Pin to See the Peepshow IV

Julia finally realises that Herbert is dead and that Leo killed him. She is then questioned by the police. She tries to shield Leo, but it is pretty clear that he was the killer. But she is considered to be the one who incited him to kill her husband. She has some well to do friends, such as her employers at the dress shop, who support her, and pay for a lawyer, but at the trial, things go against her. Leo is obviously guilty. But Julia did not know he would try and kill Herbert. Leo says himself that he never took seriously Julia's letters where she claimed she was trying to kill her husband. He knew that she was just exaggerating and saying silly things to get his attention. She insists on going into the box, which her barrister advises against. Unfortunately her performance there shows her as inconsistent and often telling lies. She and Leo are both found guilty.

Emily - a Story of the Brontes Part IV

Emily hated talking to people, so she tried to ignore him, but he coughed and said "I hope I don't disturb you, Miss." She mumbled something and went to the bookshelves in search of some more of Byron's poetry. "Do you like to read then?" he said, in a voice that had a Yorkshire accent. He clearly was not a close friend of the Heaton family, but he was not a servant, either. She didn't reply. She hastily took some books from the shelf and scurried out of the room. In the hallway, one of the maids was polishing a table. "Are you leaving then, Miss Emily? I hope you found some books." "Yes, I did," she replied gruffly. "It's a long walk for you, would you like a cup of tea before you go, Miss?" Emily shook her head and hurried to the door. She walked back faster than she had ever done before. It alarmed her to have to talk to people, though she knew the maid well enough, after the girl had been working in the house for a year. She wondered who the young man was. She had never seen him before. He was clearly from Yorkshire but did he come from the Haworth area? She felt a twinge of curiosity. If he were a local lad, she would have seen him at church or in the village. She liked at times to talk to Tabby of the local people, and their histories. Tabby had known the village for a lifetime, and could tell stories of the farmers who lived in isolated places and their feuds and quarrels. She liked tales of conflict.

A Pin to see the Peepshow III

Julia's relationship with Leo is not all that easy. She worries that as she's some years his senior, and not able to be with him much, he will get bored with her. She starts to make silly remarks in her letters, saying that she wishes that Herbert was dead or that she was going to kill him. Leo gets cross with her. She tries to persuade him to help her find a job abroad, and she could then be with him. But she is still married to Herbert. They pursue the affair, and it seems to be more of a pain than a pleasure to Julia. Then she becomes pregnant. Leo helps her to find an abortionist and she goes to see her. When she gets home, she finds that Herbert's sister, a difficult woman, who has been staying with them has had her dog put to sleep because he was ill. Upset, she collapses and her miscarriage comes on. Herbert thinks that it is a natural miscarriage caused by grief, and he tells her that he will get rid of his sister. Julia's friend Anne who is studying to be a doctor, realises that Julia has deliberately aborted her pregnancy. She keeps quiet about it, but tells her that Herbert is not that strong, and she should be careful how she treats him. Julia is getting desperate. She can't understand why Herbert won't give her a divorce, when they are both unhappy in their marriage. She's afraid that Leo is going to get fed up and leave her. Then one evening, while he is on shore leave, Julia and Herbert go to a charity theatre performance given by the business that he works for. On their way home, someone emerges from the shadows and attacks Herbert. She realises that it is Leo. She is horrified, and can't believe it but her husband is dead.

Dennis Locorriere Dies

Just heard that Dennis has died, at the age of 76. He had lived in the UK for many years and I saw him playing in London a few years ago. He was great. He had a wonderful voice and wrote some of his own songs. He was the lead singer of Dr Hook and the Medicine show, which made it big in the 70s, with the hit, Sylvia's Mother. They also did a lot of pop ballads. They had gone bankrupt during the 1970s, because they partied a lot, and the pop songs were big hits and greatly improved their finances. Dennis was born in Union City, New Jersey in 1949. His parents split up, and he was raised by his grandmother. He joined up with Ray Sawyer, from the South and they formed a band which played in bars. Dennis' voice was beautiful and he sang lead, though Ray also sang lead on a few songs. The band sang Shel Silverstein songs, but later, when they went bankrupt, they became more commercial.

Emily Part III

The journey home was exhausting and sad. A letter had arrived before they set out to say that Aunt Branwell had now died. But the girls pressed on. Charlotte planned to remain for a short time and then return to Brussels as the Hegers wanted her back. Emily announced that she was going to stay and keep house for her father. She was not going back to the school. Charlotte however was determined to return as soon as possible. Emily took up the reins of running the house, working happily with Tabby. Mr Bronte was pleased to see her but he like her was a natural recluse. "It's so good to have you back, my dear", he said when Charlotte and Anne had left. Anne was still at the Robinsons' house and she had managed to get a job for Branwell as a tutor there. "I'm glad to be back, Papa. Brussels is a hateful city." "But you did so well, there, Emily. M Heger spoke highly of you and you've learned so much more French and German." "Oh I'll keep up my studies here, and write a little." "Of course, my dear." Patrick decided to teach Emily to shoot, as he had always kept a pistol with him after the Luddite riots years ago. She enjoyed it. She was happy now, working in the kitchen, walking on the moors, and writing at night. She enjoyed baking and studying German while her bread was in the oven. The following day, she decided to walk the 2 miles to Ponden Hall, a neighbour's house, which had a good library. She borrowed books from the Mechanics Institute as well, but she liked going to Ponden Hall. When she arrived, she was dismayed to find that the servant told her there was someone in the library. She rarely saw or spoke to the family when she visited. But after a long walk, she wanted to borrow some reading matter. So she took a deep breath and walked in. To her surprise, it was a young man, dressed in a rather shabby suit. She had never seen him before.

A Pin to see the Peepshow II

Julia and Herbert get married and he joins up, but has a safe posting. She goes on working, and is doing well at her job. She is pleased with life and delighted to have her own flat. But when Herbert comes back from the war, she begins to find him irritating. She meets a young man who is a sailor, and who has been going out with Elsa. They start an affair. Leo is away at sea a lot so they write to each other. Julia begins to long for escape from her marriage and they begin to imagine ways that they could be together. They don't have much time together. Herbert becomes aware of the relationship and begins to give his wife a hard time. She and he quarrel and Leo gets involved as well. He gets angry with Herbert for being unkind to his wife and for not having the decency to offer her a divorce.

A Pin to See the Peepshow

Jesse's novel is closely based on the story of Edith Thompson. Her chief character, Julia Almond, is a pretty girl who lives in East London. She has ambitions, but her parents are not very successful in making a living. She get a job in a ladies' clothes shop run by a couple of aristocratic women who for various reasons need to earn money. Julia is bright and good at selling and starts off doing errands and helping out. She has potential and her employers think of promoting her to be a buyer in due course. It is just before World War One, and Julia starts dating a young man who is killed in the early stages. Then her father dies and her mother has no money, so she ends up letting some relatives move into their house to share expenses. Julia does not make enough money to keep herself and her mother. She has to share a room with her cousin Elsa, whom she dislikes. She is increasingly unhappy, then Herbert Starling, a neighbour, begins to take an interest in her. He is a widower, and older than she is. He works in a gents' outfitters in the West End. He asks Julia to marry him. She is tempted because she hates living with her uncle and aunt and cousin, and would be glad to have a home of her own.

F Tennyson Jesse

Jesse was born in 1888, to a clergyman and his wife. She was related to the poet Tennyson. Her family moved around a lot, abroad, and she was educated in different places. She went to a school of art in Cornwall, when she was 18 and she did some painting. She then became a journalist and had a special interest in criminology. She wrote several books about murder trials and she also wrote novels. One of her novels is A Pin to See the Peepshow. It was based on the Edith Thompson case in the 1920s. Edith Thompson was a young woman who was in a dull marriage. She fell in love with a younger man, and they had an affair. He was a sailor, and they wrote letters to each other. Bywaters, her lover, then killed Edith's husband. She was accused of inciting him to murder her husband and was tried and executed, though she was not the one who committed the murder. M/F

That Lady

This is a Kate O'Brien novel that I haven't read for years and I can't get it to re read. It is a historical novel set in the times of Philip II, about Ana De Mendoza, a noblewoman who opposed him. Philip kept her in confinement for many years. It is basically an anti Fascist novel, about fighting tyranny. O'Brien spent time in Spain as a governess in her young days, and she loved Spain, but was anti Franco. She visited the country, but was unhappy at the Falangist government, just as she disliked De Valera's narrow puritanical Ireland.

Emily - A Story of the Brontes Part II

Emily hated the streets of Brussels. Walking on hard pavements, rather than the grass of the moors. More and more, she wanted to go home. She did not care for the elaborate Catholic churches, nor the narrow society of the English community in the city. But she knew she had to go back to the Pennsionnat. She could only escape for short times. So she retraced her steps. "There is a letter from Anne, dear," Charlotte said as she came into the dormitory. "I've saved it so we could both read it." Emily smiled and took off her cloak and bonnet. "That's good news. Let me sit down and we can be comfortable." Charlotte slit open the letter and with Emily leaning over her shoulder, they started to read. The letter was short, and shocking. Aunt Branwell was seriously ill. They should come home at once if they wanted to see her. "I'll go and see Madame. We will have to pack at once, Emmy." Emily sat on the bed. She was shaken but the truth was that she had never been close to her aunt. It seem as if she was not likely to recover. She sat there til Charlotte returned. Her sister was flurried and told Emily to start packing. "Madame says we must go at once. I am afraid we will not be away for long". "I will", Emily retorted. "If I go, I won't be back." "But we must come back. Come along, let's get our valises." Emily pulled out her valise from under the bed. She flung things in untidily, not folding her dresses or packing her boots nicely. The following morning, they left to drive to get the boat to England. Emily, Charlotte realised, had packed all her clothes and possessions. It was clear she wasn't coming back. Knowing how stubborn she was, she decided not to argue about it until they got home.

Peter Gilmore

Peter Gilmore is one of my favourite actors, and I was saddened some years ago when he died. While watching an old episode of the Bill, recently, I saw him again. I was as usual surprised by how good an actor he was. He was playing a man who had had a head injury which caused a personality change, and he was excellent. Gilmore was born in Germany, in 1931, but was brought up in Yorkshire. He wanted to be an actor and attended stage school for a time, but was expelled. He could sing as well as act and appeared in several stage musicals in the 50s and 60s. He also appeared in small roles in many of the Carry On films. He achieved TV stardom in the 1970's when he was cast as James Onedin in the Onedin Line. He was tall and handsome and rugged looking and he carried the series for many years, appearing in all 91 episodes. However, he did prefer stage work to film, and TV, and liked a live audience. He was very popular as James Onedin, a hard selfish man who founded his own shipping line. He was married twice, to Una Stubbs with whom he adopted a son, and then to Jan Waters. During the Onedin Line, he became involved with Anne Stallybrass who was playing his wife, Anne Onedin. They fell in love and lived together for some time, then in the 1980s, they got married and lived in Devon. He felt that playing James had typecast him, and taken over his life.. so he finished with the show in 1980 and took on other roles. He was in an episode of Heartbeat with his wife. He also had a character role in a series about a Zoo vet, (One by One) and in a drama called The Manions of America, with a young Pierce Brosnan. He died aged 81, in 2013.

Sara Paretsky (1947- )

Sara Paretsky is an American detective novelist. She was born in Iowa, and her father was a microbiologist. She attended University and studied political science and did an MBA. Her family life was not very happy. She lived in Chicago and married a professor of physics at the university there. She was involved in social work, and then began to write detective fiction. She created a character Victoria (Vic) Warshawski. Like Paretsky, Vic lives in Chicago. She studied law but then became a private detective. She married a lawyer but she and he began to diverge on political matters and they divorced. Vic is left wing and her ex husband was much more conservative. She is partly Jewish and she was involved in many liberal causes in her youth, such as demonstrating against the Vietnam war, and running an underground abortion network. She is independent and has no interest in being married again or having children. She is very physically active and takes a lot of risks, in pursuing her cases. Paretsky was one of the first to create a woman detective who is tough and able to fight and get involved in rough stuff, and look after herself. She is a bit too much of a card carrying left winger for my tastes but the stories are entertaining and a good read.

Emily story.

I've not been writing ficion for a long time, due to illness. But I hope to complete this story on Emily Bronte soon. I'll post in instalments.

Emily A story of the Brontes, by Nadine Sutton. Part I

"I don't want to go to Brussels, why should I? Take Anne." "Anne will have a turn later when we have a school. Emily, Papa won't let one of us go alone, and we need to learn more. Languages mostly." Charlotte sighed. She had come to realise that Emily was not as learned as she liked to make out. She had never been happy at school. And she was obstinate. She hated being away from Haworth. Charlotte herself loved their home but she longed to travel and learn as well. She had found the pensionnat in Brussels and wanted to go there but her father insisted that Emily should go as well. Emily sighed heavily and finally said, "Very well, I will go". However, in the next few months, she was not very cooperative. Papa had escorted them to Belgium and left them at the Pensionnat Heger. They were older than the girls at the school, being in their 20s. Emily disliked M and Madame Heger and the girls. She was not popular among the pupils either. Charlotte found the schoolgirls silly and vain but she did her best to get on with them. Emily hated Brussels almost as much as she had hated being away from Haworth in England. Charlotte tried taking her to parties and meals with the English community, but she would not go after a month or two. She sat silent and gloomy, and only talked a little with Mary and Martha Taylor. She was irritated by M Heger and Charlotte's dog like devotion to him. She quarrelled with him and defied him over her lessons. "How can you like him so much, Charlotte? He is an ugly cross little monster. And you sit with him and the dreadful wife each evening." Charlotte said nothing. Emily sighed, then put on her cloak and walked out. The girls were not supposed to go out alone, but she often walked around the city to tire herself out. She did not find it very interesting, and although she could now understand French fairly well, she did not find the inhabitants interesting either.

E Arnot Robertson

Eileen Robertson was born in 1903, in Surrey. Her father was a doctor and her family life was not very happy. She went to a good school and then went abroad to study for a couple of years in France. At the age of 19, she became a magazine journalist. She wanted to write, and in 1927, she married Henry Turner, who was secretary of the Empire Press Union. They adopted a son. She wrote several novels, including one set in Malaysia, which she had never visited. Another successful novel was Ordinary Families, which was set in the countryside, with a heroine Lalage, who comes from a family that loves boating. Her later novels did not do so well. She went on writing journalism, and enjoyed boating with her husband. However when he died in a boating accident, she committed suicide. I've just picked up a copy of Ordinary Familes, which has rather disappointed me. The book does not seem to have much of a plot, and the characters are snobbish and sailing obsessed. Not sure if I will finish it. Usually when I re read books I used to like, I still enjoy them, but this is an exception.

Last of Summer

This is one of Kate O'Brien's novels that I have not been able to get a copy of. I did read it some years ago. It is set in rural Ireland, just before World War II breaks out. The Kernahan family live a quiet life in a country village. They are dominated by Hannah, mother of the family. Angele Maury turns up to visit them. She is their cousin. Her father left Ireland years ago and married a French girl. Angele is an actress. Hannah is clearly not pleased to see her and does not like the way that her two sons are both attracted to their cousin. She like a lot of Irish people at the time, does not want to think about the possibility of war. She wants Ireland to remain neutral and to keep out of world problems. Angele being French is ready to go to war with the Germans. She wants to go back to France as soon as possible, to take her part in the conflict. Hannah is annoyed when her sons quarrel over Angele, and when they want to join up and fight the Nazis. But they go ahead anyway. Angele leaves and goes back home.

As Music and Splendour By Kate O'Brien

This is one of Kate O'Brien's last novels. It was published in 1958 and afterwards she worked on another novel called Constancy, but only managed to write a few chapters. In her later years, she had poor health and also was a heavy drinker and it affected her work. She did not produce as much writing as some novelists. The book is set in Victorian times, and is about 2 young Irish women who both have beautiful voices. As young girls, Rose and Claire are offered a chance to train as opera singers. They are not from well off families, both are simple Irish country girls. But the chance of being successful singers is a great thing for both of them, as it means they will be able to earn a good living. As they grow up they begin to live abroad, mostly in Italy. They embark on love affairs. Rose has several male lovers and Clare discovers that she prefers women. She has a passionate affair with another singer Luisa. The book does not have much plot but it is readable. Both girls are Catholics but they make their own decisions about what sexual relationships they want to have. The book is more open about lesbianism than her other works.. many of which were banned in Ireland.