Jim Reeves

Jim Reeves, nicknamed “Gentleman Jim” was one of the singers I loved as a kid. Like many country singers, he hailed from Texas, and was born there in 1923. His life was short. He died in a plane crash in 1964 at the age of 40. He was renowned for his gentle, charming manner and his sweet mellifluous voice. He considered a career in baseball but then got a job as a radio announcer in a Louisiana radio station. He got work on the Louisiana Hayride, a rival to the Grand Old Opry. In the 50s’ he began to have hits with singles Like “I love you because” and “Bimbo”. He adopted a soft gentle low singing style, which went well with the lush background arrangements of the new Nashville Sound. Later that sound began to lose favour with some artists. There was a reaction to it, from the Outlaw movement... because they felt that it was too soft, too overly commercial, and too close to pop… or crooning. But it suited Jim’s voice and personality. In the late 50s and early 60’s he became popular abroad, including countries like South Africa, and also Britain and Ireland. One of his most popular songs in Ireland was the famous “He’ll have to go…”. He had other hits with Distant Drums and “I can’t stop loving you.” In 1964, he was piloting a small private plane from Arkansas to Nashville, when he hit bad weather close to Nashville’s airport. There was a storm with heavy rain. He became disorientated and lost control of the plane. The plane crashed. He was killed. After his death, Mary, his widow released various recordings of his… and future generations were able to hear his sweet voice and songs.

Rough Music a story available on Amazon

  This is a “band” story set in the US, in the late 1970s.  I wanted to write about this era as I remember it as a kid and I love the music from it.  My favourite country singers date from that era.  I like country pop, to an extent and the Southern Rock movement, which had the wonderful Charlie Daniels and also Hank Williams II. (Bocephus).  So I wrote a novella, about a country rock band and its 2 lead singers and how they cope with life on the road.  It’s is a story about life in the music business, about trying to get on in that world, without compromising one’s ideals about music, and about friendship, as much as about marriage.  

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

Winifred Gerin Part III

Winfred’s father died in his sixties... and then her mother went to France, to have a holiday and recover from her grief, taking her daughter with her…  It was during a holiday there that she met Eugene Gerin, a Belgian cellist. They fell in love. 

Her mother was worried about her marrying a foreigner with a somewhat uncertain profession such as a musician.  But Winifred was in love and determined to marry him.  They wed and moved to France to live, and for several years, she was a devoted and happy wife, following her husband to engagements.  Eugene was devoted to her, as well.  Their one sadness was that they had no children but they often visited Eugene’s family in Belgium… and his brother Maurice had a son, Paul.  Winifred was the boy’s godmother and was very fond of him.  His parents had to work, so he was cared for mostly by his grandmother, Eugene’s widowed mother.  Winifred also helped with her godson… and he was something of a consolation for the children she had not had, herself.  She and Eugene also adored animals and usually had pets.  As the 1930s progressed, however, there was the fear that War would come, and when it did, and France fell and Belgum, the Gerins made their way to the South of France, to try and get back to England. 

They lived for 2 years in Nice, unable to get away to do something for the War Effort, and living on short rations.  Winifred still mostly gave her meat ration to her beloved cat.  Jewish people moved to the South of France, also trying to escape from Europe and the Gerins were among those who made heroic efforts to help them get away.

Winifred Gerin Part II

Winifred was intelligent and loved literature and history,and she became a student at Cambridge. Her brother Roger was considered more academic minded. She was keen to have a university education, which was still very rare for girls of any class. However when she started to study history at Cambridge, she found it more difficult than she had anticipated. She was romantic minded and loved history for its thrilling stories. When she found herself expected to study dull aspects of constitutional history, it was a struggle for her. She was not able to put aside personal likes and dislikes, and achieve an impartial viewpoint. She persuaded her father to let her change from history, to studying French. Mr Bourne was concerned about his finances. He wanted his children all to be able to earn a living. Though he was comfortably off, he worried particularly about the care of Roger, who would need a trust fund to maintain him in a good and well run mental hospital. Winifred talked about getting a job as a teacher... However, when her college career was over, she stayed home and did not look for a paid job. The job she really cared about was writing, and she was determined if possible to achieve a career was a writer. She was never interested in writing novels, saying that she could not think of plots. So she concentrated on poetry and plays, and spent a few years, going on with her reading of literature, and starting to write. She wrote a play about Fanny Burney, who was a contemporary of Jane Austen- and a novelist.

Winifred Gerin Part I

Winifred Gerin was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1901, but she was English and her family moved back to England when she was a child. They grew up in a London suburb which was virtually the country. Her father was Frederick Bourne... When she became a writer, Winifred wrote under the name of her first husband Eugene Gerin, a Belgian. Frederick Bourne was from a “good” family, with connections to the gentry. He had been working in Germany as a manager for a chemical business. Winifred is best known for her historical biographies, and particularly her biographies of the Bronte family. I love the Bronte legend. So I was interested to find that there was now a biography of Gerin herself. She and her second husband, John Lock moved to Haworth in the 1950s and immersed themselves in Bronte history. They were very active in the Bronte Society, and Gerin wrote biographies of all four, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell. She also wrote a biography of Horatia, Nelson’s daughter, another of Mrs Gaskell, and one of Anne, Thackeray’s daughter. I have just started reading Gerin’s life, and will blog more about her later, but I was intrigued to find that she had tragedies in her early life which may have drawn her towards an interest in the Brontes. One of her brothers died when she was young...just as 2 of the Bronte daughters died… In addition, her brother Roger’s life was tragic. He was a highly intelligent young man, and was expected to do well at college. However, he was also both shy and arrogant, and did not fit in well, though he was academically capable. He began to act erratically, falling in love with a girl whom he hardly knew and claiming that he was going to marry her. Certainly there were some echoes here of Branwell Bronte... who was also intelligent but awkward in his social relations, especially with women. Roger had a severe breakdown and was unable to continue with his education. He was taken to a mental hospital where he spent the rest of his long life, never speaking after the first year or so. He was suicidal, had delusions and believed that he had done something terrible. So these are issues that may have made Winifred feel kinship to the Bronte sisters. It is well known that the Bronte children created imaginary worlds, writing down and acting out fiction, which was their chief leisure activity as children. The Bourne children also had a vivid imaginary life, making up plays which they acted out, based on Dickens and historical events.

Beds and Blue Jeans

Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America. It is about a love affair between a young couple - Sam.. a singer and Patti, his girlfriend....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">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

Louise De Keroualle Part II

Louise kept her virtue for a time until she was sure that she had fascinated Charles and that he had very strong feelings for her. Then she let Charles seduce her, possibly after a “mock marriage”. Her son by him was born in 1672, Charles Lennox, later Duke of Richmond. Louise got a lot of support from the French ambassador as she was seen as Charles’s chief mistress and having influence over him. The French King and Ambassador hoped to use her to promote French interests with Charles now that Minette was dead. Charles persuaded Louis XIV to grant her a French title, Duchesse D’Aubigny… in 1673. Louise does not come across as very likable. Barbara Castlemaine was not a particularly lovable woman, either… She was greedy, had a violent temper and was arrogant and unpleasant. However, she had more personality than “Weeping Willow’ Louise. Louise was a very cool self-regarding woman. Charles loved her, but her feelings towards him were probably simply gratitude for his generosity...She was loyal to French interests, and keen to amass a fortune. She had a strong hold over her royal lover, in spite of her unpopularity in England as a whole. Nell Gwynne mocked her; the people saw her as a French spy and whore… She had some protection from Catherine of Braganza, who was grateful to her for her being polite and showing her some respect. She survived the Popish Plot, and maintained her hold on Charles’ affections. When he was dying, however she was not allowed to go to him… but she worked behind the scenes to get a priest to come to him so that he could at last declare himself a Catholic. Charles said that he died loving her -and she was in his thoughts at the end, though he did also ask his brother to make sure that his other mistress, “Poor Nelly” did not starve. James II ensured she had her pension. But once Charles was dead, she had no place in England. She went back to France, and visited England only once or twice, turning up for the coronation of George I. She lost her money from Charles after the 1688 Revolution. She did however receive a pension from the King of France…. and died there in 1734…