Maggie Craig's 'One Week in April' 2020

 

Berlinn first edition - 2020

The dust wrapper flyleaf explains: In April 1820, a series of dramatic events exploded around Glasgow, central Scotland and Ayrshire. Revolution was in the air. Demanding political reform and better living and working conditions, some 60,000 weavers and other workers went on strike. Radicals marched under a flag emblazoned with the words 'Scotland Free, or Scotland a Desart [sic] whilst others armed themselves and set off for the Carron Ironworks, seeking cannons.

It was not until I finished the book, that I read the Author's Note on pp. 224-5. Maggie Craig has wanted to write this book for more than thirty years...I had never heard of the Radical Rising of 1820. I wasn't alone in that. Too true, nor had I, even though I had read novels written by Galt, Scott and others set in that period. Craig went on: The memorial to the Condorrat radicals of 1820 which stands outside the local library bears the words 'Weave the Truth'. I've done my level best. I'm glad I read the note, as I then felt the dedication and passion of the author for something she strongly believed in. It made me rethink some of my stringent comments I was about to make.

I vaguely recalled the Cato Street Conspiracy, where Arthur Thistlewood and others planned to surprise Government ministers at one of their regular Cabinet dinners in London and kill all of them. Of course, I knew of the Manchester meeting at St Peter's Fields in August 1819, when 60,000 people protested and called for political reform. Soon dubbed the Peterloo Massacre - 15 were killed and over 650 wounded by the local Yeomanry - it caused outrage amongst not only Radicals and Reformers, but among the less politically inclined public. What I did not realise was the interconnection between the radical movements of Glasgow and Ayrshire and Manchester and the Midlands (especially Nottingham) and London. Newspapers, tracts, posters and fliers quickly spread the news of any meeting or flare-up.

Maggie Craig charts, through brief Chapters, the story of strikes and marches, starting with the Strike of the Calton Weavers between July-September 1787. Weavers, known throughout Britain for their sharp intelligence and thirst for knowledge, played a central part in all these movements.

Leaders such as Thomas Muir of Huntershill, who organised the first 'Edinburgh Convention' of reform societies in 1792, were supported by not only weavers but printers and other skilled tradesmen. The unrest of the 1790s continued throughout the Napoleonic Wars - there was a Glasgow weavers' strike in 1812 and the return of servicemen from the wars (similar to 1919) meant there was not enough work to go around. The Thrushgrove Meeting, in fields on the outskirts of Glasgow, in October 1816, presaged further events to come. The aims were usually annual elections, secret ballots and universal suffrage. Britain should be run for and by the many not the few. Sounds familiar?

Part II is simply entitled, One Week in April. Saturday 1st to Saturday 8th saw the grim story played out. Hundreds of posters and placards urged active support for the outbreak. 2,000 copies of the Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain & Ireland sprang up everywhere. The Scots expected similar rising in England (at one point they heard that 200,000 had taken the field in the South), but this never came. Around 60,000 in and around Glasgow answered the call. The Lord Provost of the city and the Sheriff of Lanarkshire issued their own printed proclamation and called on the yeomanry and regulars (e.g. the Glasgow Sharpshooters) to put any disturbance down. One interesting point thrown up was whether spies and/or agitators for the government fomented the strikes and rebellions? This is unproven and probably unknowable, but there is enough evidence to suggest one or two named men were fifth columnists. The famous Battle of Bonnymuir, on Wednesday, 5th April - was a damp squib and the danger had petered out by the end of the week. 

Scores of Radicals were arrested; there was a minor massacre in Greenock on the 8th April. Three ringleader were tried, found guilty of treason and suffered death by hanging and then beheading. James Wilson (at Glasgow) and Andrew Hardie and John Baird (at Stirling) forever after martyrs to the cause. There are memorials to all three; one to the Battle of Bonnymuir as recently as 1981.

My main criticism, is that the author could have done with a good editor (rather than proof reader). There are end notes, but they mainly consist of titles of books, followed by Ibid. The book needed foot notes. Then, so many extraneous sentences, almost off-the-cuff remarks/additions, could have been withdrawn from the main text. They interrupted the flow of thought far too often. It felt as if Craig had found something from her extended researches and simply had to put everything in. My pencilled comments in the margins included: jumping around rather...too many asides...another 'aside'...should this be a foot note? There is often repetition - e.g. the details of Peterloo - which could have been pruned.

Coincidently, one of the BBC's online articles today is headed 

Calls to allow people to return to Edinburgh's Radical Road

The Radical Road runs along Salisbury Crags at Arthur's Seat. The path got its name from the unemployed west of Scotland weavers who were set to work paving a track there. Also known as the Scottish Insurrection, the uprising was the result of social unrest among workers who were fed up with what they perceived to be unjust working and living conditions. Some of the Edinburgh unemployed were set to work clearing Bruntsfield Links and creating the paths round Calton Hill, but what to do for the west-coast weavers who said they had no work?

The answer was proposed by Sir Walter Scott. Get them away from Glasgow and find them a job in Edinburgh. There was a narrow path skirting Salisbury Crags, which was in dangerous  disrepair. This could be widened and improved to make a pleasant walk towards Arthurs Seat. The weavers were brought to Ediburgh and set to work; an event remembered ever after in a local playground chant: 'Round and round the Radical Road, the ragged rascal ran...'

Thanks to reading Maggie Craig's book, I knew exactly what was the background to this.

George Blake's 'The Shipbuilders' 1935

 

 Faber & Faber first edition - 1935

To someone of my age, the name George Blake suggests the Communist spy (actually George Behar), who was caught in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison - only to escape to Russia. This George Blake (1893-1961) was well known in his day, not just in his native Glasgow area, but all over Scotland, thanks to his BBC and journalist careers. I first came across him when I purchased his short sketch on Barrie and the Kailyard School (Arthur Barker, 1951), which was a sustained attack on the genre. He thought their approach was a cheapening, evasive, stereotyped view of Scottish life. The very first sentence of the book set out Blake's credo: The novelist's fundamental concern is with the human soul; its many trials and its occasional triumphs, its humours, its follies, its gropings and its generosities. One can ague that The Shipbuilders does just that. His novels, as a whole, were resolutely realistic, serious, socialistic and nationalistic.

The novel is unevenly split with the narration of two men's lives: Leslie Pagan, the general manager of the shipyard which bears the family name, with a discontented English wife, Blanche, who hates Glasgow - this inveterate grimness of the North - and yearns to be with her own family in Sussex, and a sickly child John; and a father, John Pagan, seventy-eight, but tall and straight as a soldier; clean-shaven, with only a hint of the old-fashioned in his double-breasted buff waistcoat, his stock, and a suspicion of whisker, still ruddy like his thick strong hair, before his ears. A gentleman of the old school, indeed... 

Secondly, Danny Shields, a riveter in the shipyard, with an increasingly surly, bitter wife, 36 year-old Agnes; a waster, workshy, keelie teenage son, Peter (his pregnant, newly-wed Rita - let a girly sleep - is more than a caricature); a cheery eight year-old son, Billy, always reading by the fire - it's you and me for it together now; and a baby Wee Mirren. Danny was Leslie's batman in the recent Great War, and the relationship between the two men is movingly detailed throughout the book. Danny's admiration of Leslie was flawless. Danny's home was a tenement block in a featureless street... Kingarth Street, Number 33; two stairs up, one room and a kitchen, at a rent of seventeen shillings a week...the stairs were worn and dirty, and the place had altogether the drab air of a barracks.

Both men experience despair and unhappiness: Blanche, forever wheedling Leslie to move South, using their son's ill-health as near-blackmail; Agnes, increasingly going out to the Pictures (more likely flirting and then worse with Alf Leake from London) with her sister Lizzie, brother-in-law Jim Dunsmuir, turning over big money in mysterious ways, with his flashy motor car and fingers in the betting trades. Danny loses himself in drink and football and his love for his younger children, especially Billy. Leslie fails to find work for the yard. The last order, the Estramadura, goes on her sea trials down the Clyde, with Leslie on board. The second half of Chapter VI Trial Trip, is probably the most moving in the book. It details the journey through the high, tragic pageant of the Clyde...it was a tragedy beyond economics. It was not that so many thousands of homes lacked bread and butter. It was that a tradition, a skill, a glory, a passion, was visibly in decay and all the acquired and inherited loveliness of artistry rotting along the banks of a stream. One after the other, the author lists the names of the closed, empty, decaying shipyards... Greenock's (the author's birthplace) heart lay bare and bleeding...the fall of Rome was a trifle in comparison... out of this narrow river the ships had poured, an endless pageant, to fill the ports of the world. Even the Big Yin, Billy Connelly, surely, must shed a tear.

Two deaths occur: old man Pagan slips away in his big house; Danny goes to the funeral and then gets a job as a general handyman and gardener in the Pagan family home, but not for long. His solace is with the widow, Jess, of the other man who died, Joe Stirling. At first platonic, with chummy visits to the cinemas, it develops once Agnes deserts Danny, taking Wee Mirren with her. At the end of the book, Danny (to Leslie's surprise and mild chagrin) decides to stay in Glasgow and not go South to become the factotum for Leslie again, this time at a posh manor house in west Sussex. I think I'll just stick to my trade, sir.

There are regular passages on the city of Glasgow: its unwieldly vastness - of a hopeless complex of lives and interests all resting on heavy industry in decay, with a canker at its heart; perhaps a city doomed... it is a city where the workless faced him at every second step: men unmistakably and irretrievably stamped with hopelessness and under-feeding, men without coats or collars, their pinched faces grey-green with cold, their hands deep in their jacket pockets, their shoulders hunched in the stoop of the damned.

The author's socialism shines through every so often - the richness of shops catering for the rich, the flaunting of whores and of rich women, not much better, clambering insolently from glistening cars...; as do traces of anti-Semitism.

A final comment. I looked on Amazon for reviews of the book. One women writer from Stirling complained that both wives are bitterly painted - one an English spendthrift with little time for her much older husband, and the other, although it is not clear why, is a verbally abusive and negligent wife - quite horrible. Unsurprisingly, the love interest is a sweet, kind, gentle woman. Dear me! If she had read the story more closely, she would have realised that there is love between Leslie and Blanche. But we are in the 21st century, with very different fare being offered. I don't think I will be reading her forthcoming novel.

J. F. Pennie's 'Corfe Castle' 1824

 

Hurst, Robinson first edition - 1824

One of the most interesting aspects of Blogging is trying to find out about authors I have never heard of and who don't figure in the main Literary Guides/Compendiums. Corfe Castle; or Keneswitha has no author on the title page and only Your obedient Servant, The Author at the end of three page dedication to Henry Bankes, Esq. M.P., the owner of the castle in 1824. Luckily, a previous owner of the book had written in pencil below the title, J. F. Pennie - which saved me considerable time. I finally found some information about Pennie on the Bartleby.com website. 

John Fitzgerald Pennie was born at East Lulworth on 25 March 1782. He died at Storborough, near Wareham on 13 July 1848. So, very much a Dorset born and bred author. He was known for his dramatic works and poetry. They included: Ethelred the Usurper (1817) and Ethelwolf, or the Danish Pirates (1821) - both very relevant to this novel, published a few years later. He also wrote The Royal Minstrel, an epic poem in 11 books (1817); Rogvald, an epic poem in 12 books (1823); two volumes of Britain's Historical Drama, a series of national tragedies (1832 and 1839}; and a strange book in 3 volumes, dedicated to the famous Wiltshire amateur archaeologist, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, The Tale of a Modern Genius; or, the Miseries of Parnassus (1827). A contemporary review, in La Belle Assemblée, stated: The least can be said of the work of three volumes, in a series of letters, is, that it is very amusing. It appears to be an auto-biographical sketch, by Mr. Pennie, whose literary efforts, it may therefore be inferred, have been generally unsuccessful. We wish they had been otherwise; for, to see such genius duly patronised, is ever delightful. The work is of a mixed character - biographical, historical, critical, poetical, antiquarian, &c.

Pennie was also involved in local archaeology, as round, or bowl, barrows in a cemetery to the east of East Lulworth, may have been opened between 1825 and 1832 by him and others. Flowers Barrow - an Iron Age Hillfort - at East Lulworth produced a skeleton of abnormal length, beneath the surface of the inner rampart. He reminds me a little of another 'local' author-cum-archaeologist of Northumberland, R. H. Forster (1867-1923), whose works - both novels and poetry - I have collected; all in first edition, of course!

What of Corfe Castle - perhaps his only novel? It is set in the period 1002-1014 and mixes good dialogue, useful background history, accurate topography and compelling narrative. There are two heroes and a heroine, all dedicated not only to repel the regular Danish incursions but the machinations of other Saxons. The cruel king Ǣthelred 'the Unraed' and his mother, Queen Ǣlfthyth, are justly castigated for the murder of the previous king, Edward 'the Martyr', at Corfe on 18th March 978. His fictitious brother, the banished  Kenelm (first introduced to the reader as 'The Spirit of the Night'; then as 'The Black Warrior'; then named as Bernulph, but not until page 230), after escaping from the castle (having witnessed Edward's murder) and then learning the fighting trade abroad, has returned to give mysterious succour to the Saxon peasants in and around the Corfe area. His back-story is told between pages 236 and 294. It is well for us that this hero is our friend, for he must be a formidable enemy...[he] was about forty-two or three years old. His dark countenance was marked with all that energy and intelligence, which had been displayed in his conduct. But it was usually shaded with an air of melancholy tranquillity...  Not surprising really - he had lost his beloved wife, Eaditha,  cruelly snatched from him many years before. He is supported by the other brave hero, 24 year-old Hermanric, who has no idea who Kenelm is until well into the book. Hermanric, in turn, was the son of Ceodwalla, a noble Saxon of power and influence, and Githa, a descendant from one of the Norwegian chiefs. The heroine is the lovely Keneswitha, who falls madly in love with, and is equally loved by, Hermanric. She is beautiful and Christian - what's not to like. And her real father turns out to be Kenelm!

Other important figures in the tale are Saxburga, the widow of Eadwulph, one of Ǣthelred's nobles, who now commands Corfe Castle; and her daughter Edgina, a partial chip off her mother's block.       Saxburga is described as someone to be admired for her spirit, and feared for her energy, were the impressions she wished to produce...yet with all these natural qualifications for tyrannic sway, she possessed some acquired mental properties and endowments, which secured the faithful attachment of her numerous retinue. She was a conscientious catholic, and therefore never  intentionally unjust. Then there are the 71 year-old venerable monk Giselbert, who knows all the secrets of who is who and who is privy to all the many hidden passages within Corfe castle's thick walls, and who possessed eminently the confidence of all the inhabitants of the castle, from the princess Saxburga to the lowest menial in her service; the old cottager Wisimund, the widowed monk (yes), village pastor, and assumed father of Keneswitha. An all round 'good egg', even if he subscribes to the Monothelite deviation from the Roman church's position and does not accept the supposed supremacy and infallibility of the first bishop of Rome. Other minor characters include the lively Ella, a Saxon maiden at the castle, and a young Dane Othulf, who is fiercely loyal to the Saxon cause.

No self-respecting novel is without its 'evil ones'. High on the list is the Danish Frithegist, rescued with about 100 other Northmen from shipwreck and, now, seemingly loyal to Saxburga and fancying Edgina, but, in fact, a bad man - he meets his deserved end; he is supported by Eadburga, the artful and base companion of Saxburga. Earl Afwald, the devious envoy of Ǣthelred, is pleasingly disgusting and abhorrent; whereas Earl Godwin, the leader of the Danish raids, is simply a roving nationalist rather than just a bad man.

The Agglestone

It is interesting that the Hǽlig-Stan (now the Agglestone or Devil's anvil) plays its part in the story (as it did in the previous Dorset-based novel I read and blogged about) - stamping ground of an old Druid, who later gets burnt in his bramble hideaway.  Also the Tilly Whim caves figure again as a useful hideout.

The Norman castle

Anachronistic castle! The stout stone walls (with their towers, secret passages and baileys) are actually from the late 11th century onwards. There are postholes of a hall belonging to the Saxon period, but little is known buildings from that time, which would have almost certainly been constructed of wood. The  piety (which increasingly intrudes as the story develops) is of the early 19th century kind (vide my contemporary Scottish novelists). Keneswitha's chief delight may well have arisen from the assurance, that, as love to God was the grand motive which operated upon her conduct, so the divine favour, as an over-shadowing and blissful panoply, was her highest reward. But the later references to Kenelm's and Hermanric's motivations seem artificial, especially Bernulph saying a wooden crucifix has no supposed virtue or goodness in itself (predating Lollardy by some 400 years). Thirdly, the existence of the secret The Order of Benevolence, which Bernulph leads and Hermanric joins (pp. 306-320), is clearly modelled on Freemasonry, and is anachronistic and almost laughable, and adds nothing to the story.

An afterword:

Further Internet searching led to Tait's Edinburgh Magazine for August 1848. On its Obituary page 574 was the following: At Rogvald Cottage, near Wareham, Dorset, Mr. J.F. Pennie. His poetical productions procured for him the title of Bard of the West; and his contributions to the History of the County of Dorset and other topographical works, and, above the rest, his "Glossary of the Dorsetshire Dialect", ranked him among the most useful archaeologists of the day, and especially in the locality where he resided. His wife died only two days before him, and they are now buried together at Lulworth, his native place.

There is also a much longer Obituary (pp. 656-659) in The Gentleman's Magazine for June 1848, which uses Pennie's own The Tale of a Modern Genius; or, the Miseries of Parnassus  for much of its information. The life it tells is a fascinating one. After very short term successive employment as a solicitor's clerk, a school usher, a touring actor, and running a small school in Lulworth, he finally settled down to writing. His only son, Eric, emigrated to the USA in 1835. The Obit ends with a fine, if overlong, sentence:

He was one of those persons of lively imagination and vivid self-conceit who indulge their youthful ambition unchecked by the discipline of masters or the sobering rivalry of competitors, and thus learn to value themselves at a far higher estimate than they can find others willing to accept. Well, I enjoyed his novel!

Ben Macintyre's 'A Spy Among Friends' 2014

 

Bloomsbury paperback edition 2015

Before Lockdown (what a horrible word), my daughter gave me the paperback edition of Ben MacIntyre's The Spy and the Traitor (Viking, September 2018), the story of the UK springing the Soviet double-agent Oleg Gordievsky from Russia. I found it enthralling - John Le Carré's comment that it was The best true spy story I have ever read, is not far off the mark. Then, in June 2021, my daughter gave me two more books by MacIntyre: Agent Sonya. The True Story of WW2's Most Extraordinary Spy (paperback edition, 2021) and this one about Kim Philby, first published in 2014. MacIntyre seems to have cornered the market in such gripping true stories - e.g. Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and Double Cross.

The subtitle to this book on Philby - perhaps the most notorious British defector in history - is Philby and the great Betrayal. Philby betrayed two of his four wives, his close friends, both inside and outside MI5 and MI6, the most shocking being Nicholas Elliott, who stood by him loyally for over two decades until the facts of his deceit became too strong.  The two men learned the spy trade together during the Second World War. They belonged to the same clubs, drank in the same bars, wore the same well-tailored clothes, and married women of their own 'tribe'. It was Elliott who interviewed Philby for the final time in Beirut in January 1963.

Philby in 1955

The major players in the Philby story were invariably wise after the event. Spies, even more than most people, invent the past to cover up mistakes. This seems particularly true about his close friend Elliott and the American James Angleton, who ended up as the chief of CIA counter-intelligence. Philby seems also to have bamboozled others such as 'C,' Sir Stewart Menzies, wartime head of MI6; Guy Liddell, MI5 head of counter intelligence; Miles Copeland, the jazz musician, wartime spy and CIA agent; Edgar J, Applewhite, the Yale-educated CIA station chief in Lebanon; How could they all be so 'wrong' about Philby? No one likes to admit they have been totally  conned. The truth was simpler, as it almost is: Philby was spying on everyone, and no one was spying on him, because he fooled them all. Not quite. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, always had his suspicions of him; as did, Bill Harvey, of the CIA counter-intelligence; and Dick White, chief of MI5 and later of MI6, never quite trusted him and should have trusted his own antennae more.

However charming his outward façade was, the increasingly drunken Philby, got through to near the end because he was an amoral shit. His father seemed to be, too. Harold Adrian Russell Philby, Westminister College and Trinity College, Cambridge educated, with his debonair charm, his stammer, ended his life in the 1960s to 1980s Moscow, dying in hospital there on 11th May 1988, mendacious to the last.

NB It was fascinating to read of Jona von Ustinov being recruited in 1935 as a British agent codenamed U35.  Ustinov was fat and monocled, with a deceptively bumbling demeanour. It was only last night that I was watching on YouTube the 1988 An Audience with Peter Ustinov. The description could have matched the son (born 1922). 

Kennedy King's 'Love and a Sword' 1899

 

John Macqueen first edition - 1899

Kennedy King was the pseudonym which George Douglas Brown had used for his many articles for Blackwood's Magazine etc.. He is better known for his famous corrective of the kailyard school of Ian Maclaren, S. R. Crockett, and James Barrie - The House with the Green Shutters (1901), which he published under his real name. He had planned a third novel, to be called The Incompatibles, but contracted pneumonia and died, aged only 33, in 1902.

Love and a Sword. A Tale of the Afridi War is essentially a love story embedded in tales of derring-do on the North-West Frontier, those (still) inhospitable lands bordering modern Pakistan and Afghanistan.  A brother and sister, Jack and Jessica Martin, are on their way out to India - he to join his regiment, she, an 18 year-old, to marry the best friend and contemporary of her deceased father, the widower and much older man (as old as her father), Mr. Raleigh. The train they are on is derailed due to flooding in Italy and Jessica is rescued by the hero of the tale, Roderick Gordon - the last of the race of General Gordon - an old dare-devil who rode with Cardigan in the charge of the Light Brigade and followed Havelock into Lucknow. The general's three eldest boys were killed - one at the Cape, one in Burmah, and one two years ago on the North-West Frontier of India. So, no pressure, Roderick m'boy. In fact, Roderick when he rescues Jessica, promptly falls in moon-struck love with her. They get to India, meet up with Mr. Raleigh, prepare for the wedding, and then...Jessica is captured by the Afridi. Worse, she is in the hands of Russian spies.

Roderick rescues Jessica

Petroff - one of the three evil Russians - with dirty, podgy fingers covered with flashy rings...hairless eyelids...in the corner between the cheek and the fleshy part of the nose was a huge mole, out of which grew a rank tuft of hair...glistening white-way up; the tip of the tuft was jet black...Ugh! With his henchmen, Alsakoff, who desperately wants Jessica too, and Ferreida. They attempt, more than once, to murder Roderick and Jack on the way out to India. After much travail amongst the inhospitable mountains of the Afridi territory, Roderick not only rescues Jessica, but in the process kills all three Russians. Gordon had inherited a great deal of fatalistic Calvinism with his Scotch blood, and he felt it a duty to God and man to stamp these scoundrels out wherever he should find them. The description of the fight between Roderick and Petroff, ending in the latter being thrown over a cliff, is particularly well written. At the end, Mr. Raleigh, being the English gentleman he was, releases Jessica so she can marry Roderick. 

What to make of the tale? 

Kennedy (Brown) had clearly read up on the recent Tirah campaign/expedition (September 1897 to April 1898). At one point, he gives us a four-page History lesson: Now the North-West Frontier of India is the pulse, so to speak, of the whole situation. We must keep our finger on that. For Russia wants the India peninsula to round off her empire; if she had that, she might hold the whole of Asia and dominate the whole of the Pacific; acquiring a power such as is unknown to the memory of man - a Colossus to bestride the world. And the Afridi passes to Afghanistan and Russia are the key to the situation... There are moments of pathos. Thus, the first blood was shed in the Afridi War. Only a fair-haired lad lying stiff among the dust in the fresh air of dawn! Only a name flashed swiftly to England! Only a widowed mother in Somerset with the tears raining down her wrinkled cheeks, when the sunset slanted through her lonely room, breaking her heart because her only boy was lost among the Pathan Hills! The frequent and accurate descriptions of the brutal campaign are well drawn.

It is a novel very much of his time. When Roderick defeats Petroff, in front of a great swarm, a multitude of black faces, he raises a huge goblet of crystal above his head and cries, in a great voice "To the Queen of England!" Perhaps, he should have called her "Empress". The 'n' word (as we have to say these days) is used twice ("these ignorant n-----s think I have been trying to fight unfairly - I, an Englishman!"  actually, he is a Scotsman); the Russians are dastardly; the British soldiers have more pluck in them than a row of professional turkey workers. Only once does Roderick seem to see the native point of view; Roderick and Jack intend to shout out "Supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race", when they confront the enemy. What's not to cheer? Well, this reader got fed up with the name 'Jessica' being bleated every few pages. Roderick's a British soldier - man up. What would the General say? The descriptions of the fighting got rather repetitive, but, of course, that was due to its accuracy. If I was a public schoolboy at the turn of the century, I would be thrilled to read this novel - and be ready to go out and fight the Boers.

Mrs Humphry Ward's 'Helbeck of Bannisdale' 1898

 

Smith, Elder & Co. first edition - 1898

What a well-written, deeply thought out novel - and, yet, so depressing. Roman Catholicism hovered over it throughout, not like a benevolent umbrella but a threatening storm cloud. Very little happiness occurs in the pages, the Jesuitical influences ensure that. I finished the last page with my own anti Roman Catholicism more firmly embedded than before.

Essentially, a 21 year old girl, Laura Fountain, who has recently lost her father, turns up with her feeble step-mother at the latter's brother's home in Westmoreland. The brother, 37 year-old Alan Helbeck of Bannisdale, is more than a card-carrying Catholic; he is deeply wedded to the Jesuit Order, narrow in his beliefs and living a near-ascetic bachelor life in his decaying mansion. The story involves the conflict between 'normal' passions and the fundamental and crushing tenets of the Faith.

Laura and Alan are chalk and cheese The former's father, Stephen, the son of a small Lancashire farmer, held a lectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject and regards Catholicism as 

abhorrent. She finds the Catholic regime at Helbeck oppressive. She listens to children in its chapel, the service and responses being gabbled as fast as possible, as though the one object of both priest and people were to get through and make an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or a change - with just the one monotonous repetition and the equally monotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business! Laura seems to spend much of her time angry and/or depressed. 

Alan had been brought up at Stonyhurst, where he came under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, and afterwards at Louvain. By the start of the novel, he has a high brow - hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks - pale blue eyes - a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair - the close whiskers black too against the skin - a general impression of pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force...Now he appears to be surrounded by the Jesuits; the church simply leeching off his inheritance, forcing him to sell lands and, eventually, a prized family oil painting, to pay for their schemes. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in this particular district of England...only enthusiasm such as his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, he had now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an ascetic in the great house, with a couple of women-servants; he spent all his income - except a fraction - on the good works of a wide district...There is a particularly painful description by the author of one of Alan's periods of introspection, which includes the following: I am not my own - I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord - to his Church. The Church frowns on such love - such marriages. She does not forbid them - but they pain her heart. And when Laura asks him what are 'The Four Last Things'? he replies: 'Death - Judgement - Heaven - and Hell.' How awful.

Laura realises she can never win against that - she chooses suicide instead of a life of torture. The bereaving Alan will leave Helbeck for the Jesuits. Surely, another form of torture.

The Mason family, Laura's cousins who live quite near Helbeck, are well described, all speaking broad Westmoreland.  The mother Elizabeth, is as narrowly religious -  allus talkin out o' t' Bible - as Helbeck, with a hatred of Catholicism; the son, Hubert, madly in love with Laura but simply too coarse for her; the blowsy daughter Polly, with her high and red cheek-bones, the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face...an earthy character shaped for 'The Darling Buds of May'!

Mrs Humphry Ward is a powerful writer (the death of the worker in the furnace in the factory is heart-rending) and the reader skims over passages at his peril. The characters - Father Bowles, Laura's step-mother Mrs Fountain, the tortured young artist/Jesuit novitiate Williams - are deeply drawn and very life-like; the occasional descriptions of the scenery well sketched out.  The crux of the novel comes as Laura realises exactly what she is confronting. the nuns, with their unintelligible virtues, and their very obvious bigotries and littlenesses; the slyness and absurdities of Father Bowles; the priestly claims of Father Leadham... these Catholic figures were to her so many disagreeable automata, moved by springs she could not possibly conceive, and doing perpetually the most futile and foolish things... Ah, Laura, this reader totally agrees with you.

Fox Russell - 'The Phantom Spy' 1904?

Thomas Nelson edition - c.1908

It is difficult to pin down the date of the first edition - 1903, 1905, 1890s? Nelson's are one of the publishers who, annoying, did not put dates on many of their books in that period. It only matters in that I would like to know whether it was published before or after The Scarlet Pimpernel of Baroness Orczy arrived on the stage (1903) and then in book form (1905). Both publications feature a well-bred Englishmen spying on the French, often in heavy disguise. One is known as 'the Phantom', the other well-known by the refrain: They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? That damned, elusive pimpernel. When asked how the idea of the Scarlet Pimpernel came to her, she wrote: It was God's will... If Fox Russell's novel predated Orczy's, then God might have had a helping hand!

An earlier edition - prize plate

dated April 1905

I haven't found out anything about Russell, not even his dates, but he was responsible for many humorous and sporting articles, as well as a series of books from 1897 onwards:

1897: The Haughtyshire Hunt                                                                                                                        1897: The First Cruise of Three Middies                                                                                                      1899: Colonel Botcherby, M.S.H.                                                                                                            1900: The Boer's Blunder: A Veldt Adventure                                                                                      1900: From a Bachelor Uncle's Diary                                                                                                      1901: Outridden                                                                                                                                    1901: A Judas of To-day                                                                                                                        1901: Sporting Sorrows                                                                                                                        1901: A Sportswoman's Love Letters                                                                                                      1904; In the Wrong Box                                                                                                                        1904? or earlier: The Phantom Spy

(Information from: At the Circulating Library. A Database of Victorian Fiction 1837-1901.)

None were published by Nelson's.

The story, like the previous Blog's novel (The Smugglers of Haven Quay) is an enjoyable tale - what one once called a schoolboy's yarn! The author had clearly researched, in some detail, Napoleon's designs to invade England the exploits of Wellington and others in Spain and South West France. There is some humour in the descriptions of John Dare, the Phantom Spy, in his evasions of the Frenchies, with a neat explanation as to how, seemingly shot by a firing squad, he lived to a good old age. Another well-drawn character is Mr Nicholas Nobbs, the middle-aged pillar of the local chapel...[who] carried on no trade apparently, and when delicately questioned on the subject by neighbours, more curious than discreet, he at once ended all enquiries by laughingly saying that he had "a small independence" of his own. His rustic, near sedentary image belied the fact that he was the leader of a band of successful smugglers and that his summerhouse sat atop a tunnel which led down to a smuggling cave. Mr Septimus Soundings, the none too bright Excise Officer, who regularly pops in for a chat and a smoke, is undone in a witty chapter toward the end of the book, when he tries to arrest Admiral Sturdy, a bluff Royal Naval officer, in the mistaken belief he is one of the smuggling gang.

Harold Vallings' 'The Smugglers of Haven Quay' 1911

 

Frederick Warne first edition - 1911

This is what used to be (still is?) called a rattling good yarn. I thought his character-drawing was good, particularly that of the old smuggler Captain Simon Children, the mainstay of the nefarious trade based on Haven Quay. He wants to give it all up, but hazards one last throw (in fact, there will be two) which ends in disaster and his death. He leaves behind a small grandson Sam, who is again well portrayed by the author. The treacherous baddie, Jan Slocombe deservedly gets his comeuppance, mainly at the hands of the formidable Mother Chater, mine hostess at the local Inn and hand-in-glove with the smuggling trade. Vallings is equally at home describing the gentry at nearby Tarrant House - the very different brothers, Sir Claud and Rodney Tarrant and their wealthy heiress cousin, Miss Celia Willoughby. She must be a good egg, as she gives young Sam Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward to read. Moreover, Sam tells his muttering granddad: But everybody reads Sir Walter  Scott; he's the greatest writer in the world. The presence of the book helps to date the period of this novel to 1823 or beyond. Although Sam's grandfather dies (his father and mother are both dead) and he is regularly lonely, he lands on his feet at the end: sent to Winchester College and then destined for Oxford University, before he takes over a large landed inheritance, thanks to his grandfather's shrewd acquisitions.   I enjoyed the book; it had more depth in it than a mere young person's tale. It managed to see, and relate to, both sides of the story of the smuggling trade.    

Captain Simon Children

                                                      

Harold Vallings (1857-1927) is another author I knew nothing about. Luckily, my Edwardian Fiction. An Oxford Companion (1997) was to hand. He was born at Barrackpore, Calcutta, and educated at Tonbridge School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst (where he came first in the final exam). He joined the 16th Bedfordshire Regiment. After two years, however, he retired, suffering from a spinal complaint, and became an army coach. He made enough money from writing and teaching to marry, but had a nervous breakdown after the birth of his children.  He didn't find he was making enough money to keep his family - the Royal Literary Fund, to whom he applied in 1914 and 1918, were told in the latter year that he is very very badly off, and to help pay the rent of a small room his wife cooks for the landlady. He was the author of fourteen volumes of fiction 1888-1912, some of which were

1890: The Quality of Mercy (2 vols)

1893: The Transgression of Terence Clancy

1893: Three Brace of Losers: A comedy Idyll

1895: A Parson at Bay

1902: By Dulvercombe Water. A Love Story of 1685

1904: Paulette D'Esterre

1904: The Lady Mary of Tavistock

1912: Chess for a Stake

I forgot to add to my 'smuggling list' in my last Blog the following

G.P.R. James The Smuggler (3 vols. 1850) - centred in Kent in the 18th century.

Emily Climenson's 'Strange Adventures in the County of Dorset A.D. 1747' 1906

 

G. A. Poynder first edition - 1906

I  have tried to find out any information about Emily J. Climenson, but, apart from the fact that her middle name was Jane and her dates were 1844 to 1921, I have drawn a blank. That she wrote other books can be gleaned from the title page of this work. Amongst others, she published a Guide to Henley-on-Thames (1896, facsimile copy in 1982); Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. P. Lybbe 'Powys (1899, reprinted by Forgotten Books in 2008 and also in 2018); and Elizabeth Montagu, the Queen of the Blue Stockings (1906, reprinted by the CUP in 2011). 

Strange Adventures is a well put-together story; written in a Diary or Journal format of those involved in the tale, which lends immediacy and 'veracity', whilst the descriptions of the Dorset countryside are well done. The addition of the map helps - it reminded me of happy hours spent around the Swanage and Corfe Castle area, as well as getting a thorough soaking from a sudden downpour on our way to the Tilly Whim caves. It's also good fun - there are possible ghosts; secret passages behind the panelling of an ancient mansion; an old 'witch' who is not a bad seer; a ruthless Spanish privateer who tries to abduct the heroine; and, of course, a band of brutal smugglers.

Climenson also adds the Dorset vernacular to the locals and embroiders this with extracts  from the famous local poet William Barnes. Every so often, she will employ a footnote to explain a dialect word or phrase ('lingo') or point out the relevant section is 'a true story'.

The attack on Poole Customs House in October 1747

In fact, one episode describes the famous raid on the Poole Custom House in October 1747. The original Custom House building was erected that same year and it was attacked by some 30 smugglers, led by members of the infamous Hawkhurst gang. They stole two tons of smuggled tea and 30 barrels of rum, worth over £500, that had previously been confiscated. The raid happened at night, with the gang reaching Poole at 11.00 p.m. The tea was then taken through Fordingbridge. Four men were convicted at the Old Bailey in 1749, during which they argued that there was no crime in smuggling and that they were just recovering their own goods. Three of the four convicted were hanged at Tyburn.

Inspired by John Meade Falkner's Moonfleet, I purchased John Masefield's Jim Davis a couple of years ago (a decent enough tale, but it did not 'grip' me as much as Falkner's). I then bought several non-fiction and fiction books relating to Smuggling.

1871:  John Banks  -  Reminiscences of Smugglers and Smuggling (1966 ed.)

1892:  Henry N. Shore  -  Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways (Cassell)

1908:  Fox Russell  - The Phantom Spy (Thomas Nelson and Sons)

1909:  Charles G. Harper  -  The Smugglers (Chapman & Hall)    

1911:  John Masefield   -   Jim Davis (Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co.,)

1911:  Harold Vallings  -  The Smugglers of Haven Quay (Frederick Warne and Co.)

1959:  Neville Williams  -  Contraband Cargoes (Longmans, Green and Co.)

1964:  Frank Graham  -  Smuggling in Cornwall (V. Graham)

1973:  David Phillipson  -  Smuggling. A History 1700-1970 (David & Charles)

1983:  Geoffrey Morley  -  Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset (Countryside Books)

1991:  Richard Platt  -  Smugglers' Britain (Cassell Publishers)

1999:  Tom Quinn  -  Smugglers' Tales  (David & Charles) 

I am now turning to Harold Vallings' story for my next read.

N.B.  An amusing (true?) story relating to Poole:

Poole smugglers made good use of the town drains, dragging contraband from the quay directly into the cellars of the town pubs. The smugglers...let the water wash a rope down the channel to their colleagues at the quay. Contraband was then tied on, and the rope hauled up against the flow of water. It's said that when the customs men got wise to this trick, they waited at the harbour end for the rope, tied on a tub chalked with the legend 'The end is nigh', then gave a tug to signal that the load was ready. The tub was hauled into the cellar of one of the town pubs, and the smugglers read the appropriate message at the very instant their adversaries burst in upstairs.

Jane Taylor's 'Display' 1815

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are 

Not the usual start to one of my Blogs, but all will be revealed. Now a well-known children's rhyme set to music (the melody was Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman), it originated as a poem first published in 1806. The author was Jane Taylor (1783-1824), who also wrote the book I have just read.

Taylor and Hessey - 4th edition 1816

For once, I could not pin down a first edition. That the little book sold well can be seen in the fact that there were three editions in 1815, this 4th and a 5th in 1816, and another, 6th, edition in 1817. In fact, it went through at least 13 editions up to 1832. On the title page it also stated, One of the authors of 'Original poems for infant minds' and 'Hymns for infant minds'. These give us a clue as to the audience Miss Taylor was writing for.

Born in London, Jane Taylor lived with her family in Lavenham, Suffolk; her mother was the writer Ann Taylor, who wrote seven works of moral and religious advice. Between 1796 and 1816, Jane lived in Colchester. Her sister recalled that soon after our removal to Marazion, Jane resumed writing the Tale she had commenced at Ilfracombe (1813-1814); and late in the same year it was sent to press under the title of 'Display'. The favour with which this little work was received, and more especially the high praise bestowed upon it by a few individuals, whose judgement and sincerity could not be questioned, produced a very desirable effect upon her mind; for it gave her, in some degree, that confidence in her own powers which she so much needed. Although long advised to write for more mature readers, Jane baulked at the idea of using prose to express her opinions on grave subjects; thus, she determined to use verse as a safer medium. Her Essays in Rhyme appeared in 1816 and she accepted the editorship of the religious Youth's Magazine. She wrote numerous short pieces - moral tales, personal essays and poems for the publication. She died in April 1824 of breast cancer at the age of 40, her mind still teeming with unfilled projects. She was buried in Ongar churchyard in Essex. After her death, her brother Isaac collected many of her works and included a biography in The Writings of Jane Taylor in five volumes (1832).

So, what of Display? It has a very simple message - nothing but religion will cure the love of - DISPLAY. It is the story of two young lady friends. Emily Grey and Elizabeth Palmer, 18 and 19 years-old respectively. They live in the small town of Broadisham. Emily was a realist: whatever she did, said, or looked, was in earnest: she possessed the grace of SIMPLICITY. Elizabeth, on the other hand had a disposition to display. A family called Leddenhurst move into Stokely Park, a nearby mansion, with their governess friend, Miss Weston. They are all intelligent Christians: they knew religion to be the most important of all concerns, and they uniformly acted as though they believed it. Of course locals saw them as "quite methodists" (I can't seem to get away from Methodism!)

Essentially, whilst Emily is welcomed with open arms, Elizabeth is 'seen through' and her spasmodic attempts to be 'Christian' are unfruitful. Elizabeth would have been really agreeable, if she could but have forgotten to be charming. She was truly as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!  Emily sets about becoming a real Christian, and Elizabeth sets her heart on marrying a young officer, Lieutenant Robinson:  religion, friends, reputation, were hastily thrown into one scale, and Lieutenant Robinson's gold epaulets into the other. The latter won. The marriage proves a disaster - Robinson is an idle layabout who has to leave the army and be set up by his uncle and Mr Leddenhurst as a linen draper.. A shopkeeper's wife is anathema. to Elizabeth, but, luckily, the practical and moral Christian support of her friend Emily is there to help and slowly turn Elizabeth's eyes toward Bible readings and the true path. Emily's faults though not extirpated, were subdued; and her once uncertain virtues, shone out with the steady light of Christian graces. Her good nature was now charity - her sensibility, benevolence - her modesty, humility - her sprightliness, cheerfulness...her mind was now under the settled, habitual influence of religion. Great fun at a dinner party, then! By the end of the book, Elizabeth has also been led on, by Robinson's sister Rebecca - step by step, as she was able to bear it, till she saw her making real progress both in the knowledge and practice of religion. Thank the good Lord for Emily and Rebecca. 

Along the way we are introduced to Betty Pryke - sharp, neat, compact, conceited looking person with a flaming profession of religion; and Susannah Davy, was a person of a very different description: she was an humble, serious, and superior young women. It becomes abundantly clear which character finds favour with the author.

There is an interesting mention of cricket - Robinson liked to watch matches (anything to get off work).

A simple tale with a simple credo; the author clearly meant it when she wrote, is there is not something in the Christian religion...the willingness to resign life, the peaceful serenity at the thought of death, and the humble joy in the prospect of a heaven of holiness. Go Elizabeth!

N.B. 

The Monthly Review of March 1816, wrote: We have been rather undecided whether we should notice this pleasing little book under the class of Novels, or under that which is headed Religious. In the one case we should have praised it as replete with wholesome advice and the most rational inducements to piety - in the other, it wins our approbation by the simplicity and interest of the tale, the truth with which the characters are drawn, the natural liveliness of its scenes, and the excellence of its moral.

The Eclectic Review of August 1815, wrote: We never met with any composition so completely and beautifully simple both in sentiment and style.

Allen Raine's 'Queen of the Rushes' 1906

 

Hutchinson first edition - 1906

This is a good, old-fashioned love story which I thoroughly enjoyed. Allen Raine, the pseudonym of the Welsh novelist Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe (1836-1908), was a best-selling author who had sold over 1 million copies of her novels by 1906. The subtitle of this 1906 book is A Tale of the Welsh Revival and that phenomenon had a crucial part to play in the story.

Evan Roberts

The Welsh Revival owed much to the preaching skill of Evan Roberts (1878-1951), who began studying for the Ministry in 1904. Believing in 'Baptism of the Spirit', he was soon attracting congregations numbering thousands. The four main points of his Message were - Confess all known sin, receiving forgiveness through Jesus Christ; Remove anything in your life that you are in doubt or feel unsure about; Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly; Publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ. Meetings lasted for hours but from the start there was a sense of the conviction of Sin. Wrongdoing was confessed and lifestyles were affected. Roberts would sometime agonise for hours before saying anything. He soon succumbed to the pressure of his rigorous schedule and, in 1906, suffered a physical and emotional collapse. He retained his faith though he clearly suffered from depression. He turned to prayer as his main ministry. Although he convalesced in England, he lived out his last years in Cardiff and died in relative obscurity in 1951, aged 72.

Allen Raine skilfully meshes the Revival into one of the main strands of her novel. It starts with a small boat sinking off the little Cardigan hamlet of Tregildas (Gildas town or home), leaving two orphans - Gwenifer Owen aged 10 and Gildas Rees aged 16. The latter becomes owner of Scethryg, the farm owning most of the little thatched cottages in the area. Gwenifer is allowed to stay in her lonely hut on the moor, after Gildas refuses to send her to the Workhouse. She has been struck dumb after watching the tragedy of her mother drowning and clings to Gildas, her mishteer, determined to work for him as she grows older and more useful in the daily farm work. Into this mix comes Hezekiah Morgan, an old man once a well-regarded school master, but now broken in health. He takes up lodging in the loft of a Scethryg outbuilding. He had brought with him his grand-daughter, Nance, referred to as a wilful child with volatile ways.

By the start of Chapter III, eight years have rolled by; Gildas is now a strapping young man of 24, Gwenifer a mute aged 18; and Nance Ellis a buxom young woman, the little elf-like child no longer. Alas for Gwenifer, Gildas desires a wife to share my home with me, to brighten the hearth, to make it cosy as thou hast made this (her hut). The chapter, which deals with first her hopes and then her disappointment when she realises he means Nance, is quite moving. Gildas and Nance marry but any happiness is short-lived. It is soon clear that his wife has no real affection for him, but is passionately caught up in two unbridled loves: for Captain Jack Davies, a seafaring ladies' man and the Revival going on in Brynzion, the little hamlet chapel.

The effect of the Revival and the coming of  Evan Roberts to Brynzion is catastrophic for Nance. Already clearly a mercurial character, her religious fervour becomes a frenzy, a frenzy which turns into active dislike, a narrowing gleam of hatred, for her husband. Poor Nance! She was ill at ease, and had lost the buoyancy and spirit which had been her chief charm. Her face had lost some of its fresh colouring, too, and there were dark rings under her eyes; for though the mind may not be deep enough for harassing thoughts, the heart may not still lie open to the ravages of stormy passions and insidious temptations. And Captain Jack was just the man for these. However, he had only engaged in flirtations with her and really desired the mute Gwenifer.

The author (and this reader) is far more in tune with Gildas' approach to the Revival:  I am not against it; may be 'tis wanted; but I am against these wild ways - people showing their hearts to the world, and crying out that they are sinners! There's no need to shout that, 'tis plain enough when you come to deal with them... The villagers turn against him, especially the shrew Nelli Amos, because of this ungodly attitude. Evan Davis preaches in the little chapel - Chapter XII entitled 'Upliftings' tells of this in some of the author's best writing - and Nance, empowered by her mania, leaves the farm to sail away with the Captain. First Gildas, then Gwenifer try to stop her. Captain Jack refuses her and she is forced back to the shore and runs amok off into the moor. Whilst fending off Gwenifer, a seeming miracle occurs. The latter actually cries out Oh, dear God. She speaks again! 

Gildas now has to put up with a double whammy: he is despised as one not captured by the Revival and there is a suspicion he has murdered Nance. Luckily a few have decency still: You must forgive our zeal for religion; it has made us over hasty, lad. We forgot that 'the wind bloweth where it listeth'; and though it blow like a gale over Brynzion, it may whisper like a still small voice in the heart. Yes, yes, you have friends... In fact, Nance is not the drowned wretch later found on the beach and she returns, clad in rags, bent with fatigue. She doesn't last long, but clearly Gildas had not murdered her! However, battered by the animosity that had been all around him, Gildas plans to emigrate to Canada. He goes to Gwenifer's hut to tell her - finding she has packed to go with him, as his servant! Thou hast been my sister, my friend, but never my servant, lass; and that thou canst never be...because I love thee, lass; because I cannot bear to be near thee unless thou wilt promise to be my wife. And they agree to bide at Scethryg.  Hurrah! It doesn't feel treacly or false. The whole novel was, yes, moving to that denouement, but Raine has written so well that it emerges realistically. Her characters are vibrant and true to life and the uplifting last few paragraphs fit the entire story perfectly.

It is helpful that the few Welsh words used are listed in a Glossary at the front of the book.

E. S. Tylee's 'The Witch Ladder' 1912

Duckworth first edition - 1912

The novel is subtitled A Story of Somerset in the later days of Victoria; in fact, it is set in the hilly Mendips, which I know well from living for several years at Holcombe and exploring the surrounding countryside by bicycle.  The story involves a shady and ruthless uncle linking up with a secret Mining Group to purchase his brother's farmland to exploit coal measures unknown to the latter and his family.

Apparently, there were at least 52 bell pits, some with deeper shafts, around Holcombe and nearby Coleford and Stratton-on-the-Fosse. The Romans may well have mined for coal in the Nettlebridge area, near to the Fosse Way (a Roman road is mentioned in the novel). Coal mining only really took off during the 1600s, usually only exploiting surface outcrops; by the 1790s, shafts up to 150 metres deep were being sunk. The arrival of the railways (a potential branch line is also mentioned in the story) caused some expansion; demand for coal only reached its peak in the early years of the 20th century, well after the novel's backdrop.

At first, I thought the novel would be a simple love story between Mary, the daughter of John Dolman, a middling farmer who can lift a piano easily, and Geoffrey Charteris, the slightly older son of the local Squire of Hinton Hay, St. John Charteris. Certainly, the first few chapters suggest this. It opens with her birth and her mother's resulting death. The father, after an initial animus against the cause of his wife's demise, has a dream epiphany which leads to Mary being the focus of his attention, and raison d'être, for the rest of his life: devoted to the one idea which had gained possession of his narrow, earnest, passionate nature. His motherless child became the centre of his existence, the object to which all his thoughts all his energies, were devoted. The years roll on. Chapter IV sees Mary aged nine; Chapter V she is around twelve; Chapter VII adding a further two years and upwards.

I found the story slightly muddled, in that characters would appear - such as Farmer Dolman's hearty sister, Mrs. Lovejoy (yes!) - and then fade into the background. Even Mary is 'lost' for much of the tale. Others would arrive later on and then take a central place - such as the tutor Brian Dudley (tutor by profession and poet by temperament), a down-at-heel orphan, and Geoffrey's sister, 23 year-old Sarah. The best example is John Dolman's uncle, Silas Barley, who appears in Chapter III as a fascinating specimen of miserly old age - he was a small man, well on his way through the seventies, with a face round and red as a sack-apple, criss-crossed with the innumerable fine wrinkles which were almost the only indication of his healthy old age. He reappears, as the cunning saving grace for not only the Dolmans but Geoffrey, dying in his nineties and leaving thousands of acres (including the land where the coal lies) to his nephew. Chapter XXVIII, the death-bed scene is another piece of fine writing.

There are sparks of humour, particularly in Chapter I - No Dolman was ever [an unbeliever] though we have some far-away cousins who are a very low sort of Baptists down near Chard; and Still, the Lord above made Wales, I suppose, like other countries, though it may have got a bit crumpled; Public schools, like doctors, enjoy the privilege of getting rid of their failures. A red and green parrot makes an amusing entrance (and swift exit) to attack the elderly butler Binney. The scene where the aged Barley threatens to shoot an obsequious but snooty lawyer Algernon Levy, who has arrived at the old man's Friday Farm in the dark, is reminiscent of Uncle Ebenezer in Kidnapped, but far more humorous.

A final few random thoughts:

The Zummerzet vernacular makes a change from the Scots' and helps to identify the class of the individual speaking. The fairy tale story of the Queen of the Rivers (the Severn and the Wye are beaten by the little Rheidol), told by Brian Dudley, whilst sat on a 'minstrel' throne' surrounded by Mary, Brian and Sarah contains some fine writing. The atmosphere of the Auction in the long room of the King George on his Throne in Somerford for the farms is also well done.  Uncle James Charteris, amiability incarnate but a full-blown rogue, and his shady involvement with the nefarious New Mendip Mining Company, is an entirely believable bad'un. There are some interesting observations about class and the barriers it erects to marriage: for Geoffrey and Mary, Sarah and Brian, Bob Parracombe and Phoebe Dance. It is the latter's mother who is accused by Bob's father, George Parracombe, of witchcraft (putting a witch 'ladder' in the straw of the farm's outhouse). All couples are given a happy ending, though. It is Sarah, seated on the most convenient hillock who looks towards the far southern landscape: That way the Downs broke suddenly into the orchard country neighbouring Avalon; and beyond, bright as a queen's scarf of threaded gold and silver, glittered the Severn Sea. The sword-blue eyes flashed as they gazed, with a patriot's pride, the spirit of the Somersaetas, who were a nation in days older than history; and half unconsciously she murmured: "Have you the heart to leave all this?"  Tyler's novel, too, is suffused with the love of the County and the Mendips.