V names

V is a slightly more popular letter for starting a name.. than the ones like X Y and Z. Vera used to be quite well liked, and it means truth. Verity also means truth, and was quite popular among the Puritans, who liked to give "virtue names" personifying the Christian virtues. Vanessa was a name invented by the writer Jonathan Swift, who used it for his woman friend Esther Vanhomrigh. He took the Van from her surname and Essa from Esther. It is still quite well used. Valeria is a Latinate name which means healthy and nowadays it is usually given as Valerie. It can be shortened to Val. Valentine can be used for men or women, it also means strong and healthy. It is the name of a saint. It was the name taken by the life partner of the novelist, Sylvia Townsend Warner, who wrote Lolly Willows. Her companion was born Mary Mcrory but took the name Valentine Ackland. Veronica means True Image, and is traditionally said to be the name of the woman who wiped Christ's face on his way to Calvary. Verena is a Swiss name of unclear meaning. It was used by Henry James in his novel The Bostonians. Vivian is a name which can be used for boys or girls. It means alive. It is mostly known as a girl's name nowadays. Variations are Vivien or Vivienne. Viola means violet and has been well liked since it appeared as the heroine of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Vincent means Conquering and is quite popular for boys, especially in Catholic cultures.

Willa Cather

Willa was born in 1873 in Virginia, but her parents moved out west when she was a child. She grew up in the West, in the Great Plains.. Nebraska. Her family tried farming but her father gave up after a while and moved to a nearby town, and opened an insurance business. Willa was boyish and for a time called herself William. She was keen to go to University... but originally she wanted to study science, and become a surgeon. She began to write and when she graduated (after taking an Arts degree), she spent some time teaching. She was a successful teacher, but she eventually moved to New York to pursue her writing career. She wrote about the life on the Frontier, where many Swedish and German immigrants moved out to start farming on free land. She lived with a woman friend, Edith Lewis. One of her early novels was O Pioneers, about a girl called Alexandra, who takes over her father's land when he dies, and buys up more land.. Times are hard and most of the immigrants know little about farming. So they leave and sell their land, and Alexandra shrewdly buys it up. More Will Follow.

U names

U is also a letter which isn't very popular for names. One female name that was fairly popular in bygone days, beginning with U, was Ursula. It means "she bear" and was the name of a medieval saint. Una is an Irish name, meaning lamb... and was also quite popular in the past. Another rarely used name is Unity. It means oneness, but it is not popular, especially as it was the name of the fascist supporter and society girl, Unity Mitford. Another Irish name is Ulick, which is a variant of Uilliam, the Irish form of William. A name very rarely used is Ulric, which means Wolf rule. There is a feminine version, Ulrica.

The Kitten lady

I like to mention Hannah Shaw, the Kitten Lady, now and then to let people know of the wonderful work she does. She rescues all sorts of animals, but kittens are her special focus. You can find her on social media.

Dolly Parton

Dolly died the other day, of cancer at the age of 80. She lost her husband Carl, a year or so ago. Her health has been declining but she still had projects she wanted to pursue. She was a wonderful person and a loss to country music. She was buried by her husband in a simple private ceremony.

Patricia Avis, 1928-77

I've just come across a novel by a former mistress of the poet Philip Larkin. Her name was Patricia Avis. She was born in South Africa, in 1928 to a Dutch father and an Irish mother. She grew up in London and her father who was very well off, sent her to college. She studied medicine but when she qualified she never worked as a doctor. She married a lecturer, Colin Strang, and moved to Belfast where he had a job. She met Philip Larkin, who was a librarian at the University there, and they had an affair. They were in love for a time and she became pregnant but miscarried. Her marriage to Colin Strang did not last long.. she had other lovers, and left Strang. She wanted to be a writer and she wrote poems and edited magazines. But her novel writing was not all that successful. She married an Anglo Irish poet Richard Murphy in the 1950's, and they lived in Ireland. She did a lot of reading, especially of French literature, and tried to form a social circle of writers and intellectuals in Ireland. She and Murphy had a daughter and she then got a divorce, leaving her child with her father. She settled in Dublin and wrote a novel Playing the Harlot about her university days and friends... but her publisher felt it was too critical of the writers that they both knew. She became addicted to alcohol and went on trying to write. But her one novel is rather rambling and does not seem to have a point. She committed suicide in 1977.

Q Names

Q is one of the rarest letters for starting a name. There are almost none! One relatively well known name is Quentin which means fifth. In Roman naming practice, children were often named by their birth order, Primo or Prima for a first son or daughter, Secundo or Secunda for a second.. etc. These names are still occasionally used in Italy. Quintana is very rarely used but it is a rough female equivalent for Quintus or Quentin. Queenie is another name, a bit more commonly used. It was a nickname for girls named Victoria, during her long reign... and it can also be a nickname for Regina, which means queen. It has now gone out of fashion. In America, the name Quinn has become more popular for boys. It is not a Latinate name, but Irish. It comes from the surname O'Cuan, which means descendant of Conn. Quincy is another American name for boys. One of the early presidents was John Quincy Adams, named after a town from which his ancestors came.

W Names

W is not the most popular letter for a name, but there are some. William is a very well known name.. The name is a combination of the German words for Will and Helmet. Walter is old fashioned but used to be well used. There are not that many women's names beginning with W. The female forms of William are the Germanic Wilhelmina, and Williamina. But they are not all that popular. They sound rather masculine. The name can be abbreviated to Willa, or Billie.. or Mina. The American author Willa Cather's real name was Willella. Wallis is an unusual name, a feminine version of Wallace. It is of course the name of Wallis Simpson who married the Duke of Windsor. Wendy is a name invented by JM Barrie the playwright, due to a little girl he knew calling him her "Frendy Wendy"... It's old fashioned now but used to be very popular. Wanda means wand... again, its old fashioned nowadays. Winifred was a very popular name in the 20th century but has gone out of favour now. It is the name of a Welsh saint. Willow is a "nature" name, the name of a tree and is mostly a girl's name. Willoughby, a related name, is more of a boys name, and it is the surname of the charming rake Mr Willoughby in Austen's novel. Winona is an American Indian name, and fairly popular in America.

X names

There are not many X names, so I've just mentioned a couple. Xanthe (pronounced Zanthee) means yellow and is very occasionally used. Another is Xena which means stranger. An occasionally used name is Xander, which is a shortened version of Alexander. In recent years a minor British Royal, Alexander Earl of Ulster, has had a son who is named Xan.. an abbreviation of his father's name. Probably the best known X name is Xavier, which is the name of a Spanish saint, Francis Xavier. It is often used by Roman Catholics in honour of the saint. The female version of it is Xaviere, or Xaviera.

Rhys Bowen

I am reading the most recent Georgiana books by Rhys Bowen at present. They are a pleasant light read. We Three Queens is set in 1936 after the death of George V... Georgie is asked to hide Mrs Simpson in her country house, while Edward VIII tries to persuade the Prime minister and church to agree to his marrying Wallis. She has now had her first baby, James Albert, and is happy staying at home and looking after the child herself. But her former stepfather, Sir Hubert, arrives at the house with a bunch of actors and film people, who are using the house for background shots for a movie about Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon. One of the child actors goes missing and the leading lady of the film is killed. Mrs Simpson disappears. Georgie must solve the mystery. The book ends with Edward VIII abdicating...

Tensions Part III

Julian realises that Mark and Pauline are growing close to each other. Mark has asked her to help him with his estate work and she seems happy to do this. Gossip starts to fly around about them being in love. Lady Rossiter continues to make little digs about the friendship. Eventually, it begins to look like there really is something between them and people tend to blame Pauline for it. An idea arises of setting up new branches of the commercial college in England and possibly abroad. Julian finds that Pauline wants to give in her notice because she knows that she is being branded a scarlet woman and there is no future in her friendship with Mark. She says she can find another job. Lady Rossiter is triumphant that she has driven the girl out. Then Mr Fuller, one of the senior managers of the college reveals that he has asked Pauline to marry him and she has agreed. He is a good decent man and will look after her. So Julian feels it is best for her to go and marry him, and she will be safe and happier.

Tensions Part II

Miss Marchrose arrives at the college and Sir Julian takes a liking to her. She is pretty, and pleasant. Lady Rossiter keeps making digs at her. After a month or so it becomes clear that Mark very much likes Miss Marchrose and she seems good at her job and friendly to him. His children remain awful brats. Lady Rossiter continues to niggle.. They find that Pauline is indeed the woman who broke off her engagement to Clarence. She tells Sir Julian that her family were left badly off, and she went to train as a secretary and found it difficult to adjust to life as an office worker. The other girls thought she was snobbish and that she was a lavish spender. She found herself being very lonely. When she met up with her own richer relatives, they introduced her to Clarence. He seemed to like her and she was flattered because she did not seem to attract young men. She was not sure if she really cared deeply for him however, and when he was injured, she felt that she could not sincerely offer him her support as his wife. So she broke off the engagement. Sir Julian did not think highly of Clarence and he understands that Pauline had good reasons for breaking off her engagement. He quite likes her and is annoyed by his wife insinuating that she is an immoral woman.

Tensions by EM Delafield Part I

This is a fairly short novel by Delafield, largely about the power of gossip. It starts with our being introduced to Sir Julian Rossiter and his wife Edna. He is a country gentleman and she is a stupid, selfish woman who thinks that she is wonderful. Like some of Delafield's male characters, she is constantly talking about herself and how democratic she is. Her husband has an interest in a Commercial college on his land, which trains young people to type, do shorthand, and learn about running a business or working in one. Sir Julian has an estate manager, Mark Easter who is a good friend of his. Lady Rossitter considers it her duty to "help" Mark and makes a fuss of him. He has a problem in that he is married, with 2 young children, and his wife has had to be put in a home for alcoholics.. so he is married but not married. The two children are brats and Lady Rossiter can't stand them but they are always coming over to her house. Mark is too busy to look after them much and has to rely on his housekeeper Sarah. The action starts when Sir Julian raises the issue of having a new female superintendant for the college. Lady Rossitter says that she knew of a girl with the same name, Pauline Marchrose, who was engaged to a cousin of hers. He was in an accident and for a time it looked like he would be semi paralysed. His fiancee threw him over. Clarence, the young man, recovered and has married, but Lady Rossitter continues to harp on how dreadful the girl was, to break her engagement. Sir Julian says that they don't know if she is the girl, and anyway it's none of their business. He is indifferent to his wife, but he is rather annoyed at her going on about this issue.

Anglican women novelists

Im reading a selection of essays on Anglican women novelists. Hope to blog about it later. One of the earliest of them is Charlotte Bronte. Others include the children's writer Noel Streatfeild, Rose Macaulay, who wrote Towers of Trebizond, Charlotte Yonge, who is a famous Anglo Catholic writer, and also the crime writer PD James. I've read most of PD James' novels, which are detective stories, which often revolve around a church or religious order. James was a conservative minded writer and sympathetic to Anglicanism. My old favourite Dorothy Sayers is in there, as she wrote about religious themes and was a lay theologian. Her detective stories occasionally touch on religious issues.. her lady detective Miss Climpson is a High Church Anglican. Barbara Pym is well known for writing about "churchy ladies" who hang around the church and the vicar. Another one, whom I dont know well, is Elizabeth Goudge who was from the Channel Islands. I know a little about Evelyn Underhill, who wrote studies of mysticism in religion.. but I did not know she was a novelist as well. Ive read a couple of books by Monica Furlong, who wrote works on religious issues, including a biography of St Therese Martin. More will follow.

Tolka Row

Tolka Row was the first "soap" put out by RTE, the Irish Tv station in the 1960s. Like Coronation Street it was about a working class community and was set in North Dublin. The Tolka is a small river that runs in the area. It had an early acting role for the well known actress Brenda Fricker. It was written by Maura Laverty, who was a journalist and novelist. She wrote plays about working class Dublin and the serial grew out of the plays. She sympathised with the poor and was a very talented writer. I can remember it from childhood... but a few years later, RTE moved on to a rural "soap", called The Riordans. Tolka Row only ran for a few years, but the Riordans was more long lasting. I think the tapes of it have vanished as the station did not keep them, and often taped over them.

Gillian Bradshaw novels

Im reading a new novel by Gillian Bradshaw. I've read most of her books set in classical times and her Arthur trilogy... I haven't read her novels set in scientific life as yet. But there are two about the Civil war, focussing on Lucy, a young woman who sympathises with the Roundheads in the Civil war. She has a printing press and produces leaflets and papers supporting the anti Cavalier side. I hope to blog about the books soon

Jimmy O'Dea and Maureen Potter

I have just been reading a biography of Jimmy O'Dea, who was a comedian and actor in Ireland, during the 20th century. When I was a kid, my parents would take me every year to the Christmas pantomime, in the Gaiety Theatre. It was great fun, and the star of the show was Maureen Potter, who had worked with Jimmy. He created a "dame" character, Mrs Mulligan, who was an old Dublin woman who sold vegetables at a street stall. He was very funny and topical as was Maureen Potter. We didn't get to the theatre much but my parents liked the comedy of the pantomime. As I grew older I began to go to the serious theatre, and dabbled in acting. But my first experiences were at those Christmas pantos. Jimmy died in 1964 and Maureen died some years ago.

Frances Hodgson Burnett 1849-1924

Burnett was a well known writer in the Victorian age, whose books for children became best sellers. She was born in Manchester to a business family. In her childhood, the family lost money, after the death of her father. They moved to America, to Tennesee. She liked writing and began to earn some money writing stories... She loved flowers and that led, later to her book The Secret Garden. She grew up partly in Manchester, but had relatives in America who took her in when her family lost its money. Then her uncle's business in Tennessee failed and she was forced to rely on her own resources. She married Swan Burnett, who was training as a doctor, when she was just 22. They spent a couple of years in Paris, where Swan completed his studies. They had two sons, Lionel and Vyvyan, whom she loved and dressed in fancy clothes. They returned to America, and Swan began to make a fair living as a doctor, but they had money problems and Frances continued to write, and earned quite well, but her husband resented her being more successful than him. Tensions built up in her marriage, and she became exhausted with looking after her children, writing and being a literary hostess. In 1884 she wrote her most successful novel, which was Little Lord Fauntleroy, about a child who turns out to be the son of an English lord... While some critics mocked the work, especially the bits about young Cedric wearing velvet suits and having long curls, it sold very well and she was comfortably off. But her elder son Lionel died of TB and her marriage was on a downward slide. She lived partly in England and partly back in America. She and Swan divorced in 1898 - on grounds of desertion by her husband.. but it was a mutual decision. She had met an actor, Stephen Townsend and in her house in England, she moved him in, calling him her secretary. There was gossip about this, and she then married him. But he was much younger than her, and it was clear that he had married her for her money. She soon discovered that the marriage was a big mistake. They did not divorce but it was not at all happy. Another of her better known novels was Sara Crew, also known as The Little Princess. It is a story about a young girl whose father has to go away, and he puts her in a girls' school. Sara then learns that her father has died, and she is left very poor. Her headmistress keeps her but makes her take on the duties of a servant. Sara retains her dignity and shows that she is a "little princess" in character.

Publishing stories - Update

Due to illness I've had to stop publishing my stories at present. I'll update in case people would like to read some of them. Still ill....

Roman Bride

Its a short story, by Nadine Sutton available on Amazon. A story of a British soldier, part of King Arthur's band, who marries a Roman lady. She finds that one of the women in the Fort seems to be chasing her husband.