WRITING TIME? by Penny Dolan

Most of my writing is for children and when I’m asked "When's your novel set?", the easiest response is to name a historical period, such as The Victorian Age.

However, on reflection, another answer might be “A historical time that I’ve found something to say about.” Which then leads into a slightly worrying question: “And quite how will the young reader read themselves into your intended historical world? How will they hear what you have to say?”

Children’s knowledge of history is often minimal. On school visits, I enjoy using history topics as starting points for writing workshops. Unfortunately, curricular pressure at Key Stage 2 has thinned history and humanities teaching so greatly that this doesn’t seem the rich ground it once was, alas!

 I’d be pleased to be proved wrong - and no doubt a visit to museum or from historical re-enactors and / or authors like Caroline Lawrence would help immensely. 

Therefore, given the young reader may well be on unfamiliar ground, how can they be attracted into this or that historical period? Where, exactly, should their young feet be planted for the journey? Should I stand them in "then" or "now", the "past" or the "present"?

Historical fiction placed firmly in the past gives reader the immediate experience of walking in another’s shoes, especially when written in the first person or diary form. Examples of “past history” novels for teens are Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, Geraldine McCaughrean’s Tamburlaine, Tanya Landman’s The Goldsmith’s Daughter or the first of Catherine Johnson’s Sawbones series. 

Each writer entices the reader onwards with strong plot and subtle historical information, creating a believable “platform” for the young reader to stand on. This kind of storytelling seems to come from the conviction that the past is an interesting enough place for its own sake. 

Another form -  the “slip back in time” novel - makes that historic distance explicit. The writer offers the reader a fictional step or still point to ease them into this particular historical journey. The young reader identifies with the “present time” hero/heroine and is then lured back into historic time. The “slip” need not be mysterious. Michael Morpurgo is an expert in the “I found a diary/ a letter / an object/ a photo and this was the story” approach.  My personal Morpurgo favourite is The Wreck of The Zanzibar about pilot boat crews on the Scilly Isles. 

Traditional time-slip novels have a slightly ghostly quality: classics include Tom’s Midnight Garden or The Children of Green Knowe, characterised by a circular structure and a mysterious link revealed at the end of the plot. Were those writers – Philippa Pearce and Lucy M. Boston – eager to tell the reader that history’s “past” and today’s “present” are deeply connected?

 

Then there are the complex time slips – time travel, in fact - when the book moves between the past and the future, with the reader’s own present world as a balance point between the two. Susan Price’s books, The Sterkarm Handshake and The Sterkarm Kiss, balance future greed against the culture of the border rievers. (Any fans out there will be glad to hear a third Sterkarm will soon to be published.) 

 Joan Lennon’s Silverskin takes her reader into an even more distant community: her “future character” travels back to the world of Skara Brae. It seems to me that such time-slips, aimed at the teen and Y/A audience, invite the reader to learn lessons from the past, to examine the consequences in the future and consider choices being made now, for good or ill.

  

Finally, there’s the joy of writing historically rooted fantasies, books like Katherine Langrish’s West of the Sun troll trilogy, Michelle Lovric’s Undrowned Child Venetian fantasies, or Mary Hoffman’s world of Stravaganza. Is the fantasy reader being invited to experience the possibilities of story, or explore “what might have been” or just to play – and not always in pleasant ways - with the whole idea of “past times”?

 

Such a range of historical riches!

 

 So how does one choose where to plant the reader’s feet? Historical fiction is many layered activity - inspired by a person, a place, an event, an object, a document or map or more – but how does one decide to tell about a true-but-fictitious historical world? Gut instinct? Maybe you don’t know until you’ve begun to scribble anyway? Or does the historical intention consciously supply the starting shape of your story? Or is it all a mystery anyway?

What do you think?

Penny Dolan

NB. Today’s post came into my mind after I’d read The Spirit of the Place, a book by Dennis Hamley, aimed at academic or adult readers. Originally written in 1993, this time-slip novel links the master plan of Nicholas Fowler - a fictitious minor eighteenth century poet, alchemist and grotto-builder - with Lyndsey Lovelock - a literature student, studying Fowler’s Pope-like poetry – and Rod, her suspicious boyfriend  who starts to investigate the secret research going on in Coswold, Fowler’s old house.

When the book was originally written, the human genome project was only just in the public’s consciousness and any effects were unknown. Republishing The Spirit of the Place twenty years later, Dennis Hamley could add to the novel, tell the 21st century  reader what had happened to Lyndsey and Rod and add a post-script to his original predictions. Now there’s time slipping indeed!

AN ARCHER AT THE ARMOURIES by Penny Dolan

I’ve always hankered after a job in a Museum: one specific and rather showing-off sort of job. I’ve told stories in a couple of historical settings myself so I am fascinated by the people who step into role, interpreting history for all and every visitor.  This week, when the afternoon was wet and the audience few, I had a chance to meet an archer from Flodden Field. 

I wasn’t as far north as Flodden Moor, but I was definitely North. I was in Leeds at the Royal Armouries Museum, designed as an outpost of the Tower of London. 

If ever a museum called out for effective ways of explaining exhibits and putting them in context, it must be this imposing, fortress-like block on the banks of the Aire. The galleries are full of well-displayed and documented armour and weaponry, from the arrows and swords of medieval conflict through to dainty, discreet hand guns of the twentieth century.

For me, the museum has a problem. As visitors, we  comprehend things - like an embroidered baby’s cap, or a spit over an oven or even a weaving loom - because they relate to some aspect of our own lives. Buildings of all sorts cast their own spells. But how do we, for the most part, relate to weapons? 

Weapons sometimes appear inert, in dignified military parades, or else as split-second, on-screen action when no attention can be spared to check the truth of the thing. They are also evident in the damaged bodies in the news bulletins when the outcome is what matters. So how do you “explain” the contents of such a museum? How do you “explain” conflict?

Arriving mid-afternoon, I began at the Tournament section – did you know that people could choose the designs for their armour from pattern-books? – but then realised the only event left of the seven on offer that day was down as “Battle of Flodden.”

 

So it was I heard a Lancashire Archer’s tale. This famous battle took place in 1513, and was a fight between England and Scotland, when Scotland was an ally of France. Although the battle took place in Tudor times, it is known as the last medieval battle because it was the last pitched battle when men faced each other and fought wielding only hand-held weapons. Although the Scots had twenty cannons, there were no guns or pistols. There was no “English army” either, just men who left heir homes in the Northern counties to rally under their lord’s flag, and fight against the Scots.

 

Our Archer told us how he’d been lured away by the excitement of the fight, and how, despite there being no beer, no food, and fighting between the Lancashire and Yorkshire men on the journey, it became a different story as they began following the river up from Durham. From there, they came across villages ravaged by the Scots, and the tales of atrocities fired them up to fight once more. After his account of the battle and the power of the archers, and the joy of the victory, our archer also paused to tell of finding a dying lad, and helping the boy to a swift death rather than leave him as a victim for any wandering Scots. It was a fictional account that showed both the general and the particular, as Dorothy Heathcote, doyenne of educational drama, used to demand..  

When the tale was done, I talked to the “Archer.”, wanting to know more.

Where did he get this story from? The inspiration was the earliest recorded war memorial in England: a stained glass window in the church at Middleton, Lancashire. One panel shows the band of archers, arrows at their chests, and names inscribed above, who went to Flodden Field. Roles are often created through one person’s personal interest or area of knowledge and the study behind them is usually self-led. 

This kind of work is not for an actor with a set script; the role-player needs to adapt the story each time. Audience questions that can’t be answered lead to further study and searching and the Museum’s academic staff are there as support.

However, once the role has been created, it is changed by the audience. Sometimes, this is in the half-hour of delivery. The audiences at the Armoury vary in size. At weekends, there are large family crowds where loud declaiming (and maybe an ability to deal with heckling?) is welcome. Weekdays can bring local pupils studying a particular topic or groups like mine: a small audience of adults with a few wide-eyed pre-school children. 

In this afternoon’s version, the archer’s voice and gestures slid swiftly through the mention of raping and torture in the villages and the death of the boy. The two little ones would not have noticed, yet one did not miss the meaning. It was easy to see how for other groups, those moments could be amplified for a stronger effect.

The audience varies in this time afterwards, too. Sometimes all that people want to do is rush up, hold and pose with the weapons. At other times, the interpreter can face a single expert or a group of special interest enthusiasts who have travelled up from the South coast to get to the Museum.  All come with different needs, wanting different information or recognition.

Literature can lift a tale above the ordinary. At other times our “Archer” had created other characters:: a Spartan warrior at Thermopylae facing the Persians as described by Herodotus; an archer or a nobleman at Agincourt, hearing the St. Crispin’s day speech, or, inspired by Kipling’s poem, the story of a Roman soldier not wanting to leave what is now his home at Hadrian’s wall. As an author, I was glad to hear that the work was fed by a range of writing.

What other skills were needed for this work? Originally, the Museum had a large number of event staff, and was able to stage jousting, archery, falconry, historic combat displays and more in the purpose-built arena outside. This all went under cuts, but is slowly reviving. The Archer was brought up on a farm in the country,  riding horses from an early age, which made him able to take on any horseback roles. Later as an actor, he had trained in various forms of stage fighting. All the skills and knowledge made him adept in a variety of situations, small or large scale.

But what I most remember him saying was that he - this white man - was the only one of his family for six generations born in England. His people had lived in India and across the Far East, and in a way, he felt he was not far from being a foreigner himself. Despite the context of war and battle and conflict within the museum, he tried to stress this fact: all through history, England has become a home to foreigners. And how, after some performances, soldiers come up to him and the other staff and tell of their own experiences, knowing it is a place that understands and where they are not judged by the views of civilian society..

Finally, it was time to go. The visit was the kind that leads to another lengthier visit, maybe with some specific question or writing project that needs some precise details. There's something "live" every day:  Introduction to Armour; Whale of A Tale: Indian Treasures Tour; War Horse; Court of Henry VIII: Guns of the West and more right now. Talks and “interpretations” are not timetabled on the website – rather annoyingly – because they depend on staff being available for each particular topic. But, even so, if you are ever in Leeds, the Armouries may be worth a visit, especially if you can catch yourself an archer.

Many thanks to Andy – his real or stage name? – for his time and generosity in answering my questions, and to all the other staff, and apologies for any errors on my part. The work certainly sounded much harder than the role I’d imagined in my idle dreams.

Now, History Girls and Boys, are any of you re-enactors or interpreters? Can you add any more thoughts on how you prepare for your roles? Or how it helps your fiction?

Penny Dolan

HISTORICAL RE-ENACTMENTS

Theresa Breslin

I’ve been searching in the attic trying to find research notebooks, photographs and primary source material relating specifically to World War One.

Being a professional librarian it should all have been boxed, filed and labelled - with perhaps even a card catalogue or, at the very least, an index file to help me navigate the tremendous amount of ‘stuff’ I collected when writing Remembrance. Sadly, no. After finishing a book that requires major commitment in time, energy and travel, I always find that I’m physically and emotionally exhausted. It requires a huge effort on my part to put the research in some kind of order and tie up the files. Sometimes I don’t want to even think about or discuss the subject. Fortunately that wears off, and, by the time publication date is approaching, and I’m semi-sane again, I’m quite willing to talk about themes, issues, whatever, to anyone who’ll listen. Perhaps it’s having a glossy-covered, crisp-paged, brand-new book in my hand - with my name on it - that gives me the kick start. I hope I never lose the slight feeling of surprise and the incredible joy that I experience when I open up the book and begin to read it.

My recent attic ‘finds’ were the photographs of Historical Re-enactments that I attended when researching a couple of my books: Remembrance and Spy for the Queen of Scots

I’ll come straight out and admit it right away. I’m a big fan of Historical Re-enactments…

I’ve never actually participated in a ‘Living History’ event but, speaking to those who do and listening to their stories, is almost as fascinating as watching the re-enactment itself. Reasons given ranged from : ‘ I like dressing up’, ‘you get to shoot at people without actually hurting them’, and ‘it’s a sort of respectable way to play games when you’re an adult’ to ‘I never feel more alive than when I’m doing this’ I love being connected with history and culture in this way’, and ‘it’s an essential part of my life’. A significant number of people said they did it because they could trace their ancestry back to those specific times – and a high proportion of these claimed to be direct descendants of royalty and nobility! In the case of World War One, very many men and women told me it gave them a real and very personal connection with their own family history. They’d traced their roots, and / or found family photographs and letters of relatives who’d fought and often died during the Great War.      

Most of the events I’ve attended have been slightly chaotic. The World War One re-enactments at Stirling Castle involved a lot of running about and shouting, interspersed with smoke bombs and officers bawling orders, which their troops cheerfully ignored. I’m not sure if this was intended to reflect the actual action of the Great War, but certainly the rainy weather gave a flavour of authenticity. And this made me pay attention to the rain capes of the soldiers, how they look and how they smell when wet.   

Our visual images of World War One are mainly black and white or sepia tinted. It’s startling to see the pristine cream-coloured puttees worn by the soldiers on parade. The aprons that the soldiers of the Highland regiments were obliged to wear over their kilts when working out of the front line look faintly ridiculous. I can touch the actual army uniform and feel the coarse cloth against my skin. NB – I did manage to get close to the one that was worn by Brad Pitt in one of his acting roles!

I try on the soft cap which was the soldiers’ headgear in the early part of the War. I turn it over in my hand, and I shudder as I recall seeing the size of artillery shells in the Imperial War Museum.

I know that girl munitions workers wore overalls of a distinctive blue and the shade was named by them as ’munitions blue’.

What did impress me was the knowledge of the participants. In addition to performing their set pieces, when ‘off duty’ they’d take time to chat and were an invaluable source of information. The Internet is a vast resource and one can find almost anything one is looking for. But often I don’t actually know what I am looking for. And often when I find it, I don’t recognise its true value. 

But I am a hoarder. 

When the maid of the household of Mary, Queen of Scots tells me that she collects strips of willow for her mistress to use to brush her teeth, I write that down. It may be months before I realise that it could be the way that a would-be assassin might try to poison her Grace. 

I watch the four Marys ‘dress’ their Queen’ and, almost unconsciously, I’m counting the number of pins it takes to secure the heavily embroidered sleeves to her dress.

The chap in charge of the horses lets me know that the stable boys had their heads shaved at regular intervals to prevent lice. Is that worth remembering? Why yes, because a shaved head completely changes a person’s appearance.  

When I come to the actual writing of the book I’m aware that some part of my brain has been weaving things together. And then suddenly there’s a spark! A connection is made.

Which leads to another.

And another.

And another…   

Images and Photographs Copyright:  © SCARPA

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