he got to know George Harrison and they would later become close friends. In 1963, his wife Claudette, left alone in Nashville was lonely and embarked on an affair with the contractor who was working on their new house there. Their marriage was unhappy on and off at the time because Claudette was depressed when he was away touring. He toured in Australia and again in Britain and Ireland. He was popular with young teenager girl fans... He had another big hit with Pretty Woman which is also about a man who falls in love with a woman because he is lonely....His own marriage was not going well, and he and Claudette divorced in 1964 because of her affairs. Roy and his wife reconciled a while after their divorce and revealed that they had remarried. but tragedy was in the offing. Roy loved cars and motorcycles and he and Claudette went riding on his bike one day a couple of years after their reconciliation...and they had an accident. Roy survived but Claudette was killed. Roy was desperately grieving for his wife but continue to bury himself in work. In the 1960s his gentle style of music, and country background was a little out of step with the world. He had always sung rockabilly but his albums at this time did not do well. He went on touring and then in 1968 another tragedy struck. He was working in England and in September got the horrific news that his house in Hendersonville Tennessee had burned down and his two elder sons had died in the fire. Again he buried himself in work, his youngest son Wesley went to live with Claudette's parents.. and a few years later Orbison married a German woman and they had 2 more children. Johnny Cash bought Roy's house in Hendersonville and planted an orchard...as Roy could not bear to own the property...>

Roy Orbison Part II

 In the late 50s Roy gave up singing for a time and concentrated on song writing.  He married Claudette and they had 2 sons. However they were not very well off but Roy had always been ambivalent about performing.  He loved music - particularly country, rock and roll and rockabilly...but he suffered badly from stage fright and was shy about his unusual looks and his wearing thick glasses.  He liked performing in some ways but did not like the PR aspects of the music business.  

In the beginning of the 1960s though he began to experiment with singing styles and found that his voice which had a large range, was well suited to the new Nashville Sound.  This involved giving a smoother more melodice sound to country music which had been initially simple, using instruments that were easy to play, such as guitar, or fiddle... and songs that were easy for anyone to sing.  The Nashville sound was more "musical", using string instruments, and having trained and talented backing singers.  In time the Nashville sound went out of fashion as it began to seem too soft and over produced  and tamed the energy and earthy nature of earlier country music.  Yet at its inception it was new and interesting.  Roy's voice was well suited to heartbreak songs and he was an excellent singer.   He went back to performing....and did very well in the US and also in the UK.

Roy Orbison Part I

Roy Orbison was born in Texas in 1936 and became known as a singer whose subject was heartbreak. He was the son of an oil driller and in his childhood the family moved around Texas to various jobs. He grew up mainly in Wink, Texas but disliked the town, seeing it as "football, oil and sand". He was a sensitive shy boy. He did not want to work in the oil business. He had poor eyesight and had to wear thick glasses and he was also embarrassed that his hair was almost white as a boy and he dyed it jet black. He wanted to performed but did suffer badly from stage fright....As a boy, Orbison began to sing on the radio and played with a band in high school. They played country music and one of his favourite artists in that genre was Hank Williams... Roy knew that he wanted to play music but his shyness was a problem... He enrolled in college after high school so as to have a back up if he did not succeed in the music business. He met Johnny Cash who suggested that he apply to Sam Phillips of Sun Records. Phillips at first rejected him but then he did record "Ooby Dooby" which was his first big hit. He and his band now known as the Teen Kings began to write songs in rockabilly style. He became friendly with Elvis Presley and he wrote a song called Claudette, named after his girlfriend Claudette which became popular. However although he would become famous for his voice, at the time, he was not sure if he should go on performing or if he should concentrate on song writing.

Noel Streatfeild Part II

Noel trained as an actress, and spent 10 years in the business, working for various theatre companies. So she got a good grounding in the world of the stage. In 1936, she wrote Ballet Shoes which was a children's story about 3 children who are left badly off by a neglectful old guardian, and who go on the stage to make money. The novel was very popular and was illustrated by Noel's sister. She went on to write other "showbusiness" novels for children while also writing some romances under a different name. Her children's books are the most popular and many were adapted for film and TV. She wrote about circus children, and also about skating.. and since she knew a good deal about the life of the professional theatre, and how children worked in it, they were very popular. She emphasised the need for stage children to have grit and determination and also to be disciplined and work hard. She criticised her characters who allowed success in the world of performance to make them spoiled and selfish. In later life she wrote the Gemma books which were about Gemma Bow, who had had success as a child actress in films but then found that she was too old for children's parts. Gemma's mother has a job abroad, so she is sent to live for a couple of years with her cousins, the Robinsons. They are all talented amateurs, who spend a lot of time, performing in charity and school productions. Gemma finds that in an ordinary school, she does not do well, as her education on movie sets was sketchy. She learns to adapt to "normal" life.. becoming less selfish and realising that her cousins are also talented. Noel never married, and died in 1986.

Noel Streatfeild author Part I

Noel Streatfeild is famous as the author of numerous children's novels which are set in the world of the theatre and performance. She was born in 1895 to a middle class family, in Sussex. Her father was a clergyman, and later a bishop. She was eager to have a career, since she was considered the plain daughter of the family. She was lucky enough to be born at a time when middle class girls were beginning to go to University. She started out acting in charity shows, and decided to go on the stage herself. Her older sister Ruth was a nurse during World War One. Ruth was also interested in the theatre and was a talented artist. She worked as an illustrator and did the illustrations for some of Noel's books. Noel joined an acting company, and trained as a professional actress. It was just becoming a respectable profession for a young woman of genteel background but it was still rather unusual for a clergyman's daughter. Dorothy Sayers, was passionately fond of the theatre but became a playwright and novelist.

Lucy Walter Part II

Lucy and Charles were the same age and within a year, she had produced a son, James who would become Duke of Monmouth. He was Charles' first son and his father was devoted to him. However he was trying to regain his throne, and soon after James' birth he had to go to Scotland. During his time in Scotland, Lucy had an affair with Lord Taafe, and became pregnant again. She had a daughter Mary. Chrles refused to acknowledge this child as his. She returned to live in England, and Charles took away his son, to bring him up. She died quite young.

Lucy Walter Royal mistress Part I

Lucy Walter is an obscure historical figure but she has some fame as one of the first significant mistresses of Charles II.. and as the mother of James Duke of Monmouth. Lucy was born around 1630 in Wales to a family of middle rank gentry. Some referred to her as a "strumpet" but in fact she was born to a genteel family. Her life was disrupted however by the English Civil wars... and it led her on a path which was unusual for young women of respectable family. Her family home was attacked during the wars, and she fled to London. She found a protector in Algernon Sidney who was a gentleman who favoured the republican philosophy but was ambivalent about Cromwell. Lucy was an attractive girl without, it seems much brain but there were almost no options for a woman like her other than to marry or become a man's mistress. She seems however to have been willing to take the mistress option, and after a short affair with Algernon Sidney she moved on to the protection of his brother Robert. She ended up in the Hague like many refugees. There she met Charles II who was then Prince of Wales and became his mistress.

Dave Dudley Truck driving singer

Dave Dudley was a country singer, whose specialty was trucking songs. Country music has traditionally focused on occupations that were common among the American working men (and women). Some of the favourite ones were train songs. In the 1920s and 30s, working men rode around the country on trains, looking for work.. or worked building and repairing trains and rail roads.. In spite of poverty and hardship, there was an excitement about travelling, and hearing songs about it appealed to the listening public. Boxcar Willie sang about hoboes who travelled and lived rough and poor... and most of his songs were train songs. Many country singers of the older generation came from a farming background such as Loretta Lynn, and Johnny Cash whose fathers were sharecroppers or farmers. They often had other work on the side. Loretta's father worked in a mine and did some farming. Later on, he gave up mining and ran a small store. Truck driving was another occupation for working men, and so trucking songs became popular. This was a male job. Drivers would be away from home for long periods of time, working hard, a life of bars, truck stops and cafes and getting away from their wives. Dave Dudley recorded Six Days on the Road, in 1963 and it became a huge hit. Shel Silverstein wrote a parody of the song called "6 Days back at home" which detailed the problems of a driver on his time off, his being stuck at home, listening to a nagging wife, noisy kids and having to do jobs around the house. However the original song notes that truck driving is a hard life, with trucks needing mechanical repairs, having to dodge police ("Smokies") and problems with delays and late deliveries. The song refers to drivers "taking little while pills" to keep awake while driving...(which was cut in some versions) and being away from his woman and wondering if he should find another girl but feeling that it wasn't "right". Dave was born David Darwin Pedruska, in Wisconsin. He initially became a baseball player. He played a few years and then had an arm injury,which led him to seek other work. He became a country singer in the late 1950s. In 1960 he was involved in a car accident which set back his career but in 1963, "Six Days on the Road" became a huge hit for him. It was written by Carl Montgomery. He had a lot of popularity in the 1960s and 70s but it began to fade by the 1980s. He was well liked in Europe though, particularly in the UK and Germany and he performed there... As his recording and performing career began to wind down, he went into business, buying a lake resort which he ran with his wife Marie. He didn't achieve te long running success of artists like Johnny Cash...but he had a solid career. He died in Wisconsin in 2003, at the age of 75.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Part II

At the age of 18 Laura was working as a schoolteacher, and during that time she met a young homesteader called Almanzo Wilder, and they fell in love and married. Her early years of marriage were difficult.. Almanzo (she called him Manly) was hard working but farming was not an easy way to make a living.  Laura had her first child Rose at 19. A little later a son was born who died within a few days. Like her birth family, the Wilders also moved round a lot before settling.. They had bad luck with a barn fire which destroyed their harvested crop. Their baby son died and there were no more children. The Wilders got diphtheria and Manly had a stroke, which left him very ill for a time. He limped for the rest of his life and was not a strong man, but he and Laura (whom he called Bess because he had a sister called Laura) managed their farm and achieved some years of stability. In middle age, Laura became a writer for the first time, starting to write about farm life and advice about farming. She was an expert on poultry and she gave talks to other rural women. She then began to write the stories of her childhood, moving around the prairies, which made her famous....

Laura Ingalls Wilder Part I

Laura Ingalls Wilder was the author of the famous Little House on the Prairie series of books which were televised in the 1970s. She was born in 1867 in Wisconsin. This period, soon after the Civil War was a period when the frontier was opened up. People moved out west, mainly to take up offers of free land, and build communities in the land that was being cleared of its American Indians and turned over to farming and ranching. Her parents were pioneers who led a wandering life.. Laura was the second child, and grew up leading a hardscrabble existence, moving from place to place, working hard and never quite rising to prosperity. Her father had a wanderlust and also the severe weather conditions of the frontier often made for hardship. Crops were often destroyed by blizzards, whirlwinds, drought and so on. They moved to the Indian lands in Kansas a few years after Laura's birth but only stayed a short while. They found that the farm they had settled in was on an Indian reservation so they went back to Wisconsin. Charles Ingalls, her father, took odd jobs as well as farming.. but farming was precarious due to frequent crop failure. The family moved around Minnesota, Iowa and Dakota before settling in a new town called De Smet in 1879. They stayed there for life, but things were still hard. Laura was expected to contribute to the family income as soon as she could. She went to school in small one room schoolhouses and as she was an intelligent girl, she enjoyed learning and it gave her the option of becoming a teacher. It was almost the only career for a respectable young woman. She worked as a dressmaker in her teens and then started to teach high school.

Rough Music by Nadine Sutton

Another stohyr of mine that’s  available on Amazon is Rough Music. It is not a love story, but a novella about music and a band.  Set in the 1970s and 1980s it is about a small rock band that’s trying to make it big, and the conflicts between doing real music and commericalism, marriage versus life on the road.   

Beds and Blue Jeans, on Amazon by Nadine Sutton

Beds and Blue Jeans is a light heated story, about a young couple in present day America, and how they start living together and learn to love each other....  Its available on Amazon., 

Merle Kilgore Songwriter

Merle Kilgore was a country singer and songwriter, who managed Hank Williams Junior for a time. He is buried in Hendersonville, Tennessee. His grave is next to the graves of Johnny and June Carter Cash. He was born in Oklahoma in 1934 - and was brought up in Louisiana. He met Hank Williams at the Louisiana Hayride, and became friendly with the family… After attending college, he began a career as a singer but became better known as a song writer. He was a distant cousin of the Carter family and through them he met Johnny Cash. He and June Carter co-wrote “Ring of Fire” which was recorded by Anita Carter, June’s sister. Then Johnny Cash recorded it and had a much bigger hit with it. It was a song about forbidden love, inspired by June’s affair with Johnny…Merle also co-wrote another famous song, Wolverton Mountain which was a big hit for Claude King. During the 1960s he worked with Johnny Cash, as part of his touring act... When June married Johnny at the end of the 1960s, Merle was his best man. By the 1980s he had moved more into the business side of country music, and was managing Hank Williams junior and other artists. He was married with 5 children. In later years he developed lung cancer and went to Mexico for treatment. He died of a heart attack.

Mark Twain Part III

Twain returned to the US after his long trips to Europe and around the world. He was getting older -his health began to decline. He lost his daughter Susie in 1896 and a few year later his wife and his other daughter died, deepening his depression. He died of a heart attack in 1910. He is remembered for his two great works of boyhood Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which are still popular. The first is based on his memories of childhood in Hannibal and Huckleberry Finn was based on a boy he knew back then, who was ragged and barefoot and was admired by the other kids, as being lucky enough to be able to avoid the proprieties and narrowness of small town life. Huckleberry Finn is about slavery. Huck as a barefoot penniless boy who is an outsider himself, but white, develops a kinship with the escaping slave Jim as they travel down the Mississippi river on a raft. Huckleberry comes to realise Jim’s humanity and to sympathise with his desire to be free. Twain himself was an abolitionist but the novel has Huckleberry starting from a position of accepting slavery as normal and right, and coming to change his views. It also ends with Huck wanting to escape from “civilisation” in a small town and move on out...another theme in American literature. Twain grew more radical as he grew older, but sometimes hid his more anti-establishment beliefs, such as his feelings against organised Christianity. He supported women’s rights... and was an Anti-Imperialist, believing that the US and other countries which interfered in the affairs of foreign countries were in the wrong, even if they claimed to have a mission of civilising or improving the lives of the people. He was cynical about Imperialism and hostile to almost all forms of racism... though in Tom Sawyer he seems to be rather hostile to American Indians such as “Injun Joe” who is the villain of the book. The ending of Huckleberry Finn has Huck deciding to “light out for the territory” and get away from Tom’s aunt who wants to adopt and “civilise “him... which has been seen as the American male’s desire to escape female influence and to find freedom away from cities and society…

Mark Twain Part II

Mark and his wife had a son, and 3 daughters. His son died in childhood and 2 of his daughters died as young woman.Olivia Susan (Susy) died at 24 of spinal meningitis. Another daughter Jean died of epilepsy. Clara Clemens, the middle daughter became an opera singer and lived to maturity, marrying twice. His marriage was a happy one but the family had problems, particularly due to health issues....Mark was very interested in science, and became friends with the inventor Nikola Tesla. He also patented inventions, and was eager to learn about science and technology.One of his novels was “A Connecticut Yankee at the court of King Arthur”.. in which a time traveller goes back to the Middle Ages and uses his knowledge of technology to modernise life at Arthur’s court. Twain was torn between nostalgic love for his own childhood days, and a desire to improve life in the present. He was reform minded as an adult and was conscious of the wrongs of life in the past such as slavery. But his most admired books were popular because they were set in the past and were about childhood on the Mississippi. His dabbling in inventions led to the loss of a lot of his fortune. He had invested a part of his wife’s fortune and his own savings in a type setting machine. It did not make money, because it was prone to breakdowns and it was soon superseded by another model. He also tried to increase his income by founding a publishing company, which published some of his own works and the Memories of Ulysses S Grant… Grants memoirs sold well, and so did “Huckleberry Finn”, other books were less successful and within 10 years, the firm had to declare bankruptcy. The family were experiencing financial troubles in the early 1890s and closed their New England home to go to Europe. Twain hoped that life in Europe would be cheaper and that he, his wife and Susy would benefit from visiting health spas on the Continent. He still had money troubles but received financial advised from friends who were businessmen. He declared bankruptcy but embarked on a long lecture tour to try and pay off his debts. He visited England and also lectured in America and Canada and India.

Mark Twain Part I

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Clemens Langhorne, who was born in Missouri in 1835. His father was a lawyer and businessman... the family owned slaves but there were many families that owned a couple of slaves and it did not mean they were rich. Mr Langhorne died when Samuel was about 12 and so the boy went to work as a clerk... and studied printing. He loved the Mississippi river and later trained as a pilot on the steamboats that plied along the great river. He had continued with his education during his days as a printer, studying in public libraries. In the 1850s, he worked as a pilot, which was a well-paid and prestigious job, involving ensuring that the boats were able to navigate the river safely. One of his brothers, Henry, who had taken a job on one of the boats, was killed in an explosion. This traumatized Mark, who had gotten him the job. (Later when he took a pen name, he used “Mark Twain” which was a cry of the pilots stating the measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe for a steamboat.) Mark was a southerner and had grown up in slave states. His great seminal works of literature, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn both were set before the Civil War and were about slavery. It’s been said that all American literature comes from Twain’s works. Both can be read as children’s stories but they are also adult novels. Twain briefly joined a Confederate unit as a volunteer, but the troop disbanded after a few weeks. He then left and went to work for his brother Orion, who was Secretary of the Nevada Territory. He travelled west and got a job as a miner in the Nevada Silver mines. After his experiences in the west, he moved to San Francisco and became a journalist, and began to write humorous stories and accounts of his travels. After the War, in 1868 he had an assignment to work in Europe and travelled there... He fell in love with Olivia Langdon, the sister of a man he met on his travels…They corresponded for a time and married in 1870. Olivia’s family was from the North and were wealthy New England liberals. With her, he met people who were left wing, idealistic campaigners for causes such as women’s rights, abolition of slavery and socialism. This provided him with a contrast to the southern states where he had grown up.

Marty Stuart short blog post

Marty Stuart is famous for being a talented country musician and singer and for being one of Johnny Cash’s many sons in law. Johnny had 4 daughters and often worked with his girls in his singing act... When they married, he worked with their husbands. June had two daughters whom Johnny regarded as his. Marty was born in Mississippi in 1958 and learned to play guitar as a child. He joined a bluegrass band, quite young…in the 1970s when still a teenager, he worked with the musician Lester Flatt. When Flatt retired, he began to work with Johnny Cash’s band. In the early 80s he married Cindy, Cash’s daughter. They divorced some years later but he remained friendly with Johnny….and they continued to work together. He cites Johnny as one of his big musical influences. He is more of a musician than a singer or song writer.. He had his own show The Marty Stuart Show, which features traditional country music on TV and has had as a guest Hank Williams III. Marty is well known for his love of traditional music and his collection of memorabilia, which has been shown at the State Museum. He owns clothes and instruments used by famous country stars... In 1997, after his divorce from Cindy Cash, he married singer Connie Smith… and they are still married….

Marilyn Monroe Part III

Marilyn’s decade of success was the 1950s. Her free "liberated" attitude to sex was something of a double edged sword for her. In the repressive 50s, she was noticed as being sexy and charming... and unthreatening to men. Women were less inclined to be fans. However it imprisoned her in a stereotype of the “dumb sexy blonde” which distressed her. She wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and grew upset and angry that she was seen as a sex symbol. She was known to have a past of numerous affairs with men who had helped her to get a start in the business. Marilyn was more frank about her sex life than women usually were, in the 50s, and this led to complaints about the vulgarity of her personal life and her screen roles. She was mocked at as the “dumb blonde” who was foolish enough to think she could ever be taken seriously… She had a talent for singing and dancing, and had several roles in musicals, including her most famous one, Sugar in "Some like it Hot”. She went off this sort of role, as she felt it would ruin her chances of ever playing serious roles. Marilyn had suffered from low self-esteem, fearing that all she had to offer was her sexuality and her looks... and her “sweet but silly” persona. She feared too that she might have inherited her mother’s mental problems. She was reluctant to have children because although she loved children, she feared passing on the mental problems. Although her career took off, she was afraid that she would fail at her work or break down. She used drugs and alcohol as a crutch and became addicted to pills…. This in turn began to affect her performances. She was late on set and had difficulty learning her lines. Marilyn was insecure about her talents, in spite of her desire to become a serious actress. She depended heavily on her acting coaches, Natasha Lytess and Paula Strasberg of the Actors Studio. She irritated directors by having her coaches on set, turning to them for advice and assurance. She grew more addicted to various drugs, uppers to help her keep going and barbiturates to help her sleep and by the mid-50s she had a definite problem with these drugs. She quarrelled with Fox - and they suspended her when she refused to do “yet another sex comedy”... In 1954, she married Joe Di Maggio, who was a famous baseball player. However while Joe di Maggio loved her, he was an old fashioned controlling man and showed jealousy and anger at her playing in “sexy” roles. He was furious at the famous scene in Seven Year Itch, where her skirt blows up and reveals her underwear, which was considered very lascivious. He began lose his temper with her, became physically abusive and the marriage only lasted 9 months. Di Maggio did remain loyal to her and they were friends in spite of the divorce. Marilyn continued to be at odds with her studio, so she then set up her own production company. She left Hollywood and went to New York, where she joined the Actors Studio, hoping to improve her acting skills. The Strasberg family, who ran the Studio, were fond of her and were flattered to have attracted such a popular sex symbol to believe in their “Method” acting. However, when Marilyn tried to delve into her unconscious to find material for her performances, it was stressful for her. She had had so many traumas in her life. Dwelling on her own emotions and remembering the problems of her past wasn’t the wisest method for her to choose, to help her acting. She began to date playwright Arthur Miller who was seen as an intellectual… He left his wife and they planned to marry. Miller was being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, because of supposed “communism” in his plays, and Marilyn wanted to help him. She married Miller in 1956, and returned to film making. She undertook a film called “Bus Stop” where she played a small time singer who dreams of stardom but falls in love with a cowboy. She worked hard to give a convincing performance as a not very successful none too glamorous singer, and began to impress some critics and convince them that she could act.

Beds and Blue jeans a country music story

 Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America.  It is about a love affair between a young couple who drift into living together and having 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

Marilyn Monroe Part II

Norma Jeane soon grew bored with married life very soon though she was fond of James. With America at war, he joined the Merchant Marine. He was away on active service, and she took a job in a munitions factory. There, she was photographed by a Unit of the Air force, who were taking “morale boosting” shots of pretty girls… Her special quality began to develop, and although they didn’t use any of her photos, it gave her confidence to quit her job and try her luck at modelling. She dyed her brown hair blonde, and began to get work … but her husband was angry at the thought of her working in such a job. However she was defiant and determined to get out of domestic working class life. She appeared in men’s magazines and in advertisements, and worked hard. In 1946, she got a contract with Twentieth Century Fox. She decided to divorce her husband who wanted her to stay at home. When taken on by the studio, she didn’t get any acting work at first, but had to study acting, singing and dancing and she was now using the name Marilyn Monroe… She got a few bit parts but her contract was soon dropped. She became more fiercely determined to succeed as an actress, and began to take lessons at the Actors Laboratory. She hoped to get into stage acting but her future was to be on the screen. She met Johnny Hyde, an older man who was Vice President of the William Morris Talent agency, and became his mistress. It was a help towards getting work but when Hyde asked her to marry him she refused. He paid for her to have some minor plastic surgery....She posed for some nude modelling shots... and in 1950 Hyde got her a long term 7 year contract….with Fox again. He died shortly afterwards of a heart attack, leaving her alone and still struggling to make it.