Realism and Romance – one hundred years of the Chalet School

1925 saw the publication of some remarkable, enduring classic novels – The Great Gatsby, Mrs Dalloway – and The School at the Chalet. My own forthcoming eleventh novel is set in 1925, and one of my favourite bits of the story was when one of the characters is given The School at the Chalet. I thought a History Girls post on one hundred years of the series would be very timely. 

The Fernside girls read The School at the Chalet

But surely The History Girls is meant to be more … erudite? More serious? Not the place to celebrate an essentially trivial genre. 

Well, here’s what happens in one of the books. Judge for yourselves if you think it's trivial. 

A benign community of women and girls, which has existed peacefully for some years, is threatened when the country is annexed by a neighbouring fascist state. The girls incur the authorities’ wrath and have to flee for their lives. Their community is destroyed but rises again, smaller but undaunted, in another country, and they pledge themselves to peace and internationalism, though their individual countries are now at war. And nobody knows yet that the safe island they have chosen for sanctuary is about to be invaded…

When the story is published, the book’s cover is so controversial that it is withdrawn and a new, less offensive version substituted.

Sounds like a modern dystopia?

The original cover 

In fact, this is the plot of The Chalet School In Exile (1940), the fourteenth in the series of 59 books published between 1925 and 1970. Not all the books are so dramatic; not all keep such faith with the harsh realities of the real world in which they were written, but the series as a whole is a remarkable achievement. It’s not a packaged series, such as Nancy Drew – all the books are the work of one author, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer.

replacement cover -- adventurous, but the Nazis are 
no longer in the drawing room

The imaginative space of the Chalet School occupies a huge place in my reading life. The locations – Austria, Guernsey, the English/Welsh borders, a Welsh island and eventually Switzerland – are lush, and the characters, girls and teachers, are allowed to develop in a way that a shorter series can’t allow for. The books are romantic, but have their own realism too – a girl can be picking Edelweiss and ragging her chums in one book, and grieving for her father, killed in a Nazi concentration camp, in the next.

my Chalet collection 

 

In the 1980s, when I discovered them, the series was still in print in paperback, though the whole series was never available at one time. I read what I could find in the library and local bookshops, ridiculously out of sequence, so that in one book the character Jo is a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, in the next she is the mother of eleven children, in the next she is back at school and Head Girl. Confusing for ten-year-old me, but also very exciting, because, unlike the Malory Towers or St Clare’s books, which each contained six books and followed one or two main characters, the Chalet School is itself the central character of this saga. I had the vague sense – especially when I found some old 1920s hardbacks – that this was a big, big world, and that there was much more to discover.                     

And I kept on discovering. Unlike many readers, I never felt embarrassed by the fact that I was still reading school stories in my teens. I remember, at university in Durham, finding two early hardbacks in a charity shop and happily buying them despite my boyfriend’s incredulity. (The books lasted longer than the boyfriend.) When I did a PhD on girls’ schools and colleges in modern fiction, I had the perfect excuse to keep on reading them and call it research.

My PhD book 

As you would expect in any series lasting for 45 years and 59 books, the quality is patchy, and some of the later books are formulaic and repetitive. And from the fifties onwards, the books don’t really keep pace with the changes in society. That is, there is mention of space travel and Beatniks but the prevailing attitudes are essentially conservative and old-fashioned. One imagines the writer growing increasingly out of step with the modern world and perhaps herself seeking refuge in the more-or-less unchanging values of her fictional school. When I first read the books, I probably rather sneered at this: surely it was her duty to reflect the world around her? Now in my fifties myself, and feeling much more at home writing historical fiction than trying to make sense of 2025, I have rather more sympathy. 

Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Will the Chalet School survive another hundred years? The books are kept in print by Girls Gone By, a small press which reissues titles regularly, and there are two flourishing fan clubs, The New Chalet Club and Friends of the Chalet School but it would be fair to say that these are not sisterhoods of the young. The books are old-fashioned now, and yet at their heart is a celebration of friendship, female space, and tolerance which doesn’t grow old. 

 

 

 

 

 

Miscellany - Joan Lennon

Historical research makes use of venerable sources and texts held in reputable libraries and unimpeachable online sites, methodically uncovered and assessed - essential ingredients for writing historical fiction and non-fiction alike. But sometimes, we stumble across books that might not even have anything to do with the work in hand but which, months or years later, become our go-to place of inspiration and those precious tiny telling details that give our writing savour and life.

Today I'm celebrating a miscellany of books like that - just a few - there are many more! - acquired from charity shops, unexpectedly come upon in second- and first-hand bookshops, or at the bottom of boxes inherited from the clear-outs of family homes.

For example, during a visit to the Natural History Museum in London donkeys years ago, I bought Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum by Mark Girouard - the visit and the book planted the seeds of four Victorian mystery novels about Slightly Jones. Afterlives by Ruth Johnston gave me more wonderfully ghoulish material than I was able to use (but then, you shouldn't force everything you know into a book anyway!). Manners for Women and Manners for Men by Mrs Humphry (which I blogged about on History Girls many years ago here and here) were separate charity shop finds, and helped me enormously with the Slightly Jones series. Linda Cracknell's The Beat of the Heart Stones fed into the historical narrative poems of Never Still Nivver Still. Culpepper's English Physician and Complete Herbal came into my hands from my mother-in-law's bookshelves and provided depth and texture to the medieval series The Wickit Chronicles. Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa and Albert Robida's The Twentieth Century contributed to the non-fiction books Talking History and Great Minds, and also Revolution! (due out in 2026 from Templar Press).

If you come across any of these sometime, somewhere, make sure you give them a second glance - you are in for a treat! What books have you stumbled upon in unexpected places, maybe at times when you were thinking about something else entirely, that have helped bring your historical research to life? Serendipity is the writer's friend...

Joan Lennon website.

Joan Lennon Instagram.

ETTEILLA: THE 18TH-CENTURY TAROT MASTER … by Susan Stokes-Chapman

In the late 18th century, tarot reading underwent a transformation that would influence the art of divination for centuries to come. One of the most important figures in this transformation was Jean-Baptiste Alliette, better known as Etteilla (his surname spelled backward). As a professional fortune teller, occultist, and tarot innovator, Etteilla reshaped tarot into a structured system of mystical knowledge. He was not only the first person to publish a tarot deck specifically designed for divination but also a key figure in the esoteric revival of the time.

Etteilla’s Journey into Tarot

Born in 1738 in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Alliette initially worked as a seedsman and engraver, but he soon turned his attention to the mystical world of fortune-telling. By the 1770s, he was studying astrology, alchemy, and the Tarot de Marseille, the standard tarot deck used in France at the time. Inspired by the growing fascination with the Egyptian origins of Western esoteric traditions, he developed his own unique system of tarot divination.

In 1783, Etteilla published Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (Etteilla, or the Way to Entertain Oneself with a Deck of Cards), one of the first printed guides to tarot reading. Unlike earlier traditions that saw tarot primarily as a game or as an obscure symbolic tool, Etteilla emphasized its role as a serious divinatory system with ancient roots.

The Livre de Thot: The First Purpose-Built Tarot Deck

By 1789, Etteilla had designed and published his own tarot deck, which he called the “Livre de Thot” (Book of Thoth). This was the first tarot deck ever created specifically for divination, marking a significant departure from earlier tarot designs, which were initially used for card games.

Etteilla claimed that his tarot deck was a rediscovered fragment of the ancient Egyptian “Book of Thoth”, a mythical text attributed to the Egyptian god of wisdom and writing. This idea was influenced by the work of Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French scholar who, in his 1781 work Le Monde Primitif, argued that tarot cards contained the lost wisdom of Egyptian priests.

Key Features of the Livre de Thot Deck

1. Egyptian Aesthetics – Unlike the Tarot de Marseille, which had a medieval European style, Etteilla’s deck incorporated Egyptian imagery to support his theory of tarot’s ancient origins.
2. Reordered Major Arcana – He changed the numbering and sequence of the traditional 22 Major Arcana cards to fit his unique system of meanings.
3. New Symbolism and Keywords – Each card included upright and reversed meanings, making his deck one of the first to explicitly incorporate reversals into tarot reading.
4. Four Elements and Astrology – His interpretations heavily relied on the classical four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and astrological correspondences, reinforcing the deck’s mystical framework.

Etteilla’s deck was highly structured and systematic, offering a more organized approach to tarot reading than earlier methods. His system became the foundation for many later occult tarot traditions, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 19th century.

Nouvelle École de Magie: Etteilla’s School of Magic (1790)

Etteilla was more than just a tarot reader - he was a teacher and leader in the esoteric community. In 1790, he established the Nouvelle École de Magie (New School of Magic) in Paris. This school aimed to educate students in the mystical arts, particularly tarot divination, astrology, and alchemy.

Goals of the Nouvelle École de Magie

• Restoring Ancient Wisdom – Etteilla believed that tarot preserved fragments of ancient Egyptian knowledge and sought to reconstruct this lost wisdom.
• Training Professional Diviners – His school formalized tarot reading as a legitimate mystical practice, setting the stage for modern professional tarot readers.
• Combining Multiple Esoteric Disciplines – Unlike earlier tarot traditions, which focused on symbolism, Etteilla’s school integrated astrology, numerology, and alchemy into tarot interpretation.

The Nouvelle École de Magie attracted a small but devoted following, influencing later occult movements in France. Though the school itself did not last long after Etteilla’s death in 1791, his teachings laid the groundwork for 19th-century magical orders, including Eliphas Lévi’s occult revival and the Golden Dawn’s tarot system.

Etteilla’s Influence on Tarot Today

Although his theories about the Egyptian origins of tarot have been widely debunked, Etteilla’s contributions remain essential to tarot history. He was the first person to create a tarot deck specifically for divination, and his structured approach to card meanings, reversals, and esoteric symbolism influenced later tarot traditions, including the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909) and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot (1944).

Even today, tarot readers continue to use astrological and elemental correspondences, practices that can be traced back to Etteilla’s innovations. His emphasis on structured interpretations also paved the way for modern tarot guidebooks and courses, making tarot more accessible to wider audiences.

Etteilla’s Lasting Legacy

Etteilla was a true pioneer, transforming tarot from a simple card game into a sophisticated system of divination and esoteric study. His Livre de Thot deck and Nouvelle École de Magie shaped the way tarot was understood in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, leaving an enduring legacy in the world of Western occultism.

While his school may no longer exist, his influence can still be felt in every tarot reading, every mystical interpretation, and every deck designed for divination. As one of the first professional tarot readers, he helped elevate tarot from a curiosity to a powerful tool for self-discovery and mystical insight—an impact that continues to shape tarot practices today.

~~~~~~

My tarot-short story 'A Midnight Visitor' (set in the Georgian period) featuring a troubled medium, can be found within The Witching Hour, published in hardback October 2025. You can pre-order a copy by clicking the image below:

www.susanstokeschapman.com
Instagram: @SStokesChapman

Paths of history: stories we choose to tell, by Gillian Polack

This July I'm considering the different ways we can research for our fiction. I know I've done this before and I know I will do this again. It's not my fiction-writing side that pushes me to find more explanations and better explanations. It's my academic side. I’ve been examining how Germans view their Jewish past pre-1700, and comparing that with the fiction we read and wondering how we can beat our own biases. I explored one approach in person, imagining a town as a museum and discovering the stories it told and what the stories missed.

The town is called Eden, and I’m writing from an apartment near Aslings Beach. Eden was named after the first Earl of Auckland and. It has a twofold bay, where the waves argue with each other. One set of waves dominates and roars, the other growls. If you listen closely, the soundscape is as complex as the history the people remember and much simpler than Eden’s real history.

Eden almost became the capital of Australia. Before the Europeans arrived, it was the land of the Yuin people, who are still here. How do I know they are still here? A family of them caught the bus with me the day before yesterday. A young family, with possibly the cutest child in existence. I was going to the Killer Whale Museum. That bus trip and that museum reminded me that towns can be a lot more complicated and interesting than the books written about them. Whether this is a story of the family I saw on the bus, Old Tom, a killer whale who bossed a whaling fleet, a Jewish whaler, or the white Christian men the town celebrates (the Imlays, Mr Boyd, Mr Logan, the Davidsons) depends on how you walk down the street, how you interpret the museum, and whether our own biases can be used to redress those in the sources we use for our research.

The Yuin were in what is now Eden long before Cicero wrote about the Antipodes in the Somnium Scipionis. They’ve never left. The Yuin people have an excellent council, and I need to look at what that Council does and maybe ask some questions to delve further into their history before I can understand who they are and what they have done since the first arrival of Europeans here in the 19th century. Why do I say carefully "I need to delve"? Yuin folks are depicted in the Killer Whale Museum and in the street heritage notices as a secondary part of the town’s history. This is a shabby description of ancient history. If you walk the heritage trails, there is better treatment. It’s like Twofold Bay – stand in one place and you will hear something quite different to standing just a kilometre away.

This stranded history where the strands don’t always touch, it hides stuff. Only one man died from whaling in all the decades Eden was a whaling centre. The low death rate looks as if it may well be due to locals sharing their expertise with Imlays and the Davidsons. But was the expertise shared as between equals, or even willingly? This knowledge can’t be gleaned from looking at how history is presented publicly.

Except… when it is. The Yuin are in the museum in photographs of boats in Twofold Bay, but school history, food history, council affairs (except the specific council for Indigenous locals), the management of the town and the life of locals is depicted as white. Even the Jewish residents (not quite white, in Australian tradition) shadow white male history, which is curious, because there are Jewish graves in the local cemetery, an important early shop was set up by someone Jewish, and Solomon Solomons, of a particularly important regional family, was a Jewish whaler.
Now I wonder how many Jewish whalers there are, and whether it's simply that no-one talks about them. There were Jewish pirates and Jewish politicians – why should there be no Jewish whalers? And why do so many fiction writers assume we are all involved in matters financial? Mr Solomons was a vast local importance and his family was of regional importance, so his absence from the Killer Whale Museum is curious. More curious, however, is the absence of most Yuin people in the main history of the region. They have history, and it’s shown, but separately, as if the European-origin culture cannot talk to the Indigenous. The depiction of women in the museum too, makes them secondary to the Really Important People. This is modern Australia in miniature. We set up the history we want to live with and create a past that echoes ourselves. When historical fiction writers use this as a base for writing, the circle is complete.
How to move out of this closed circle? One of the bus drivers of Eden solved this as he explained what happened to the Greenseas Tuna Factory. “You need to ask the right people the right questions,” he said. Why is this not so easy in Eden? The current population of Eden is mostly older people who migrated from elsewhere. They wanted to retire to a lovely town on the coast and they have no knowledge of what came before. The desk person at the Killer Whale Museum demonstrated beautifully how new knowledge is acquired in the region: she is passionate about the Mr Logan who built Edrom Lodge. She is determined to make him visible, because she sees him as unseen. My clever bus driver and the schoolteacher on a stall at the community market both knew her and her passion. It’s a small town: everyone knows those with passion. And so the fascination with one person is reinforced and the wider story of the townsfolk says different things depending on where the story is focused. I have a list of names of people who will know more: I will return sometime and ask them my questions. Time and work break down that circle, and the clever asking of questions.
We seek stories of people like us, for the most part. When I asked about the local inhabitants and their work with killer whales, no-one I spoke to could answer my questions beyond the answers the museum gave. Each of them was focused on what they knew, and on people they thought were like themselves. Sometimes, however, the answers are in sight. I will need to speak to the local Land Council, for example, and the Jewish Historical Society.
I can (and did) also ask different questions. I can look for people who are not quite like others.
In the case of Eden, the most obvious person is Old Tom, a killer whale of great significance. The Killer Whale Museum chronicles his life and his personality and why he was named. His stories show that the real cultural force in the whole whaling industry was not those who sold whale products and made much money: it was the Indigenous whalers who worked alongside the Killer Whales. We know how Old Tom handled his team of orcas to bring whales in for the kill. We know how he let the whalers know they needed to get in their boats and do their bit. We know how he mocked whalers who would not do their share of the work or did not leave Tom and his folks their part of the kill. We even know how he was patted. We also know, mainly from the pictures at the museum, that it was not the white Australians who worked with Old Tom. They were exceptionally skilled people. There was a great deal that was different in Eden to whaling elsewhere, from the number of whales killed (maintaining a population) to the collaboration between human and killer whales and the number of people who died whaling. One. Just one human death. Over decades. Look at an exhibition from a different point of entry and it is as if the whole past shifts and changes and suddenly makes sense.
Whether a writer chooses one strand or two, whether they only see the official history and follow the path of the Imlay brothers down the main street (the Princes Highway, the #1 road in Australia, which becomes Imlay Street as it passes through Eden) or whether the writer challenges standard history and starts to think of the locals who never left ... this rests on the type of story the novelist wants to tell. Most will tell stories that link to known heroes and established figures and will echo the sound of the larger bay. Their research will echo the interests of the new locals, who retired to Eden and don't know its deep history. Their story will reinforce the standard one and will resound and be seen and valued because it echoes what we already know. Other writers will echo the smaller bay and query Old Tom. Rare writers will look at history from somewhere else entirely and will bring us something very special indeed.

Judging the Crowns by Maggie Brookes

Have you ever said yes to something without really knowing what you were agreeing to? I've just taken on a marathon, though it also resembles a sprint. I was honoured to be asked to be one of the 9 judges for this year's Historical Writer's Association Gold Crown award for the best historical fiction novel published between 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025. Lots of lovely books to read, I thought. I've been reading historical fiction all my life. I've had two historical novels published world-wide by Penguin. I have opinions. How hard can it be?

The coveted HWA gold crown award.

Well, first of all, there are 131 entries, from more than 40 publishers, big and small. And I know that each one of those novels has been meticulously researched, painstakingly written and rewritten, edited, proof-read and finally published. I sympathise with all that effort, angst and joy. At a modest estimate of 2 years to research and write each one, that would be 250 years of work. A more realistic estimate of 4 years per book is a staggering 500 years of labour! It's a big responsibility, but also a opportunity to learn so much – about history, about publishers, about structuring and pacing narrative, about stories that jump out at readers, and also about what's being published right now.

The hard copy books waiting to be read.

The first thing I notice is gender. Judging by the first names of the authors, more than 95 of the 131 appear to be women (and perhaps some of the tantalising initials are women too.) History girls are alive and flourishing! Are women writers particularly drawn to history, I wonder? The judges are also predominantly female, with 8 out of the 9 of us being women. (Are women more inclined to agree to take on these kind of roles?? Answers on a postcard.) We are Louise Hare (Chair), Ellen Alpsten, Mark Ellis, Louise Fein, Alison Joseph, Amy McElroy, Carolyn Kirby, Linda Porter and me. Louise says: 'I love seeing how broad the category of historical fiction is, encompassing so many different genres. This is my third time of judging the Crowns and I’m always fascinated by the trends that emerge within each cycle. I see our role as vital in rewarding literary merit within historical fiction, but really it’s about celebrating great reads, those books you want to tell all your friends about.' Under her guidance, we  have until September to agree a longlist, October a shortlist, and November to choose a winner. Yikes!

Louise Hare, chair of judges, with HWA member Jim Burge at the award ceremony.

Gender is also noticeable in the protagonists of the novels. Taking a straw poll of the 93 books I've been sent so far in hard copy, there is a massive predominance of books about women, particularly pioneering women whose names have been forgotten, but also enslaved women, witches and detectives. Perhaps this isn't surprising when a Guardian article from 2019 says that women readers account for 80% of sales in the UK, US and Canadian fiction markets – far more women than men are literary festivalgoers, library members, audio book readers, literary bloggers, and members of literary societies and evening classes... and form book clubs.  

MA Sieghart's book The Authority Gap found that 'men were disproportionately unlikely even to open a book by a woman. For the top 10 bestselling female authors (who include Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood as well as Danielle Steel and Jojo Moyes), only 19% of their readers are men and 81%, women. But for the top 10 bestselling male authors (who include Charles Dickens and JRR Tolkien, as well as Lee Child and Stephen King), the split is much more even: 55% men and 45% women.  In other words, women are prepared to read books by men, but many fewer men are prepared to read books by women.'  I suppose that's just as well for male writers! Ian McEwan once wrote: 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.'

The books I've received seem to divide into four main sub-genres: 1) extraordinary women from the past, both real and imagined; 2) crime / mystery / thriller / gothic (some a mixture of those) ; 3) mythical re-tellings and fairy-tale inspired historical fantasy. And then there's 4) war, from the Trojan wars to the Napoleonic wars; WW1; the interwar years; WW2 and the cold war. I've written three novels about women in war not because I'm interested in war but because war brings out the worst and best in people, and that gives plenty to write about.  Writing about the past has always seemed to me to be a way of writing about the present.

There are also stand-alone stories from across the centuries, which can't be slotted into those categories. All human life is here.  Authors too, range from the ultra well known to debut novelists. Only three of the books I've received so far have been in translation, though many are set in other countries, from the Americas to Africa and Japan. I'm learning so much! There are several dual or triple time-line stories. The biographical fiction shows the historical range of the first 85 books I was sent in hard copy, from the first century AD to the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th and 20th centuries.  Many are about powerful women in royal families, perhaps because there is more about them in the historical record. Just one of these books has a male protagonist, although at school I was only taught history about men. The bias of history is being slowly re-written, page by page and book by book.

The HWA flag.

As I read, I bear in mind not only the effort of the writers, but also what it means to win these awards.
Elizabeth Fremantle, who won the 2024 Gold Crown Award with Disobedient, her extraordinary novel about Artemesia Gentileschi, says 'Disobedient, of all my novels, is closest to my heart, so it meant a great deal that it was the one to be recognised by the judges. I was truly humbled, and on the night utterly astonished, that my book was chosen from a short-list of such calibre.'

Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle

In 2022 AJ West won the Debut Crown award with The Spirit Engineer. He says 'Winning was a complete shock and – un-English as it may be to admit it – a source of proud vindication after years of struggle to get published. Recognition from the HWA prevents me from being too pessimistic when things feel heavy and impossible. It reminds me that, though I'm not yet a wealthy author, nor necessarily an author with his book in high street windows, nor even an acclaimed author, I am something much more smug and satisfying: an author who benefits every day from the support of his fellow writers, whom I admire in greater measure.'

And so I dive in. Eight weeks till the longlist. How hard can it be?

 Maggie Brookes, novelist and poet. Author of  historical novels The Prisoner's Wife and Acts of Love and War. As Maggie Brookes-Butt: Wish, New and Selected Poems.

Instagram: Maggie __Brookes 

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The Sacra Infermeria: Malta by Kathryn Gauci

The Sacra Infermeria from the Entrance Fort Elmo

Many visitors to Malta these days visit The Malta Experience at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, situated opposite Fort Elmo in Valletta, unaware that this building, which overlooks the Grand Harbour, once housed the most important hospital in the Mediterranean – the Sacra Infermeria – built by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. I visited this remarkable place one year ago, and was disappointed to see that most people only went for the Malta Experience film portraying the island's history, yet only a handful chose to do the second tour of what was once described in the 17th Century, as the best hospital in Europe,

The hospital was built in 1574 by Grand Master Jean de la Cassiere (1572-82) after the previous great Knight, Jean de la Valette, embarked on building Valletta, making it the capital of Malta after defeating the Ottomans in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565

Grand Master Jean de la Cassiere

The Knights of the Order of Saint John, or Knights Hospitallers as they are also known, were a Catholic military order founded in the 12th-century in Jerusalem and were known for their care of sick and injured Christian pilgrims. By the time of the success of the First Crusade in 1099, the Hospital of St John was already well-known among pilgrims and regarded as a separate organisation from the monastery of St. Mary. The brothers at the hospital saw it as their duty to provide the best possible treatment to the poor. The monastic Hospitaller Order was formally created when the Pope issued a papal decree, Pie postulatio voluntat, on 15 February 1113 to the head of the Hospital of St John, Blessed Gerard de Martiques.

Pie Postulatio Voluntatis

The document is in the National Library in Valletta

The Pope subordinated the hospital to his authority and exempted it from paying tithes on the lands it owned. He also gave the right to its professed brothers to elect their own master and placed several other hospitals and hospices in southern Italy under the governance of the Hospital of St John in Jerusalem, as they were located at port cities from which pilgrims travelled to the Holy Land. The Knights Hospitallers were in Jerusalem until 1291, and then moved to Cyprus (1302–1310) and afterwards to the island of Rhodes (1310–1522). After an attempt to defend themselves against Suleiman the Magnificent’s Ottoman Forces, a siege that lasted six months, the Knights were allowed to go freely to Malta in 1530. There, they were administered as a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily and became rich through trade and what was deemed a lucrative profession of the day – becoming fine corsairs, or pirates. Yet at their heart was a philosophy to care for the sick and wounded of all religions including their Muslim captives.

Entrance from street level to the infirmary.

The Great Ward

The Sacre Infermeria has 6 levels and the first level, once used for the poor, is now used for events such as CHOGM ‘67, the Malta Regatta Dinner, and other prestigious events. Halfway down this room, there is a ramp where the poor entered. The Old Ward was later extended during the years 1660 to 1666 under the rule of the Cotoners. During this time, arches were spaced between the beds. Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner (1663-80) also founded the School of Anatomy and Surgery here; the forerunner of the Medical School of the University of Malta. The Great Ward is 155 metres long by 10 1/2 metres wide and could house 300 single beds and 914 patients with each bed allowing for 3-4 people. Interestingly, the rich still received the same service, True to their faith, no one of another faith was turned away. There was also the Phalangue, an irregularly shaped section of the infirmary reserved for patients suffering from contagious or venereal diseases. Some with contagious illnesses were later sent elsewhere, usually to the area in Marsamxett Harbour which was primitive and provided little accommodation and comfort, although the area was used when plague afflicted Malta in the first half of the seventeenth century. Quarantine was forty days, representing the forty days of Jesus in the desert.

Valletta in 1801. The hospital can be seen next to St Elmo's Fort

It should be noted that fear of contagious diseases was rife at the time. Passengers and goods arriving on ships, even with a clean bill of health, were required to remain under observation for a short period of quarantine. The site selected was very convenient. It was on the south side of the new city below the Castille bastion and the Lower Barracca, along the Valletta wharf of the Grand Harbour. There was a row of stores and warehouses, above which was residential accommodation for passengers and crew kept under observation. A special loggia was also built for the benefit of distinguished passengers. A few yards away from the isolation quarter a row of bollards formed a barrier to keep away unauthorised persons from entering the quarantine. That barrier gave rise to the name by which the wharf is now known - "Il-Barriera". From here they could safely approach the hospital.

Five rooms were specifically sectioned off for venereal disease patients needing mercury inunctions. The Great Magazine Ward consisting of 109 beds for sailors and soldiers of the Order, as well as galley-slaves was located in the basement of the infirmary. On the second basement level, was the Magazine Ward with 36 beds for the mentally ill.

To clean the wounds, vinegar was used. Sea salt and honey were also used for infections as an antiseptic. It is said that kidney stones could be removed safely within a matter of minutes and amputations were swiftly dealt with by the sword.

For all this goodness, women were not admitted. If a woman was rich, a doctor would personally visit her home. For all other women, a cross was painted on the patient’s door and a nun would pay her a visit. Normally all nuns acquired some medical education. Women were not even allowed to visit their male relatives at the hospital.

The garden at St Catherine's Monastery

In the Great Ward, one can still see ventilation holes along the wall facing the inner walled garden, which is where the auditorium for the Malta Experience now stands. In its time, the garden would have been large and built after the style of Arab gardens, containing citrus fruits and many medicinal herbs. The scent would have been wonderful. Such gardens still exist in Malta but on a smaller scale. The Monastery of St Catherine’s is one of them. It shows that they processed their own rose and orange water and had an abundance of honey.

Towards the closing stages of the 18th century, there was a general decline in the Order. Life had changed and the Knights of St. John were losing their raison d'être. Liberal ideas were spreading throughout Europe and to make matters worse, the French Revolution led to all the rich estates of the French langues being confiscated, pushing the Knights to the brink of bankruptcy. This decay was reflected in the administration of the Sacra Infermeria, where conditions were vastly different from those of its former days. In 1786, the noted English philanthropist John Howard, visited Malta's hospitals and recorded his impressions in a book titled 'An Account of the Principal Lazzarettos in Europe'. His account of what he saw in Malta was anything but flattering and is one of the first indications of the decline of the Order's hospital. According to his report, doctors doing their rounds were forced to press a handkerchief to their faces to ward off the unbearable stench.

When the hospital was used as a garrison, horses were tethered to the arches. Note the iron ring.

The building was used by the British Military Forces as the Garrison Hospital (1800-1920) At the time, British soldiers suffered an outbreak of what was called the Malta fever. The disease caused undulant fever in men and abortion in goats. It is transmitted by goat milk. In 1886, the medical facility became well known when Major-General Sir David Bruce, (29 May 1855 – 27 November 1931), became chairman of the Malta Fever Commission that investigated the deadly disease, by which he identified a specific bacterium as the cause. Bruce was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Scottish parents, engineer David Bruce and his wife Jane Russell Hamilton, who had immigrated to Australia in the gold rush of 1850. He returned with his family to Scotland at the age of five. Sir David discovered the bacterium, now called Brucella, in 1887 along with the bacterium and the disease it caused. Brucellosis, together with the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei, are named in his honour.

During WWII, the building suffered severe bomb damage but was later restored.

David Bruce

The members of the Mediterranean Fever Commission

The Streets of St Andrews by V.E.H. Masters

 St Andrews in Scotland is known worldwide as the home of golf as well as for its famous university where Prince William met Catherine – but it's also a town with a lot of history.

My first historical novel, The Castilians, closely follows the long and dramatic siege of St Andrews Castle in 1546-7. Since St Andrews is my home town, I had a very clear picture of the streets my characters walked and the destruction wrought by the siege, since some of it is still visible almost five hundred years later.

Pictured above are the remains of Blackfriars Chapel damaged by the castilians – which is what the men who took the castle, killed its cardinal and held it for the next fourteen months called themselves – and hence the title of my book. Blackfriars sits in the grounds of my old school and I walked by it every day without a second glance.

St Andrews is so named because bones purporting to be from the apostle Saint Andrew once rested here. The town was a centre of pilgrimage from the 1100s with pilgrims coming from as far away as Russia, whose patron saint the apostle was.

A certificate of pilgrimage to St Andrews was found in France a few years ago. This particular pilgrim had been required to undertake the journey as a penance for killing someone, as well as making recompense to the man's family. 

Pilgrims travelled in groups for safety. They arrived by sea, usually further down the Fife coast and walked the last twenty or so miles to St Andrews. The townsfolk were understandably fearful of pilgrims bringing the plague so pilgrims were held in quarantine outside the city boundaries and permitted entry through a controlled pilgrim's gate.

The cathedral, once the largest in Scotland, was built in the 1100s. God was said not to have looked favourably upon this over grand edifice when the west end was blown down in a storm in 1270 and the building partly destroyed by fire in 1378.

St Andrews is a very early example of town planning built with its main streets fanning out from the cathedral, as pictured below in the Geddy Map of 1580 (with permission of the National Library of Scotland). Those streets, wide and straight, were laid out to facilitate the processions for the many holy days of the Catholic calendar. These would include carrying the reliquary containing the bones of Saint Andrew, presumably on Saint Andrew's Day 30th November and performances of the mystery plays. 

When Mary of Guise, mother to Mary Queen of Scots, arrived from France her first meeting with her new husband, James V, was in St Andrews. Forty days of jousting, plays and street pageants followed which must have been hugely exciting for the folk of the town.

The siege of the castle took place only eight years later. James V was already dead and Mary Queen of Scots, aged four in 1546, was now queen. The siege was ostensibly because Cardinal Beaton, Scotland's most powerful man, had the Protestant preacher George Wishart burnt at the stake outside the castle while he, and the people of the town, watched. A few months later a group of disaffected Protestant  lairds crept into the castle disguised as stone masons. They killed the cardinal and hung his naked body from the parapet so the townsfolk were in no doubt who now controlled the castle.

Inevitably the siege was not only about religious differences. Henry VIII of England was funding them as one amid many tactics to force agreement to the marriage of wee Queen Mary to his son Edward. The castilians expected Henry to send a relief force to rescue them but he did not, although he did send funds and supplies by sea.

The government troops tried to break the siege by tunnelling in but the castilians were wise to siege warfare and they mined out to meet them. The purpose of the tunnel was to set explosives and undermine the curtain wall which the troops were prevented from doing. Both sides were tunnelling through rock which is why one of the best preserved mine and counter mines to be found in Europe can still be visited in St Andrews.

Eventually Scotland's auld alliance with France was called upon. The French galleys bombarded the castle from the sea unsuccessfully however they had among them a master tactician in Leon Strozzi, Catherine de Medici's cousin. He ordered the dismantling of St Salvator's (pictured below) then wooden spire and had cannon hauled up to the top of its tower and one of the cathedral towers. The resulting bombardment quickly ended the siege.

In 1559 John Knox was preaching in St Andrews and incited the congregation to such a pitch that they destroyed all the imagery in the church, smashed the stained glass windows, toppled the saints from their pedestals and continued on to the cathedral, which they looted. Other towns followed and Scotland became a Protestant country. St Andrews, which had been Scotland's ecclesiastical centre as well as home to the country's first university, gradually fell into decline. Rubbish piled high in the streets and the town became so rundown there was even a proposal that the university be re-sited to Perth.

Both castle and cathedral soon fell into ruin and were systematically quarried for several hundred years. The good citizens of the town used the stone to build and repair houses and to replace the wooden piers at the harbour with stone.

Eventually St Andrews was re-purposed as the home of golf. Golf had been banned by James II in 1457 because he observed the young men were playing it rather than practising archery. James IV was a keen golfer and re-instated the game and his granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots played golf too.

V.E.H Masters is the award winning author of the best selling Seton Chronicles. The first book in series The Castilians tells the story of the siege of St Andrews Castle in 1546. You can find out more at her website https://vehmasters.com/where there are three short stories available for free to download.

Born Out of Wedlock, by Carol Drinkwater

 

I am a week away from publication of my latest novel, ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE. 3rd July 2025. It is always an exciting as well as a nerve-racking time. 

A broad synopsis of what the novel is about: a British couple, Celia and Dominic, are living on a vineyard in the south of France. A vineyard that was inherited by Celia when her father died a decade earlier. Celia has decided to throw a huge summer party to celebrate the growing success she and her husband are making of their wine production. A few days before the big August bank holiday weekend when the party will be in full swing, Celia receives a forwarded letter from a man, David Hawksmith, who claims to be her son; the son she gave up at birth in 1977. David's existence is the outcome of a traumatic incident from Celia's past that she has never spoken about, not even to Dominic. Celia invites David to the party. Dominic graciously welcomes him (and David's unexpected and rather curious travelling companion) even though he has his doubts about the veracity of David's claims.

The book has elements of mystery but, ultimately, it is a story of  Betrayal and Belonging set against a backdrop of all the glorious ingredients - food, sunshine, scents etc - of living along the Mediterranean coast in the south of France. 

The Irish Times, in a recent Q and A, asked me whether the fact that I don't have children of my own had been the seed, the inspiration, for the novel. Giving up a child born out of wedlock is a very big issue in Ireland. Only two weeks ago, a dig began in search of the bodies of babies whose mothers were obliged to give up their "illegitimate" offspring during the last century.

https://news.sky.com/story/opening-the-pit-dig-for-remains-of-800-infants-at-former-mother-and-baby-home-in-ireland-begins-13384111?fbclid=IwY2xjawK8yglleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETB5RzI4SXF3eFBab042VmNyAR7960m6fL8n0J55ru2FjHnpkPSRQPp9TKphdWrgRFnD2zV0qQ8HeqYtXUjj6A_aem__xN9uAsQA5bsM7CkprKizA

I have written a little about this subject before in one of my earlier History Girls blogs. Via the link below you will read that Ireland's right to abortion was not made legal until 2018.

http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/search?q=carol+Drinkwater+Irish+childhood

Abortion was made legal in Britain on 27th October 1967, and came into effect on 27th April 1968. In theory, this means that Celia, the leading character in ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE, could have legitimately terminated her pregnancy, but, for reasons  revealed in the novel, she did not.

The choices for young pregnant women before the late sixties in Britain were: a termination of the pregnancy (frequently a risky abortion, a backstreet illegal business), a hasty marriage, for some a shotgun wedding, or give up the child at birth for adoption.

In my novel, the young Celia gives birth to her son and, four days later, the child is taken from her for adoption. All she knows about the boy is the Christian name she has chosen for him, David.

Ghosts from the past. 

I am fascinated by secrets that step out of the shadows of our own lives and others' lives. The lives of those close to us. My mother was expecting me when she married my father in October 1947. I often joke about the fact that I was with them on their honeymoon in Devon. However, this was a fact I only discovered, by accident, when I was about ten or eleven. I found a stash of their honeymoon pics and calculated the dates! The subject had never been spoken about and when I confronted my parents with the question, they (both Catholics) were a little sheepish, but did not deny the fact. Why should they? I have, since that discovery, perceived my conception as one fired by love and passion. Would they have married if Mummy had not been pregnant with me? I believe they would, but who can say? The choice they made was to keep the baby, marry and start a family.

I love to be by the sea - I live overlooking the Mediterranean. I crave its rhythms and I have asked myself whether this has anything to do with the fact that my parents were happy on their honeymoon. A happiness that was tested in a relationship that was tumultuous even though they stayed together all their lives and my mother was deeply committed to her marriage. She loved my father loyally till the day he died, forty-six years later. Her face and her demeanour at his deathbed I will never forget. 

Now that both my parents are gone, I deeply regret all the questions I never asked. How did Mummy feel the moment she discovered she was pregnant; was she frightened, elated, guilty? What were the circumstances when she discussed her situation with Daddy? What was his response: "Let's get married, Phil" ... Was his willingness to tie the knot instantaneous? I know that they had been expecting a boy and had decided to Christian me Charles!

The morning the newly-weds, my parents, were boarding the luxurious Devon Belle train at Waterloo station heading to Ilfracombe in north Devon for their honeymoon, my father discovered that he had won the Football Pools. His win was the staggering sum of almost one hundred pounds. It was a fair fortune in those years of austerity after WWII. Mummy told me some years later that it felt as though their marriage had been blessed. It was all their wedding presents rolled into one. As an Irish country girl who had relocated to London during WWII to train as a nurse, she was far from home and her family. The wedding was a very quiet affair with only my father's brother and my mother's younger sister in attendance, as far as I am aware. 

The Devon Belle was a luxury passenger train which only began service in June 1947 so my parents would have been early travellers. I wonder, before his pools win, how my father, so soon home from life in the RAF entertaining the wartime troops in Africa, could have afforded to splash out on such a treat. But it does seem to suggest that he was celebrating their union, that he wanted to give my mother, pregnant with their first child, the best that was on offer. A luxurious and memorable debut to the life ahead of them together in post-war London.

Last week I was in London recording ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE for audio. Reading the novel as an actress is quite another eye to when I am working on the text as a writer. This time, as I read, a period from my own teenage years came flooding back to me. Bromley in Kent, in England in the early 60s, a little earlier than my principal character, Celia's teenage years in a small provincial town outside Bristol. Without realising it, subconsciously, I must have taken from my own experiences of this era and interwoven it into Celia's story in the novel. 

When I was a late teenage girl, the battle to legalise abortion was underway. David Steel, Liberal MP, later leader of the Liberal Party, was responsible for introducing as a Private member's bill, the Abortion Act 1967. Fortunately, I had no need of the liberating results of this act once passed. Even so, as a teenage girl growing up, educated at a rather strict Irish convent, the waves of such a progressive bill would have been in the news and in debates all around me. As well, I must have had some awareness of the trials and terrors for young unmarried women who found themselves "in trouble" in the days before abortion was an available choice for them.

The episode that came flooding back to me as I was recording my novel last week was of a completely forgotten incident. It was the case of R., a girl in my class at the convent. We both would have been about fifteen at the time. R. discovered that she was pregnant. In our middle-class, Catholic-educated circles, this was completely unheard of and very shocking. How did R. deal with her situation? She said nothing, packed a bag and just disappeared. It was a scandal. Her parents, of course, were fraught with worry. I have a clear image of her mother and father paying a visit to our house one evening after school. We were all gathered in the sitting room, which in itself was rare. The white and gold-flecked three-piece suite was usually covered in dust sheets to keep it clean and protected from the light. The room was rarely used. Mummy kept it immaculate for "special occasions". Well, this must have been deemed a special occasion. I sat in a corner. Our guests remained standing. R.'s exceedingly tall mother was chain-smoking. (Smoking in Mummy's pristine sitting room!) She was clutching a small ashtray shaped like a shell in the palm of one hand. The reason for the gathering was information. "We need to hear what Carol knows about R. Her movements, her companions, before she fled." 

Or had she been kidnapped, abducted, murdered? Were any of these scenarios ever considered? I don't remember. Certainly the police had been called in and a search for R. had been set in motion. It wasn't known at this stage that R. had gone of her own volition nor that she was pregnant. I had no information to share with the grieving adults towering over me. R. had not confided in me - we weren't that close - and I had not overheard any chatter in the classrooms. I could shed no light on the crisis. R's mother was in tears as they exited our house. I felt so bad about their situation that I was almost inclined to run after them, invent a tale, but I knew better than to create false leads. 

It was at least another three weeks before R. was eventually tracked down, It was then her parents discovered that their daughter was pregnant. This was two or three years before David Steel's Abortion bill. R. was sent away somewhere unknown to me to give birth to the child who was then immediately handed over for adoption. My classmate never returned to the convent. She became a girl from our childhood whose story was not spoken aloud. Her parents split up, as I remember. Tragedy had befallen the family.

R. was a young woman shamed. From there on she and the "unsavoury business" was only spoken of in whispers.

What happened to R.'s child, her son? Did she and he ever make contact, did they find one another at some point later in their lives? I have no idea. I sincerely hope that there was some kind of happy ending to the tale.

In ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE, Celia's son, David, contacts her out of the blue. A forty-seven-year-old man claiming to be the son she gave up at birth comes knocking, or rather, sends a letter requesting a meeting ... How does a mother respond? Invite the stranger into your life, welcome him as long lost kin ... Or deny his existence? Refuse to see him?

Earlier this year, I was honoured to be one of the two judges for the very prestigious Listowel Literary Festival's 'Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award.'  Settling on our overall winner was very tough; the standard of fiction being published by Irish writers right now is mesmerisingly good. The prize went to Niall William's, Time of the Child. Williams' story is set during the season of Advent in the year of 1962 in a small (fictional) village over on the west coast of Ireland. An abandoned baby is found in the churchyard and taken in by the local doctor and his unmarried youngest daughter ... The prose is luminous and the story, compassionate and heart-wrenching.

Coincidentally, having read fifty novels for the Kerry Prize, I am now reading another Irish novel, also delicately crafted. The Boy From the Sea from debut novelist, Garrett Carr. It is 1973. A baby is found in a barrel off the shore of a small coastal Atlantic town in Ireland. A local family adopts the boy ... Beautifully written, full of wry humour.

Every conception offers up the possibility of an untold story; a world of choices, of future bondings or terminations. Of aspirations and dreams dashed or built, of love washed up on unexpected shores. 

I beg to be forgiven for placing my novel on the same page as the very fine works of Williams and Carr. These are three very different stories. What they have in common is that each centres on the ripples and (tidal) waves caused by the arrival of a boy born out of wedlock. Interestingly, the other two are both written by male authors.

I hope you will enjoy ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE. It is receiving some splendid feed back. It is a LoveReading Book of the Month for July. Available at all good bookstores and on Amazon etc. If you are outside the UK, Blackwells will have it in stock and they ship worldwide for free. Here is the link:

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/One-Summer-in-Provence-by-Carol-Drinkwater/9781805462767

Have a wonderful summer. If you happen to be in Britain, Ireland or France during July, here, above, are a few of the events I will be talking at. It would be lovely to see you at one or other of them.

Enjoy your summer reading.

www.caroldrinkwater.com