False Colours next part

 I really love False Colours, albeit the plot does mean that one has to stretch ones imagination a little.  However it is plausible that if only one of the twins is in London, and their social circle do not expect to see both of them, that the deception could work for a short time.  

Kit feels uneasy about engaging in this deception, but his brother's valet and groom both assure him that he can pull it off and that they will help... and that it would be highly unkind to Cressida Staveley to let her be embarrassed by her suitor not turning up at the party.  He decides to go ahead with it.  He is still unsure if Evelyn is making the right choice in deciding to make an "old fashioned" marriage, to a girl he does not know that well.. but he knows that his twin is very stubborn.    He believes that as Cressy is 20 years old and her father is also a ladies' man, she will be able to accept some philandering on her husband's part.   Lady Denville tells him that it is most important that he wins over old Lady Staveley, Cressy's grandmother who is the dominant one in the family.  Cressy lives with her father who is  a rather weak man, and her new stepmother, Albinia who is not that much older than herself... so it is understandable that she should wish to get married...   

Kit goes to the dinner party and is a little concerned that Cressy's uncle Charles knows Evelyn slightly but he manages to pull of his impression of his twin.  However Cressy worries him by asking if they can meet the following day to discuss something and he wonders if she has rumbled him.  

When he talks to his mother, later, Lady Denville tells him that probably all that Cressy wants to discuss is Evelyn's plan to have her live with him and his bride, which she does not want to do.  Kit resolves to get out of London as soon as he can, after the dinner, to avoid any further interaction with Cressida.  He and Lady Denville plan to go to Brighton or to the family estate which is near to the seaside resort.  But things dont work out as planned.  He meets with Cressy, and she tells him that she would like to get to know him better, before committing herself to marriage.   Kit hopes that his twin will return to London soon but he and Lady Denville continue to make plans to get out of the city as it is approaching high summer when the upper classes usually left London for their family estates or a visit to the seaside.   He is getting worried that Evelyn has not turned up but hopes that if he does so soon, he will realise what has happened and they will be able to conceal their deception.

Kit makes the journey to Ravenhurst Park, the family estate and begins looking into the estate business there, to keep up the fiction that he is Evelyn.  He is able to confide in Mrs Pinner, his old nurse who is retired and living in a cottage on the estate.  However within a couple of days, Lady Denville arrives, and brings bad news. Old Lady Staveley has been to visit her and wants to make sure that her favourite granddaughter will have some time to get to know her intended.. before they get formally engaged.  This was the very thing that Kit had wanted to avoid.  But Lady Stavely has invited herself to the country house, and he cannot avoid her.  Lady Denville has thought of this and has invited a few other people to make up a house party, so that Kit will be able to keep his distance from Cressy, when there are other guests.  Lady Denville invites her brother Cosmo, and his wife and son.  Cosmo is very unlike his beautiful, charming and extravagant sister.  He is grouchy and a penny pincher.. so he is glad to get an invitation to someone elses' place while he has let his own small estate to a distant relative for the summer. 

Lady Denville also invites Sir Bonamy Ripple.. who is her most faithful platonic admirer, and who has allegedly been in love with her for all her life and remained a bachelor for her sake.  She is fond of him and enjoys his company, but he is a very fat man who lives for pleasure.  Kit hopes that this ill assorted party will mean that he can avoid being in company too much with Cressy. 

False Colours By Georgette Heyer Part I

 As a  kid I went to a book fair, and bought Black Moth, the first novel by Georgette Heyer - and went on reading her books during my schooldays.  One of my favourites is False Colours.  It is a Regency novel, set just after Waterloo, and uses the plot of 2 identical twin brothers who swop identities.  Kit Fancot, the hero, is the younger son of an earl, who has been serving in the Diplomatic service, abroad.  He returns to London, believing that  his twin, Evelyn who is now the Earl of Denville, is in some kind of trouble.  To his surprise, when he arrives late at night, his mother, the ditzy but charming Lady Denville, is anxious about Evelyn because he has not come back from a trip.. Kit knows  that his mother is not usually a worrier but Lady Denville, who is pretty, youthful and very extravagant, tells him that Evelyn is engaged to a Miss Cressida Staveley, and that he is supposed to attend a dinner party at her home the following evening so he should have returned home.  

On questioning his mother, Kit finds that Evelyn, who is something of a lady's man, has decided to get married, to a suitable girl, but that it isn't a love match.  He then finds that Lady Denville, who is notoriously careless with money, is in debt, and that Evelyn wants to get hold of his fortune in order to pay off the debts.  However, Evelyn's father who was not sympathetic to his wife's follies with money, tied up his heir's fortune so that he could not get hold of it until he is 30 or if his uncle, Henry, who is his trustee, chooses to wind up the Trust earlier.   Evelyn, concerned about his mother's debts, decides that marriage to a sensible girl like Miss Staveley would convince Henry that he is now mature and that Henry would wind up the Trust and he would have the freedom to manage his estates and to pay his mother's debts. 

Lady Denville is upset that her crazy spending habits have caused problems for her son but she believes that Evelyn is determined to get married,  partly to help her financially and partly because he wants to get control of his property.  He has always been keen on running the estates but because he was not given a free hand he has devoted himself to a frivolous pleasure seeking lifestyle.  Kit however has his career as a budding diplomat to occupy him.  To cheer his mother up, Kit says jokingly that if Evelyn does not come back, he can always pretend to be him.  To his horror, Lady Denville takes his joking suggestion seriously and says that it could work.  The 2 young men are very much alike and had changed identities before as a joke.. but Kit never meant his remark to give his mother such an idea. 

However she begins to work on him, to persuade him.  Nobody knows that he is in London... and the family of Miss Staveley dont know him well, so he could pass himself off as Evelyn for the space of a dinner party.....

Tristan And Iseult Story

 I hope to write something about the Tristan and Iseult story soon.  This tale is not as well known as the Arthurian saga but it is related to it.  It also focuses on a love triangle, between King Mark of Cornwall, his bride Iseult and his nephew Tristan.  There was a Dark Ages King called Mark or Marcus, and it is possible that he had a son called Drustan or Tristan.   There are different versions of the story but the best known is about Iseult, an Irish princess marrying Mark, a British king who is older than her.  Iseult's marriage is arranged and Tristan is sent to Ireland to escort her to her new home.  Iseult does not like him because he killed her uncle in combat in Ireland.  But her mother, wanting her daughter to find love in her marriage, has prepared a love potion for Iseult to drink with her new husband.  Iseult and Tristan drink the potion and fall madly in love.  In many versions of the story, they become lovers and Iseult deceives her new husband by sending her maid, Branwen to share his bed on their wedding night.  The lovers continue their affair and Mark becomes suspicious. In some versions they run away together to Brittany.  In others, Tristan goes away and marries another wife, also called Iseult.  When he is dying he sends for his true love but his wife tells him that the sails on the boat that he sent out are black which means that his Iseult did not come... and in despair, Tristan dies.  Iseult dies also from grief when she arrives to find her lover has died.   The story may have influenced the Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur triangle in the Arthurian stories.. but it is more magical than the more realistic tale of Lancelot and Guinevere.  The love depends on a potion which forces the couple to fall in love and to deceive Mark.. whereas in the Arthurian saga there is a genuine bond among the 3 people involved.   The story inspired Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, and in the 20th century there have been several novelised versions of the saga. 

John Betjeman

 Betjeman is one of my favourite English poets, his works are simple and based on real life.  He was born in London to a well to do middle class family, in 1906.  His father owned a business making ornamental furniture, of the kind loved by Victorians.. and this may have led to Betjeman's later passion for Victoriana and Victorian architecture which he liked when it was unfashionable. 

He went to good schools, receiving most of his education at Marlborough, which was a famous public school.  However, he did not enjoy it that much as he was literary and artistic rather than fond of sports.  He went to Oxford and did not do that well there, ending up with no degree.  One of his tutors was the young CS Lewis, who didn't like him.  Betjeman returned the dislike.   He cultivated an eccentric arty bohemian image.. and Evelyn Waugh who was at Oxford round the same time, used him as a partial model for Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited... because of his habit of carrying round a teddybear.   Betjeman wanted to be a writer, and had made friends at Oxford in the world of writing, so he had a start.  He began to write  a gossip column and mixed with "society" people.. and he also wrote for the Architectural Review.   He praised Victorian architecture...  A few years later, he married Penelope Chetwode, a peer's daughter and they had 2 children.. Paul and Candida who also became a writer and campaigner like her father...

During the War, Betjeman worked at a government post in Ireland which was neutral in the conflict...and continued to write his poems.

His poems were simple and traditional in style, very English..  He liked to observe the class structure with affection, and to portray the rituals of the British..  such as pony clubs, riding, tennis etc.   Some of his works were love poems to the hearty sporty girls of the 1920s, who had now been freed from Victorian restrictions and who enjoyed games and parties in a livelier way than their grandmothers.  

Betjeman's marriage was happy for some time but he and his wife began to drift apart.  Penelope was also a writer on travels, and she became interested in Roman Catholicism, and discussed it with her friend Evelyn Waugh who was an ardent convert.  Betjeman himself had religious doubts but he cared very much about religion and was a member of the Anglican church.  He became intolerant of his wife's interest in the Roman church.  She did convert and he and she, while they remained married, began to grow apart.  He started a relationship with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish who was a member of Princess Margaret's household.. and that relationship lasted to the end of his life.   He eventually became Poet Laureate and his traditional poems were very popular.  He died in 1984... 

Rough Music

this is one of my favourite stories, available on Amazon.  Its not a love story, it is a music based story, set in the 1970s and 1980s, about a country rock band.  The 2 lead singers are not pop idols... they are talented, fun but not conventionally handsome.  The story is about them and their friendship and the compromises that they have to make, in the music world.  Their marriages suffer from strain because they are away on tour a lot of the time.  They want to be successful but they also want to play real music.  They have ups and downs, make mistakes and hope that things will work out OK...

Branwell Bronte V

 Branwell's return to Haworth coincided with his sisters starting to write for publication.  While they were involved in writing their great novels  He was miserably drinking and complaining about how unhappy he was.  The family were sympathetic to an extent.  They believed that Mrs Robinson had seduced him and that he was the victim of her selfishness.  

He got into debt, continued drinking and taking opium and once set his bed on fire, which caused old Mr Bronte to have to take him into his own room at night.  Branwell seems to have recieved small amounts of money from Mrs Robinson via servants, so its possible that there had been some kind of affair and she was afraid of his talking about it.  However, when Mr Robinson died, she did not as he claimed she would come to him and marry him.   Branwell then claimed that Mrs Robinson would lose all her money if she married him.  This was not true- the will did stipulate that she would lose a certain amount if she remarried, but there was no mention of Branwell in the Will and it was a normal stipulation that a widow would lose her income if she married again.  

Branwell's behaviour was very distressing to his family who tried to excuse him for his affair.  Mr Bronte believed that his son was an innocent who had been seduced by a sophisticated and wicked older woman... However it was upsetting to them to have to put up with his drunkenness, his moaning and his getting into debt.  The three girls went on with their writing, keeping it a secret from their brother so as not to upset him with the reminders that he had been considered the family genius who had writing ability.  Branwell did try his hand at a novel, in the last years of his life.. but it was not very readable and he did not write all that much.  He read some of it to one of his friends, and it had a bible quoting servant in it.. which led to rumours that he had written Wuthering Heights  or at least helped Emily with it.. because Wuthering Heights also had Joseph, a villainous old Yorkshire servant who quoted the Bible...

As Branwell drank more, his health declined.  Eventually in 1848 he became ill with TB which was very common at the time due to poor hygiene and a lack of understanding of how the disease was passed on.  He died somewhat repentant of his earlier atheism and selfish behaviour and his family in spite of his faults were heart broken.  Emily caught a cold at his funeral, which also turned into TB and died soon afterwards.....  

Branwell Bronte part IV

 Branwell's job at the Robinsons initially seemed like a stroke of luck.  He had had a tutoring job before, but it had not lasted long... His work on the railways had come to an embarrassing end and his painting career had not been successful.

Anne was reasonably happy in her post as governess with the family.  They liked her and she got on well with the girls.  

Mrs Robinson's husband was not in good health, and she herself was possibly a little bored with married life and motherhood.  Its hard to be certain what happened, but it seemed as if Branwell got involved with her, either as a flirtation or affair...  He wrote boastful stories to his friends that his "mistress was too fond of him".. but he was inclined to boast and exaggerate.. It may well be that it was a flirtation which he took too seriously, and that Mrs Robinson just enjoyed a little amusement but had no real feelings for him... and certainly had no intentions of risking her marriage... She referred to her husband in a private book as "her angel Edmund" so she was probably happy enough with him... 

At any event, Mr. Robinson dismissed Branwell and he returned to Haworth in disgrace... The family were shocked at his losing his job with a threat of scandal.   Branwell was already a drinker and possibly a user of opium, and now in depression he began to drink and drug himself all the more.  He bemoaned losing his beloved, at times and at other times claimed that Mrs. Robinson was madly in love with him and that she would marry him, if her husband were to die....

Branwell Bronte Part III

 Branwell's job on the railways did not last long.  He became bored with it and went off drinking too often and was dismissed when money went missing from the accounts.  It was probably due to Branwell's leaving the porter in charge, but he lost his job and had to chalk up another failure.  His sisters had been less spoiled and stuck out difficult jobs as governesses for as long as they could.  

Branwell continued to write and had been trying to get a job on Blackwoods Magazine but his letters asking for work were couched in a boastful arrogant style and he never got a reply. He was shy like all the family but tended to hide this by drinking and boasting and exaggerating... which put many people off.  

After the failure of the railways job, Anne got him a post at her employers, the Robinsons.. She was the governess there and he became tutor to the family's son, Edmund.  He was a reasonable success at the job;  Edmund was not very clever, but Branwell succeeded in making himself agreeable to the family, and particularly to the mother, Lydia Robinson, who was 17 years his senior. 

Branwell Bronte Part II

 Branwell considered studying at the Art School in London, but does not seem to have gone there.   He wanted to pursue painting as a career however and he moved away from Haworth, to set up as a painter.   He met several other young working artists and made friends, but his work didn't go so well.  He had always enjoyed drinking and talking, and had been a lively visitor to the local pub in Haworth.  Now he drank more and didn't complete that many paintings... 

His sisters had gone to school and were now pursuing work as teachers or governesses, while writing in their spare time.   Branwell was not so self disciplined.. He wrote and did translations, and enjoyed a social life but he didn't work as hard as he might.  The family began to worry that he might not be the brilliant success that they had originally hoped... and that they would have to support themselves without help from their brother.  

After a while, Branwell gave up the painting business, and went to work as a clerk on the railways.  It was a bit of a comedown for someone who had hoped to be a scholar or artist but at first it seemed like a job with prospects.... 

Branwell Bronte Part I

 Branwell Bronte was the only son of the Bronte family, and had an unhappy life, never fulfilling his early promise.  He was born in Yorkshire, to Patrick Bronte and his Cornish wife, Maria Branwell....

He was born in 1817, and the family moved to Haworth when he was a small child... his mother died a few years later, leaving 5 girls and the only son.  Branwell's sisters were sent to school, to get an education but Patrick decided to tutor Branwell  himself.  He had been a teacher and had educated himself in Ireland.  His son was a clever boy and Patrick was able to teach him the classics and usual subjects for a boy of his class.  Patrick hoped that his son would be able to get a good job and help his sisters, but he knew that the girls might have to go out as governesses so it was important for them to get a good basic education.

Branwell showed talent for doing translations, writing poetry and painting and his father was not sure what job to train him for.  He and Charlotte and Emily and Anne wrote stories and poems about their imaginary worlds, Angria and Gondal..  They sometimes acted out plays, at home and "printed" their books in little magazines, hand written to look like typeface. 

Branwell was rather spoiled, being the only boy and being the one that the girls were hoping would be a brilliant success. 

M/F

Gillian Bradshaw

 Gillian Bradshaw is a popular novelist... who has been writing since around 1980.  I came across her first works, an Arthurian Trilogy, which was set in Dark Age Britain.  The three novels cover the development of an Arthurian Kingdom... and the arrival of Gwalchmai, Arthur's nephew, from the Orkney Islands... The final work, In Winter's Shadow is narrated by Gwynhwyfar, (Guenevere) who relates her romance with Bedwyr and the fall of Camelot....

Gillian was born in the USA and reared partly in Chile.. She studied Classics and accumulated a store of knowledge about the ancient world.  Many of her novels after the Arthurian work were set in Classical Rome and Greece and Britain. One follows the life of Archimedes, engineer, mathematician and physicist. 

She also writes about women in the classical world.. who take on male roles such as learning about doctoring. Another novel is based on the idea that Caesarion, the son of Cleopatra, survived  (when he was meant to be executed) and manages to lead a new life....

She married a British physicist and lives in the UK... and has written several science fiction novels.. using her knowledge of scientific research. 

One of her best novels is "Island of Ghosts" which is set in Roman Britain...It is based on the arrival of some Sarmatian soldiers who have been defeated by the Romans and offered exile in Britain..which was at the very edge of the Roman Empire (hence the title Island of Ghosts as they were all in effect "dead" to their former life)

The hero of the book is  Ariantes, their leader, who learns about life in Britain, learns about Roman skills such as literacy, and settles down breeding horses... with a British wife.... The Sarmatian soldiers who were skilled in fighting and breeding horses, may well be one of the events that inspired the story of King Arthur and his knights....This connexion may be a reason for Bradshaw deciding to write a story based on their coming to Britain. 

She has also written novels set in Puritan London... but my favourite is "Island of Ghosts"....

Maugham III

 Maugham travelled a good deal, which gave him material for his writing.. but he remained a rather shy man.  However he enjoyed society life...

As a young man, although he had had sexual affairs with men, he also had relationships with women.  During World War One, he had a relationship with Syrie Wellcome, a society belle who also had her own  business as an interior designer... She was famous for using white.. which was very expensive... but she catered to the very rich and famous.  She and Maugham had a child, a daughter called Mary Elizabeth, but after the birth of the baby, Wellcome sued for divorce and then Maugham married Syrie.

Their marriage was not very happy and within a few years they divorced. Maugham grew critical of his ex wife, and estranged from his daughter.  He had 2 long term male lovers who were his companions and he lived a luxurious life in the South of France, making a fortune from his books and stories, some of which were televised or filmed. 

Maugham Part II

 Maugham was a very prolific writer, and while some of his novels didn't sell as well as the first one.. he also wrote comedy plays mostly set in "Society" which did very well.  He travelled and got material for his writings when living abroad.  However one of his most famous works was "Of Human Bondage" which was partly autobiographical....

The hero, like Maugham, is shy and awkward.. and he has an unhappy childhood.  Philip has a club foot, gets teased by other boys and is reared by his uncle, who like Maugham's uncle, is cold and strict.  Philip then falls madly in love with a lower class girl.. a waitress called Mildred.  She is hard hearted and selfish but Philip is obsessed with her, even though he knows that she is using him... She runs off with another man, who refuses to marry her.. and comes back later when she is down and out.  Philip eventually gets over his feelings for her, but he has sunk from middle class status to poverty.  His club foot is the equivalent of Maugham's stammer...

The book has always been popular, and is probably his best known and best work.  

In 1914 when war broke out, Maugham was too old to serve but he worked in the Medical service... A couple of years into the war, he was recruited by the British intelligence services.  He travelled to Russia on intelligence missions and he later used the material he had accrued as the basis of his "Ashenden" stories. 

M/F

Somerset Maugham

 William Somerset Maugham (called Willie) was a well known and successful writer in the 20th century.  However he is not generally considered a great writer.  He was very prolific, churning out plays, novels and short stories...

He was born to a well to do family, his father being a lawyer who worked for the Diplomatic service.  Born in 1874,  his family were in France at the time and his father arranged for the birth to take place in the British Embassy in Paris, since that was considered British territory.  Maugham's mother was in poor health, with tuberculosis, and was advised to have babies.. She produced several children, but died when Willie was a child...  He was traumatised by this, and never forgot his mother... His father died soon afterwards and Willie was sent to England to be looked after by his uncle, the Vicar of Whitstable.

He was a clever child but he did not fit in to his new home in England nor his school.. He was shy, awkward and since his first language was French, he was teased at school.... He was not religous and his uncle was not an affectionate man, so he was lonely.  He developed  a weapon for fighting back.. that of making sharp and hurtful remarks.  He grew up to have a poor opinion of human nature, claiming that he knew people were faulty and far from lovable but that he tolerated it and did not mind it. However I think that his seeing the dark side of human nature weakened him as a novelist. 

His family wanted him to be a lawyer, which was the profession most of the Maughams had gone in for, but Willie hated the idea.  He considered the civil service but ended up studying medicine.  Medicine had become increasingly respectable as a profession over the Victorian era.. but it was not considered as "gentlemanly" as the Law.  However Maugham went on with his studies and found that working in a hospital for the poor gave him a wider experience of society and life than if he had stayed in a more genteel profession.  He got material for his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, from the people he met during his medical studies...  The book was a story of a working class girl, Liza, and her affair with a married man of her own class.  It was a tragic book, with Liza suffering for her behaviour and dying.  It portrayed dire poverty and ignorance and violence, particularly towards women.   However, it sold very well and Maugham found that he was able to give up medicine to concentrate on full time writing, which he had always wanted to do....

Rough Music Available on Amazon

 Rough Music eBook : Sutton, Nadine: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

This is one of my works set in the American music world.  Its not a romance;  its a story about two members of a country rock band, in the 1970s and 80s.. who are trying to move from the small time to the big time.  Its about the compromises that they make along the way.. their love of their music.. and their friendships.. and the strain that touring and working hard puts on their marriages....

Butch Cassidy

 Butch Cassidy was an American outlaw who was one of the iconic figures of the American Wild West.. in the years after the Civil war.  Outlaws were often considered folk heroes, who stole from the rich.. Bankers and cattle ranchers were considered unpopular by poorer people, and as a result people who stole from them in a flamboyant way and got away with it, were admired.   Some older outlaws, like the James brothers, had grown up in the Civil war and  their rebellion against society was fuelled by their family's Confederate beliefs....

Butch was born in 1866 in Utah territory and his real name was Robert Parker.  His family were Mormons who had moved from England and settled in Utah... and he was the eldest of a very large family.....  He grew up on a cattle ranch but soon found it boring and left.. He took various jobs in ranching but became friends with a cattle thief, Mike Cassidy.. He also briefly worked for a butcher, and then when he embarked on a criminal career, he used the nickname Butcher, and took Cassidy's surname.  

M/F

Valkyrie

 Today 20th July was the date of the July plot against Hitler by many of his army officers.  It was a failure, and the War lasted for another year... A bomb exploded in Hitler's briefing room, very close to him, but failed to kill him..... It resulted in the deaths of many who had taken part in it, and also others who had only had minimal participation. 

Bellona Club Part III

 Peter discovers that noone can give him much information on the General, no one seemed to see him arriving at the Club... He learns through Robert and the General's servant that he had spent the night away from home, staying with a friend called Oliver.. but noone knows Oliver or where he lives.  Peter talks to George - and his wife Sheila.  The couple are not well off and are in debt.. so the delays in proving the General's will are a worry to them... George is bitter and angry because his wife has to work and he feels emasculated by this but his own ill health makes it difficult for him to keep a job.

He is angry that Lady Dormer chose to leave her fortune to a distant relative, Ann Dorland.. whom he feels is a gold digger and (since she is interested in art) a Bohemian and unfeminine.  Peter tries to contact Ann Dorland but she refuses to speak to him. 

Bellona Club

 George goes into a hysterical fit when his grandfather's death is discovered and Peter calms him down.  He too has suffered shell shock and knows how the War affected many men who were not career soldiers... 

After the death, Peter is visited by his family's solicitor, Mr Murbles a rather Victorian old chap who also acts for the Fentiman family, and he hears something of the back story of the Fentimans.  The old general had had a sister, Felicity, who had been somewhat unhappy as a girl.  The family were not well off and most of the money was spent on the boy, Arthur, to start him in his military career.  Felicity received an offer of marriage from an elderly man and refused him.. then ran away with a middle class man, Henry Dormer, who had a successful business.  Her family were horrified at the mesalliance, but Felicity's marriage was happy.  She tried to make up with her relatives but the family snubbed her.. Many years later, she was an elderly and rich widow, who lived alone and had no contact with her brother, but who occasionally saw her grandsons George and Robert. 

She had acquired a young companion,  a relative of her husband's, Ann Dorland who came to live with her, but she had become rather frail.  Just before Armistice day she became ill and sent for her brother to try and see him before she died.   She had made a Will, and it turns out that the money would go to General Fentiman if he survived her, but if he died before her, it would be left to Miss Dorland... So it turns out that it is a matter of importance to find out exactly when Fentiman died....

Murbles asks Peter to do a discreet investigation as to when the old man died.  Peter is wary.  He likes the younger Fentimans and feels that digging into things sometimes makes matters worse.  He asks if the 3 people involved, Miss Dorland and the Fentimans could not agree to divide up the money... but Murbles persuades him to go ahead with the investigation.  

Peter starts asking questions and finds that it is not easy.  The general had visited his sister the previous day and knew what she intended.. and he had left his estate to his grandson George, who was out of work and in poor health.  But the addition of a large fortune to his own small property might make people greedy. 

Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

 This is one of my favourite Dorothy L Sayers' novels.... It is set in London, a few years after the war.  Sayers knew Bloomsbury well, and in this book, she gives us a picture of soldiers who have been traumatised by their War experiences, and the Bohemian artistic society of London at that time.  Women writers, painters and other artists lived there as it was central but inexpensive, and the new freedoms for women meant that they could leave home and lead more independent lives.  She lived in flats in the area for many years, keeping up a flat there even when she had bought a home in Essex.  

Living away from home also gave women a chance to be more sexually free, and there was fairly reliable contraception.. which also added to their liberties.  

However the book starts in the Bellona Club, a club largely patronised by military officers, on Armistice Night, when the country still had a 2 minute silence to remember the War dead.  Wimsey is there as he is meeting the father of one of his friends who was killed in the War.. and he meets another friend, George Fentiman, who was badly shell shocked and is now unable to hold down a job.  George's elderly grandfather goes to the Club most days, he is a General, very frail, and he lives alone... so he spends most of his time dozing and reading at the club.  George and Wimsey talk, and George reflects that the old man was in the Crimean war and has no idea of the horrors of modern warfare...and that his own older brother Robert, a career military man, is also unimaginative and "had a good War"...  Then, one of the members goes to speak to the General, and finds that he is dead....

Mac Davis RIP

 Scott Mac Davis, known as Mac Davis, was an American country singer and song writer, who was born in Lubbock Texas in 1942.  He also had some success as an actor.   His parents were divorced, and his childhood was not that happy.  He wanted to escape Lubbock… and moved to Atlanta, at the age of 16.  He formed a rock and roll group and started to work for Nancy Sinatra’s company, and played in her act…During the 1960s he had a lot of success as a song writer, and some of his songs were recorded by Elvis Presley…including “In the Ghetto”.

In the 1970s he performed country and pop songs, and in 1980 had a big hit with the novelty song “Oh Lord its Hard to be Humble”, a light funny song about good looks and fame. He also acted and in 2000, he appeared in a TV film of the Dukes of Hazzard, playing the narrator, which had been played in the TV series by Waylon Jennings. He played the father in law of Rodney Carrington (singer and comedian) in the sitcom Rodney…

He was married 3 times, his third marriage lasting till his death late in 2020.  He was something of a showman, capable of being funny and a good singer….

 

Rough Music By Nadine Sutton

 Rough Music eBook : Sutton, Nadine: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

This is not a romance as such;  its a story of a band, and its lead singer.. and its more about work than love.  Jeff Randles is a country rock musician, who enjoys his life as a singer in the US in the 1970s and early 80s.  But its taking its toll on his marriage and his friendships.  He and the band dont always get along..  He and his manager argue about what sort of music to play, and how commercial they should be.  He and his wife dont get along too well either.. as he's always off on the road, and seeing other girls.  Then he meets a girl who is a bit more special.. and things change... 

Will they have a happy ending? 

WS Gilbert

 I’ve always been a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan.. their comic operas are wonderful for cheering you up.  Although I am generally a purist about musicals, I’ve particularly enjoyed the Australian versions with Jon English..  They are full of razzmatazz, and bits of rock and roll but its impossible not to love the energetic crazy performance of English as the Pirate King…

Jon, who died a few years ago, clearly loved playing the part of the naughty but nice Pirate King, though its possible that Gilbert would have been horrified by the changes made in the lyrics and style.

He was noted for being very strict about how his shows were performed… and for losing his temper but he was a good heated and kindly man.  He and Sullivan were uneasy partners in their work.  Gilbert’s lyrics were what was called “topsy turvy” -full of jokes and patter, ridiculous situations and sly digs at the Establishment, whereas Sullivan wanted to write serious music…

William Gilbert was born in London in 1836.  His father had been a Naval Surgeon but became a writer - and the family travelled abroad during the early years of his life. He learned French and Italian.. His father was very strict and in due course, his parents’ marriage broke up, causing a lot of strain Gilbert’s relationship with both of them. 

Beds and Blue Jeans, a country music novella

 Beds and Blue Jeans is a romance novella set in present day America.  It is a realistic story about a young couple who live together, on a casual basis, then have a baby.. and find things are not working...  Their relationship is stormy and not very good, but Sam tries to stay with his partner for the sake of the baby.  Over time, however, Patti, his girlfriend and he grow to love each other....

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

Rebecca Finale

 The De Winters start their drive back to Cornwall.  Mrs De Winter is hoping that now that the mystery of Rebecca has been solved, she and Maxim can settle down there and have a family.. but both of them feel uneasy.  Maxim stops to call the house and finds that Mrs Danvers has been moving her things out of her room and that she's left... 

He hopes this is a good sign that she has given up on trying to make him and his wife miserable in her anger at Rebecca's death.  They decide to drive through the night until they reach Manderley... but as they approach the house, they realise that it is on fire.  Mrs Danvers' final act of revenge (or Rebeccas?) has been to destroy the house. 

 We learn that the De Winters are living abroad, in exile from England.. some time afterwards.  They travel, stay in small hotels and make no friends... Mrs De Winter misses England very much but she is happy in her devotion to her husband.   She loves him, she knows that he loves her and that she will be secure with him but they can never go back to Manderley. 

Rebecca XIII

 The doctor consults his notes and says that he can think of a reason why this woman he saw might have committed suicide.. She was seriously ill.  He said that she came to him, thinking that she was pregnant.. but that when he did some tests he found that she had uterine cancer and that she would not recover.  He could see that she was a tough woman who could stand the news so he told her.  She paid his fee and left.. 

Maxim realises now that Rebecca provoked him to kill her, to spare herself a longer illness, by telling him she was going to foist another man's baby on him.  Col Julyan is relieved, that the doctor has told them there was a good reason why Rebecca might have drowned herself...   He warns Favell that this disposes of all his attempts at blackmail, it was a suicide by Rebecca and nothing more.   When Favell has gone, Julyan advises the De Winters that he'll do his best to dispel any rumours that there was anything mysterious about Rebecca's death but suggests that it might be a good idea for them to take a trip abroad for a time, til any possible gossip dies down.. 

They decide to go back to Manderley, exhausted but relieved....

Rebecca XII (Short)

 When Maxim, Colonel Julyan and Frank check up on the number they find that it is that of a retired doctor, working in London.  Mrs Danvers confirms that Rebecca never had much to do with doctors.  They decide to drive to London the following day and see what information they can glean from him about what has happened.  

Mrs De Winter is terrified, believing that Rebecca knew she was pregnant and that was why she was consulting a doctor.   That that will reveal the motive for Maxim losing his temper and killing her.. that she told him she was pregnant by another man but was planning to pass the child off as his. 

Col Julyan is obviously worried, wanting to sympathise with Maxim but having to do his duty as a magistrate.  He tells the de Winters that he will accompany them the following day.  Favell insists on coming as well.  

Mrs De Winter passes a terrifying night, afraid that the next day will bring things to a climax and that Maxim's motive for murder will be revealed.   She and he set off the next morning for London, followed by Jack Favell.  

When they get to North London, they find the doctors house, and explain that Jack as Rebecca's cousin was not satisfied with the verdict at the inquest.  The doctor tells them that he has a note of a Mrs Danver consulting him... so its obvious that Rebecca used a false name. 

Rebecca XI

 Mrs De Winter almost faints during the inquest.  She is divided between her happiness that Maxim loves her and her fear that his killing of Rebecca will come out.  After the legalities are concluded Maxim has to attend his wife's funeral, but while Mrs De Winter is waiting for him to come home, Jack Favell turns up.  He insists on seeing Maxim, who comes in with Frank Crawley. 

It is plain that Favell has blackmail on his mind.... He tells Maxim that he does not beleive the inquest verdict.. that Rebecca would not have killed herself - But he says that he would not proffer any proof of this, if Maxim is willing to pay him a regular income.  Maxim wants to throw him out but he holds his nerve and sends for Colonel Julyan, the local magistrate.  

When Julyan arrives he is sympathetic to Maxim, as a fellow gentleman and friend and is not willing to believe the words of a cad like Favell...  But Jack Favell has some evidence..  He claims that he and Rebecca were lovers and that he had hoped to marry her and that Maxim probably killed her out of jealousy.

  He also says that he has a note from her that suggests she did not have suicide on her mind,   He produces the note which was delivered to him in London after Rebecca had left the city and returned to Cornwall on the fatal night.  She asks Favell to come to Manderley to the cottage as she wants to speak to him. 

Maxim is afraid of the note, which does seem to do away with the suicide plan... But he holds his nerve and asks for more information.  Jack claims that Ben a local man who has mental difficulties, used to see him and Rebecca together at the cottage and can confirm that they were lovers... Ben however when spoken to, is clearly afraid to say anything at all, and claims he knows nothing.   Favell asks to see Mrs Danvers, but she too is not all that helpful.. She is not willing to confirm that Rebecca was Favell's one true love and mistress.. She claims that Rebecca despised men and that if she amused herself with any of them, it didn't mean very much.  However she looks at Rebecca's old diary and does find a number that is unfamiliar to her.. which may give some information on how she spent her last day....

Rebecca Part X

 Mrs De Winter is more relieved than shocked when she learns of what happened with Maxim and Rebecca.  She is happy that he loves her and that he never loved his first wife, that all her misery and jealousy of her rival were not needed.  But Maxim did kill Rebecca so he’s afraid that they will lose their chance of happiness, if it comes out.  

He reminds her there will have to be an inquest.  She says that he must say that when he identified the other woman as Rebecca he was ill and didn’t know what he was doing.  The couple brace themselves for facing an inquiry into Rebecca’s death.

But Mrs De Winter feels much stronger now and is finally able to tell Mrs Danvers that she is the mistress of the house and that she wants to do things her own way, and is not afraid of the housekeeper any more.

But the inquest does not go well.  The boat builder who looked after Rebecca’s boat tells that he had checked it over and that it was sound but it had holes in it, when recovered that were deliberately driven into the boat.  He believes that it was tampered with and that the sinking was not an accident.  The inquest decides that Rebecca must have tampered with the boat herself,  and caused her own death so the verdict is given as suicide. 

Rebecca Part IX

 Maxim tells the full tale to his wife, about how he and Rebecca ended up. Mrs De Winter has believed that he regretted his second marriage, that he still loved Rebecca and that he had only married out of desperation and found that she, his second wife, was a nobody compared with his beloved first wife.

Maxim tells her that no, his second marriage is one he made for love.. that he and Rebecca never had any happiness together.  He tells her that soon after the marriage, on honeymoon, she told him all about herself, how immoral and cold and heartless she was… and told him that she knew he would not wish for a divorce, because he was too proud to admit failure…

Rebecca had told him that she’d be t he perfect wife and hostess for Manderley and that she knew he would accept that, but in private, she amused herself just as she pleased.  She looked after the house, redecorated it, held parties and charmed the neighbours and most of the staff but in her heart she despised them.

Maxim over time realises that one or 2 people became suspicious of Rebecca, that his sister Beatrice had found that Rebecca was flirting with Giles, her husband and she never came to Manderley again except to big parties.  And Rebecca also started to try and seduce the shy awkward Frank Crawley….

Maxim reassures his wife that he never loved Rebecca after the first few days, and that she is his true love and - he hopes that they can re start their marriage and she does not have to accept a compromise relationship… as she had feared.

He tells her about the end, how he had finally decided to confront his wife about her affairs and bad behaviour.  He had told her that she could not have her men friends at Manderley but she ignored that prohibition.  He told her she could not see her cousin and lover, Jack Favell.  Mrs De Winter admits that she met Jack but had been afraid to tell Maxim about it, in case it upset him and reminded him of Rebecca.

Maxim tells her now that he decided to go to the cottage where Rebecca sometimes stayed after sailing… to talk to her and Jack, taking a gun, to scare off the bounder, Favell.  He found Rebecca alone and she was acting strangely.  She told him that he would never get a divorce because Mrs Danvers would swear that there were no infidelities on her part and that she has now decided to spend more time at Manderley.  Maxim is horrified and angry.  She then tells him that if she had a son, it would be known as his son and would inherit the estate…  Infuriated and crazy, he shoots her.  He then puts her body in the boat, takes it out and sinks it, hoping that it will be believed that she went for a late night sail alone and it capsized….

Germanic Names

 There are similarities between German and Old English names, due to the Saxon migrations to Britain.  So there are German names that have made their way into British and English speaking culture.  German names often have 2 elements, and in the past, sons would be given a name with the same first part (such as Ed) and different second parts.     

There is “Rupert” which is the German version of Robert.  The name combines an element which means “Fame” and Bert which means Bright.  Rupert was the name of Charles II’s nephew Prince Rupert who came to live in England in the Restoration era. Its not a common name but has been used in England…  

The various “Ed” names all come from German, the first element Ead meaning wealth or riches…  These include Edward, (Eduard in German) Edwin which means “Riches”  combined with “ Friend”, Edmund, and Edgar.  

Another name which is occasionally used in England is Oswald, the first part “Os” means “god” and the second part is “Weald” or rule.

Harold or Harald is another name, of Germanic origin.. which combines “Weald” for rule and Har which means army.  It can be abbreviated to Hal or Harry….

A very popular girls name is Emma, which comes from the German word “Ermin” for whole or entire.  It was the name of the mother of Edward the Confessor, and of course the name of Jane Austen’s heroine whom she felt “noone but herself would like.”.

Another girls name of Germanic origin is Elsa, the name of Elsa Lanchester, wife of Charles Laughton.  It is a short form of “Elisabeth”, the German spelling of Elizabeth.

Adelaide is a name that came to Britain as the name of William IV’s wife.  It comes from “adel” Which means noble and Heid which means “kind”..

I hope to write a bit more on Germanic and other names soon

Rebecca Part VIII (Short)

 Mrs De Winter feels terror that her marriage is now a complete failure, and wonders how to face Maxim after the ball....

The following day, however, Beatrice tries to reassure her that all will be well but has to leave, and there is a ship foundering in the local bay so Maxim is out trying to coordinate the rescue efforts.  She is left alone.    When divers go down into the water, one of them gets a horrible fright.. He discovers the boat that Rebecca had sailed in, and there is a body in it......

Captain Searle, the Harbour master, tells Maxim  and his wife about the body.  She thinks at first that Rebecca must have been sailing with someone else and that body was still in the cabin while Rebecca's had been washed out to sea.   Maxim in his grief mis identified a strange woman as Rebecca.   They learn that there will have to be an inquest, to determine who the body is and how the accident happened. When Searle has gone, Maxim tells  Mrs De Winter the truth, that it is his wife who is lying on the cabin floor.. and that he killed her.....

Rebecca Part VII

 Mrs De Winter tries to hope that the ball will be a success, though she is scared and always conscious of her lack of beauty and charm, compared to Rebecca.  On the night of the ball, the De Winters have dinner with Beatrice, her husband Giles, and Frank Crawley, before the party.

Trying to be light hearted she teases Frank and Maxim about her dress… and goes off to change.  When she comes downstairs, dressed like the portrait, Maxim explodes with rage.  He tells her to go and change and wear an ordinary frock…

Bewildered and in tears she hurries away and then Beatrice tells her that the dress and look was how Rebecca was costumed at the last Manderley ball.  Mrs De Winter is in tears and horrified at her gaffe and realises that Mrs Danvers has set her up to make this horrible mistake.   She does not understand why, and is upset that Maxim has reacted so violently. She refuses to come downstairs at first… Beatrice tells people that she feels ill, and tries to persuade her to put on an ordinary gown and join the party, but Mrs De Winter feels that she does not have the upper class confidence to do this.

Eventually after a lot of tears, she manages to face the ball.  She still cannot fathom why Mrs Danvers hates her so much, even if the housekeeper loved Rebecca....

 Maxim avoids her, and she takes part in the dancing,  but she cannot convince herself now that her marriage is not a failure. 

Rebecca Part VI

Mrs De Winter overhears Maxim telling off Mrs Danvers for allowing Jack Favell, Rebecca's cousin to visit the house.  She has met him a few days earlier and not liked him, as he seems vulgar and coarse... and he does not seem the type of man to be related to the elegant Rebecca.  But she has been afraid to let Maxim know that she has met him.  She fears talking to him about Rebecca. 

 Shortly afterwards, one of their guests suggests that the De Winters should revive the costume ball at Manderley.  Maxim finds the idea irritating and boring  but Mrs De Winter tries to get enthused about it, hoping that she will seem more like a normal mistress of Manderley if she can help to arrange a big social event.  

However  the organisation is largely done by Mrs Danvers and the servants and Mrs De Winter finds herself getting in the way.  She tries to sound more eager, telling Maxim that she will have a wonderful costume.. but she can't think of anything.  Then Mrs Danvers suggests that she copies one of the pictures in the gallery of one of the De Winter ancestors, a young girl in a white dress.  Mrs De Winter and her lady's maid conspire together to get the costume done in London..... and keep it a secret...

Rebecca Part V

 Mrs De Winter finds it hard to fit into her life at Manderley.  She tries to befriend Mrs Danvers but the housekeeper is cool and distant.  She begins to worry that Maxim is less and less interested in her, and that he is preoccupied with running his estate and remembering Rebecca.  She tries awkwardly to "talk naturally" to people about her husband's first wife, but only succeeds in feeling more uncomfortable.  People tell her how beautiful and charming Rebecca was, and even the shy Frank Crawley says that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

She is not used to country life and doesn't care for the sort of horsey sporty lifestyle that Beatrice seems to enjoy.. and she feels excluded from managing the house..  Maxim doesn't seem to care if she leaves the housekeeping to Mrs. Danvers, but he does seem irritated by his new wife's shyness.  

When Maxim is away in London for a couple of days, Beatrice calls to invite her to drive to see Maxim's elderly grandmother who lives in a house not too far away.  Mrs. De Winter finds the elderly lady hard to talk to.... She is forgetful and has a full time nurse.  The visit ends in disaster when the old lady becomes confused and asks for Rebecca and is unable to recognise her new granddaughter in law.  Beatrice is embarrased and upset at the scene... and both are relieved to escape from the house.  But it leaves Mrs De Winter wondering if she will ever fit into the family.  

Rebecca Part IV

Maxim and the companion marry and go on honeymoon.  After several weeks, they return in early summer to England and travel to Manderley.

The young Mrs De Winter is nervous of the place, and finds that it is even bigger than she imagined and has a large staff.... and knows that she's not accustomed even to staying in large country houses nor to managing a large staff of servants.

The two senior servants are Frith, the elderly butler and Mrs Danvers the middle aged housekeeper.  Mrs De Winter likes Frith but feels uneasy and nervous with Mrs Danvers who seems rather unfriendly.  Maxim seems different when they return.  Having been a warm and affectionate husband abroad, he seems to take up his routine life managing the estate and leaving his wife to make her own life.  Mrs De Winter is unnerved by paying calls on the local gentry but it is a part of country social life that she cannot avoid.  She is rather shocked at the expensive way they live, the waste of food, and the fact that she's expected to have a lady's maid... 

Maxim seems impatient with his wife's shyness, her fear of the servants and seems to ignore her more and more.  She meets the estate's agent, the shy unattractive bachelor Frank Crawley, and then meets one of Maxs few relatives, his sister Beatrice... who comes for a visit. 

Beatrice is hearty and horsey and blunt and tactless but Mrs De Winter senses her good nature.  However she is rather shocked when Beatrice tells her that Mrs Danvers "simply adored Rebecca".  

She has begun to fear Rebecca's memory more and more, and to feel that perhaps Maxim did marry her because he wanted a companion but that he does not love her as he cared for his first wife. 

Rebecca Part III

 As Mrs Van Hopper recovers the companion grows more unhappy.  She has fallen in love with Maxim, but he is too old, too well off and grand, to pay much attention to a "child" like her... and she's afraid that her employer will find out that she has been spending her time with him... 

Then Mrs Van Hopper gets a wire to say that her daughter has to return to America, and she decides to go back with her, so she urges her companion to get their things packed and to plan for a voyage to the US.  The companion is very upset, since she knows she may not even have time to say goodbye to him.  She manages to find a few minutes to go to his suite and tells him that they are going to America and wont be back in Europe for some time.. and he takes her breath away by asking her to marry him.  She is shocked as she never seriously believed that he might be attracted to her, and while she regards herself as a cut above Mrs Van Hopper socially, she knows that she's not on the same level as him, in terms of class.    Amazed but happy, she accepts his proposal.  He suggests that they marry quickly and privately in France and go on honeymoon to Italy. 

Mrs Van Hopper is not pleased to find that her companion is leaving her at such short notice and is making a marriage far above what might be expected.  She reminds her that she has always been shy and awkward and asks how she thinks she'll manage to become the hostess in a grand home like Manderley.  She further upsets her by a spiteful parting remark that Maxim is clearly marrying again so suddenly because he is desperately missing his wife and wants someone to look after him and be a companion to him in England.....

Rebecca Part II

 The young companion meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy upper class Englishman who comes to stay at their hotel in Monte.  Mrs Van Hopper is thrilled that there is someone socially grand staying there, and in her pushy manner, she scrapes acquaintance with him.

He is polite but stiff and clearly not pleased by Mrs Van Hopper's behaviour.  The companion is attracted by him.  He is suave, and handsome, if over 40.  She learns that he owns a large grand house, Manderley, in Cornwall, and she remembers reading about it as a child and wishing she could visit it... 

Mrs Van Hopper catches a bad cold and ends up confined to bed for a week or two and during that time, the companion starts to become friendly with Maxim.  She has learned from her employer that he is a widower, that his wife was drowned less than a year ago in the sea in Cornwall and that he was said to be passionately in love with his wife.  During their outings, the companion tells him about her own father, who has died and how she is on her own in the world.  Although she is of respectable middle class birth, she's conscious that she's much less grand than the De Winter family, who are landed gentry... and she does not expect him to take her very seriously, especially as she is shy and gauche and not that long out of school. 

He is at times rather cool with her and she wonders if he is still missing his wife and she tries to warn herself against becoming infatuated with him.

Rebecca Part I

 Im re reading Rebecca the most famous work by Daphne Du Maurier.  I've read almost all her books and they vary a good deal in quality.  

Rebecca is loosely based on Jane Eyre, a Gothic novel where a young girl marries an older man who seems to have something sinister in his past.  

The heroine is famously not named in the book.  Du Maurier did not give her a name which emphasises her shyness and lack of a strong personality.  Mrs De Winter is only 19 or so and when the novel opens she's living in Monte Carlo as the companion of a rich American woman Mrs Van Hopper.  Mrs Van Hopper is something of a caricature American, stupid, vulgar and not very nice.  Mrs De Winter comes from a "good" middle class family but is left alone after the death of her parents and has to earn her own living.  She is so shy and awkward that she dislikes having so socialise with her boss's friends and feels that they patronise her.    She is not very happy in her job, feeling also that because of her lack of wealth, even the hotel servants think poorly of her.   She wishes that she was older  and more confident. 

Lindsey Davies

 Lindsey Davies was born in Birmingham in 1949 and is  a writer of historical detective stories.  Like Rosemary Rowe, her novels are set in the days of the Roman Empire.  However her first series of novels - the detective being a former soldier  Marcus Didius Falco, are set in Rome, though she has also set a new series in Britain. 

Marcus is not from a well to do family, but he has a ladyfriend, Helena, who is from a rich background.  He undertakes jobs finding out things, and gets involved with murders.  

Davies went to Oxford and did a degree in literature.  She then worked in the British civil service for many years but wrote historical novels in her spare time.  When she began to have some success with her writing she left the Civil service and became a full time writer. 

I hope to write some blogs on some of her novels......

Hazel Holt

 Hazel Holt was a well known light novelist, who died a few years ago in 2015.  She was born in 1928 but didn't start writing novels until she was in her 60s.  She was educated at a good school in Birmingham and went to college.  After college she worked in the the African Institute which had  been set up for the study of African languages.... She met Barbara Pym there, who became a novelist famous for writing about older women... Pym became a good friend and later Hazel wrote her biography. She also wrote television criticism....

She married in her 20s and had  a son Tom, who later became a novelist, writing science fiction and "Mapp and Lucia" novels.  She started to write crime novels where the detective is a middle aged widow, Sheila Malory, living in a small town in Devon.  Sheila has a son and has a career as a writer but she finds that through her day to day activities, doing charity work and keeping house in a small country town, she gets involved in detective investigation.   Her son is a lawyer so she has access to legal knowledge and to the police. 

The Sheila Malory books are a light easy read, about an ordinary woman, and have a good deal of comedy about her many pets... I wish there were more of them.....Sheila leads a quiet but pleasant life in her small town, writing literary criticism, helping with charity work and going to church.  One of her friends, Rosemary, has an elderly mother, Mrs Dudley who domineers over the  little towns social gatherings although she is very old. 

Possibly her friendship with Pym, who was I think one of the first writers to write about older people... gave her the idea of writing about an older woman as detective....

Antonia By Brenda Jagger

 I've just been re reading a book I read years ago, but found hard to find again, as I could not remember the author.  It is called Antonia, and is set in Rome in 69 AD which was known as the "Year of the Four Emperors".  After Nero,  the Empire was claimed by Galba, and within a year there were coups and overall 4 emperors ruled.

Brenda Jagger wrote this novel in the late 1970s and then wrote several other family sagas set in Victorian Yorkshire.  She was from Yorkshire and had worked as a probation officer...

Although Im not an expert on Roman history I enjoyed this book and it seems to be quite an accurate historical novel. 

Antonia is the daughter of a wealthy patrician family and a relation of the Emperor.  Although she is quite young and still has to mature, she has already been engaged more than once; her family arrange alliances for their children in order to further the family's interests and arrange divorces if the marriage proves unsuitable for improving the family fortunes.

  Her brother Clarus however has insisted on marrying for love, to a girl who is flighty and unfaithful.  She is a cousin of the family and does not love Clarus.. but she and her mother have been living on charity as poor relations.   Clarus and Antonia's father go to war in Judea, leaving the women of the family to manage their business interests in Rome.. which was considered more of a woman's role.  Antonia's mother manages the household, the social events like attending chariot racing and parties and the family businesses.. with efficiency but Antonia has always found her cold and seemingly obsessed with money and social position.  

During the course of the novel Antonia falls in love, experiences the death of one of her suitors in one of the coups, and also fears being murdered or possibly raped when soldiers are running riot.  She takes a lover, takes care of him when he is wounded and learns about running a household and managing the family's properties.   She also finds that her seemingly cold mother was once deeply in love with one of the claimants to the Imperial throne.  She loses the man she loved but finds a new husband whom she is fond of....so it is a muted happy ending.....

Cousin Kate Part VI

 Kate begins to feel an attraction towards Philip Broome, who is clearly a much more solid character than his cousin Torquil.  But she feels that Philip may think poorly of her and that he feels that she is a "hanger on" of Lady Broome's.  

She is aware that as a penniless girl, it is unlikely that a man of her own class would want to marry her.. and that as a girl who has not many accomplishments, she will not be likely to get a good job as a governess.. 

Lady Broome begins to hint that marriage to Torquil would be a solution to her problems..  Kate is not sure why her aunt is willing to allow her only son to marry a girl who does not have grand connections or a fortune but concludes that Lady Broome is a controlling mother and wants to continue as an active mistress of Staplewood.  So she hopes to marry her son off to a girl who is not willing to argue with her and will let her go on ruling the house and estate, rather than choosing an heiress. 

Kate indicates that she does not love Torquil and would not be happy to make a marriage of convenience to him....

Cousin Kate Part V

 Kate has a horrible experience, when she finds an animal who has been caught in a snare, and been gruesomely mangled... Dr Delabole tries to persuade her that it was probably village boys but she is not sure.  She is upset that  her nurse has not replied to her letters, and she seems to have no real means of escape from Staplewood.  However, she has grown fond of Sir Timothy and she feels a certain gratitude towards her Aunt Minerva..and pity for Torquil.

Meanwhile Philip's presence continues to irritate Lady Broome..

Gurney tells the family that his youngest sister, Dolly is now engaged to a suitable young man in London.. and Torquil who had fancied himself in love with her,  becomes angry and sullen.  However, Kate realises that he has recently been attracted to her - and she feels uneasy.  She talks to Lady Broome, believing that her aunt would not wish for the marriage between a penniless girl and her son, but she finds that Lady Broome is disposed to favour the match.  

Cousin Kate Part IV

 Kate's feelings of isolation continue.. when after a dinner party, she hears noises outside and finds that she can't get out of her bedroom.  She tries to talk to her aunt about it, but for once her Aunt Minerva is rather sharp tongued towards her.  

Torquil seems restless and difficult.. Kate wonders if he has been drinking or if there is something more serious going on.  

At this stage, the Broomes have a visitor, Sir Timothy's nephew Philip, who is the son of Julian, the younger son of the house.  Philip has a small estate some distance away, and is close to his uncle but it becomes clear that Lady Broome dislikes him very much and he dislikes her.  Kate feels uneasy in his presence.. because she thinks that  he suspects her of scheming to marry Torquil for ambitious reasons.  

Philip is the heir to the title and to the Staplewood estate, after Torquil.  He is also good friends with Gurney Templecombe, their neighbour.   Kate's maid tells her that everyone likes Mr Philip and wishes that he was the heir, more than Mr Torquil. 

Cousin Kate Part III

 Kate enjoys being at Staplewood at first, as she has always been busy with her duties.. and it is pleasant to be able to relax.  Prior to being a governess, she had looked after her father during his time in the army, "following the drum".. buying food, and making arrangements for her father and keeping house for him after he retired from army life.  

However, she finds the leisurely life at Staplewood a little boring after the first few weeks and wishes that she had something to do.  Her aunt is busy with running the big house, doing charity work and helping to run the estate as the elderly baronet is now too frail to take an active interest in his farms.  

Lady Broome is not bored at Staplewood, and can't understand Kate finding it dull.   Torquil is also rather bored and restless and does not seem to have any friends in the neighbourhood, and his mother tells Kate that he is socially above the country gentry who lives around them and that the Broome family dont mix with them that much.  Kate is a little amused at her aunt's snobbery but is lonely, since Torquil is not much of a companion for her.  He is very good  looking but he's 5 years her junior, and is frequently sulky and bad tempered.  They go riding together but he does not seem to enjoy anything very much.  

On a ride, they meet neighbours, the Templecombes, who are going to London soon for the Season.  Dolly, the youngest of several daughters is  a very pretty girl and Torquil is clearly a little infatuated with her.  Gurney, her older brother, seems pleasant and well bred but he does not seem to like Torquil much,  Kate writes to Sarah, her nurse and becomes worried when she does not receive a reply but Lady Broome reminds her that Sarah is probably too busy to write back and that she's not much of a writer.  Kate feels increasingly isolated since she does not want to stay indefinitely at Staplewood but her aunt seems to take it for granted that she will.  However with no  job, and without any contact with Sarah, she is not sure where she can go. 

Cousin Kate part II

 Kate finds it hard to find a job as governess, and Sarah Nidd decides to try and contact her charge's family.  The Malvern family cut off her father when he married a girl of lesser birth and fortune, and Kate does not want to ask them for help.  But Sarah writes to her father's half sister, Minerva, who married a wealthy Baronet, Sir Timothy Broome.  

Soon afterwards Lady Broome arrives in London and persuades her half neice to come and visit her country home for a time.. Kate insists that she wants to support herself, and Lady Broome suggests that she come to their house, Staplewood, and later, she can find a job.  Minerva has married well but her husband is elderly, many years her senior and frail.  They have one son, Torquil who is heir to the baronetcy.  Lady Broome says she is a lonely woman, who wishes to have a daughter.  

They travel to Market Hayborough, where the Broomes' home is located and Kate can see that her aunt is very proud of the fine house.  Sir Timothy seems gentle and kind and Torquil, her cousin, is handsome but rather socially awkward.  Lady Broome tells her that Torquil has a frail constitution and has never been to school.  Dr Delabole looks after the elderly baronet and his son.. and lives in the house. 

While it is a fine house, it seems rather unhomelike.  Lady Broome seems a little distant from her husband and Torquil does not seem to be warmly attached to either of his parents. 

Cousin Kate (Georgette Heyer)

 This is one of Georgette Heyer's last novels, written in the 1970s.. when Heyer was in poorer health and writing less.  She tried her hand at a Gothic novel, as these became quite popular in the 70s.  The style of Gothic novel was usually set in the English countryside, in a large country house or castle.  Like Rebecca, it tended to be about a young impoverished but well bred girl who comes to a house either as a governess or as the wife of the owner, and who finds the place sinister, isolated and scary.  

Victoria Holt wrote several of these, (this was Eleanor Hibberts pseudonym,  the author best known as Jean Plaidy) and they were usually about a young wife who becomes scared of her distant and forbidding husband and discovers that there is some frightening secret in his past.  Terrifying things happen and she begins to believe that her husband may be trying to kill her or that he has killed a previous wife or mistress. 

Heyer was a more comedic writer and the Gothic wasn't really her style but while many fans dislike it, I enjoy Cousin Kate.  It starts with the arrival of Kate Malvern, a young English girl of good birth but no money, in London.  Kate has become a governess on the death of her father, and has been dismissed from her job because her employer's brother in law tried to kiss her.  She is a very pretty girl, and has had trouble finding work because  her youth and good looks make employers wary of her. 

Kate goes to London to find refuge with her old nurse, Sarah, who has married a man with a modest but successful carrier's business.  She loves her nurse and grows fond of Sarah's new family, the Nidds, who run the business... but when she tries to find a new genteel job, she has no luck. 

End Part I. 

Dorothy Parker

 Dorothy Parker was an American writer and wit.  She was famous for her wry poems about modern life, bitter jokes and also for being a left wing activist.  She was born in 1893, to a Jewish father and a mother who had Scottish ancestry.  Her family lived in New York and were comfortably off.  Her mother died when she was small and her father remarried.  Parker claimed to dislike her stepmother and to accuse her of unkindness but in fact her childhood was mostly a comfortable one.  She attended a Catholic school and was to be ambivalent about  her Jewish ancestry.  She was born a Rothschild but when she became a writer she used her first husbands name Parker as her writing name.  She claimed that she had only married to get rid of her surname. 

Dorothy wanted to be a writer and began to publish some of her short poems.  She got regular work for the smart New York magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair and in 1917, she got married.  Her husband Edwin Parker, was a stockbroker, who left to serve in the Army...  Their marriage fell apart and they divorced later, in 1928.   Dorothy became friends with various other American wits and writers who met regularly in the Algonquin Hotel.. and she had a barbed tongue.  When Calvin Coolidge, the very silent dull President died, Dorothy quipped, "How can they tell?"  

She mused on suicide a lot and some of her comic poems were about this... 

Beds and Blue jeans a Country Music story

 Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America (Pre Covid)....  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

Rough Music By Nadine Sutton

 It is a story set in the USA, in the late 1970s.    It is a story about work and life, as well as love.   It doesn't have a happy ending.   Its more about finding a satisfying life, than about love or marriage... 

I’ve based it on what I’ve read about country and rock singers in the days when touring was a constant part of their lives.  It was hard work and took its toll on the marriages of many singers.   Women were just beginning to look for more in their lives than marriage but marriage to rock and country singers was likely to be an up and down ride for both genders. 
 

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

Sayers new life Part II

 In her letters to John Cornous, Dorothy discussed the possibility of his helping her to find a new man, and reminded him that she wanted to be married rather than engage in another relationship.  She may have felt that outside Bloomsbury, there might not be many men at that time who would take on a wife who already had a child by someone else.  However, she did meet "Mac" Fleming, a journalist, who had been in the Army and who was presently writing on sports and motor racing..  He was several years' Dorothy's senior and was divorced from his wife..  He had been in the Boer war and then in World War one.. and he suffered from health issues relating to his war service.  Although it was not apparent at the time, he also suffered from PTSD.. 

He had left his wife and children and ceased to send money for them, and his wife had sued for divorce.  Dorothy was probably not deeply in love with him but at first they got on well and he seemed to be all right with her previous relationship and the existence of her son.  However Dorothy told Ivy that while she hoped to adopt John Anthony, and bring him to her home later, at present, she and Mac were both working full time and did not have the space or time to look after the child.   Ivy lived in the country and could give him full time attention, and she had other children living with her who provided him with companionship.  Mac seems to have agreed to adopt John later on, and he met the child.

He and Dorothy moved into her flat in Bloomsbury and they settled down to married life.   He was fond of cookery and good food which was another interest they had in common.  He helped Dorothy with her books as he knew about PR.. 

However he and Dorothy were not able to marry in church, due to his divorce.  They married in a registry office and she took him home to meet her parents.  They liked him.  He was affable and good natured and he seemed very fond of Dorothy, taking care of her when she was ill and supporting her in her work. 

The first years of their marriage seemed happy.  Dorothy was working very hard, and Mac also had his work and helping his wife.   They frequented race tracks following motor and motorbike racing venues as this was an interest they shared.  They also enjoyed the cinema and the music hall though he did not really share her more academic interests.  

Dorothy went on with writing the Wimsey books, gradually making her hero a deeper and more developed character.  The books sold well but she kept up her job at Bensons for some years.  She liked working in town but there was a lot of pressure in her life, especially as Mac had arrears of income tax to pay off.  His health was uncertain.. he had been left with stomach problems after his war service and he became increasingly depressed at his poor health.  Dorothy was reluctant to bring her son into their home as she felt that Mac would not be able to put up with a small child..  They also often had elderly relatives staying.  Mac was generally a "good husband" but as time passed and he became more depressed he began to drink more, which did not help his physical health problems. 

Sayers new Life

 Dorothy had a lot of sadness and depression in the year or so following the birth of her son.  She had to give the baby to her cousin, and worried about him, although she knew that Ivy was a loving and experienced foster mother.  

She could not talk to anyone except Ivy about the baby, and her relationship with Bill had come to an end.  He was unable to do anything to help financially and soon moved on to other relationships and Dorothy gave up hope that he would take any real interest in his son.  She met John Cornous again, when he returned from America and for a time she wrote to him, as he was someone that she could talk to about her child.  However Cornous was still a selfish and difficult man.  He had married an American woman during his stay in the US and Dorothy was hurt that after his insistence that he did not believe in marriage, he had chosen to marry another woman.   

Their correspondence was not very satisfying as he was annoyed that she had become Bill's mistress after refusing to be his.  

During her pregnancy Dorothy had been working on her second Novel, Clouds of Witness, and had had to re write some of it, while very preoccupied with her personal problems but she was always a dedicated worker.  The novel was much more emotional than her first, introducing the reader to Gerald, Peter's brother and Mary, his sister whose fiance was found dead.  It covered the love affairs of Mary and Gerald, and culminated in a trial in the House of Lords. 

Sayers Secret Life

 Dorothy was horrified when she became pregnant and then learned that her boyfriend was not free to marry her.  She had just found a reasonably well paying job with prospects, but she was far from rich... and if she lost her job, she would not be able to support a baby.  Bill was also unable to help with money.   She decided not to tell her parents about this as it would probably shock them very much.  She knew they would be willing to help but her father was a clergyman and also far from well to do.  She decided to keep the baby's existence a secret and to support the child on her own, if she could. 

Bill's wife proved willing to help her with managing the birth and keeping it secret.. and Dorothy took some time off work to go out of London and have the baby in a private nursing home. She was tempted to tell her mother but refrained, believing that it was her problem and her burden to carry and that she should not shock and upset her mother and father. 

Her cousin Ivy (together with Ivy's mother) lived in the country and made a modest living looking after children whose parents were unable to care for them, so towards the end of her pregnancy, Dorothy decided to ask Ivy for help.   She knew that Ivy was an affectionate capable foster mother and would be good at looking after the baby, but she was part of the family so there was a slight risk of the secret slipping out to her parents.  Just before the birth she asked Ivy if she could take on another child, who would "not have any legal father" - but not mentioning that she was the mother.  

In early January 1924,  Sayers' son John Anthony was born and she told Ivy the truth, trusting her not to be judgemental and to keep the baby's parents secret.  After handing over the child, she returned to her job at Bensons. 

Sayers In London next part

 Dorothy became friendly with Bill White, a motor mechanic who came from a middle class family but was finding it hard to find steady work.  He got odd jobs selling cars or fixing them.. and had been visiting friends who lived in the same building as Dorothy.  She brought him home to meet her parents but while she had grown fond of him, it does not seem as if the affair was very serious on her part, but she was lonely and had been upset by the end of her relationship with Cournous, who had treated her badly.  He had aroused her sexually yet frustrated her, and his behaviour had done a lot of damage to her self esteem.

She liked Bill, who was good natured, and unpretentious.  He enjoyed the cinema, he taught her about motor bikes and cars and she was happy to take him to dances at Bensons.  However, having been involved sexually with Cornous, it was probably inevitable that her relationship with Bill would quickly become sexual.. in spite of her religious scruples.  

She rushed into what she saw as a light relationship which would cheer her up after Cournos' condescending behaviour and desertion.  Within a few months, however she accidentally became pregnant, in spite of using precautions.  She then found that Bill was a married man, who was in an on and off relationship with his wife.   Bill was far from well off and could not marry her..  and she realised that for a third time she had made a bad mistake in getting involved with a man. 

Sayers In London Spoilers for Whose Body

 Dorothy enjoyed her time in Bensons, the advertising agency, at first, though she later came to be dubious about the morality of advertising..  She loved to write, and at the time it was about clever writing, making slogans, and thinking up ideas to promote products.  She wrote copy for Colman's Mustard and may have invented the slogan "It Pays to Advertise".  She also wrote copy for Guinness.

She kept very busy with her work and her writing, believing that if she could do well out of "Lord Peter" books, she could eventually quit advertising and become a full time writer.  However her affair with Cournous was a difficult one and depressed her.   Eric Whelpton had flirted with her but he had made it clear that he was not seriously interested in her.. whereas Cornous did engage in a deeper way with her and she half believed that she might persuade him to marry her, although he claimed to be opposed to marriage.   He seems to have felt that he would only commit to her up to a certain point, and that he still did not wish to marry, but that if Dorothy was willing to become his mistress he might consider marriage. 

However he did not take into account the fact that outside Bloomsbury, most people did not agree with the new freedoms, especially for women.   Dorothy was cautious because she was essentially conservative and too religious to think of having an affair without a great deal of thought and stress.  Eventually she broke off with him, because she could see no future in the relationship, and Cornous went to America to promote his novels there.  

Sayers had written her first Lord Peter novel, "Whose Body" which was a little clumsy but well written and an enjoyable read.  Peter becomes involved in a murder case when his mother's architect, Mr Thipps, finds a dead body in his bathroom.  It seems that the body is that of a missing Jewish financier, Sir Reuben Levy, whose wife was a friend of Peter's ditzy, charming mother, the society hostess who is the Dowager Duchess of Denver.   Peter realizes that the body is not that of Levy, because he is not circumcised but the case takes quite a complicated investigation.  Peter finds that the murderer is a well known neurologist Julian Freke who was once in love with Lady Levy.. but he has substituted the body of a pauper for that of Levy, and dissected the victim's body. 

The novel did not sell as well as Dorothy hoped but it was a start and in her next book she created a case set in Yorkshire, and involving members of Peter's family,  his sister Mary and his brother the Duke of Denver.  In this novel,  there is a shooting party.. and Denis Cathcart is found dead, he was the fiancé of Mary.. and the Duke is accused of his murder but refuses to say where he was during the night. 

By now Dorothy was finished with John Cornous but she met a very different man, Bill White and "chummed up" with him...