Christmas Cards - Celia Rees

I’m writing this blog in between writing my Christmas cards. This set me thinking about Christmas cards and their use and significance to a novelist.

This was the first commercial Christmas card, commissioned in 1843. It featured a jolly family celebration, snow scenes and Nativities came along much later. The first cards were expensive, 1/- a throw (which was a lot of money in those days), but the introduction of the Penny Post three years earlier meant at least sending them was cheap and Christmas cards were here to stay. It took the introduction of the postcard to make Christmas card sending really popular. Soldiers sent embroidered, patriotic cards from the Front in the First World War. Many families, including mine, kept these carefully preserved in albums, the thick paste board covers ensuring the colours stayed sharp and bright.

In the UK, Christmas cards account for almost half of the volume of greeting card sales, with over 668.9 million Christmas cards sold in the 2008 festive period (or so it says on Wikipedia). Cards are a ubiquitous part of our Christmas preparations, they are also among the most ephemeral, sent and received in a matter of a week or two, displayed for perhaps a fortnight more before being taken down and put into the re-cycling once the Christmas period is over.

Although their presence is fleeting, they carry a record of passing time, the cycles of our lives. As we get older, addresses change, people become lost to us, or names are crossed out of the address book as elderly relatives die. Friendships that were once important, a vital part of our younger lives, are reduced to a few lines in a card, ‘Must write!’, ‘Must keep up!’ although we know that we won’t put pen to paper until another year rolls round. E cards are even more ephemeral, nothing to put up, display, or keep and I always feel rather foolish sitting in front of a computer, watching a tree illuminate itself, or some other Christmas scene unfold. Round Robins are far more interesting, a glimpse into other people’s lives, a record of their year gone by, as well as providing valuable insights into character: what kind of person sends one in the first place? And why would they say that?

Few Christmas cards are kept, but those that are can be hugely evocative and very useful to a novelist. They act as a passport back into our own past lives: the design, the signature, the message inside, take us to a particular time, to friendships forgotten, reminding us of who we were then. They can also provide a way in to the recent past. A single card found in amongst a pile of family papers. There is no personal message inside, just names that you don’t recognize, but the card throws up a whole list of questions, heavy with possibilities. Who kept this card? Why? Who is it from? When was it sent? What does it signify? For a writer, these questions are highly redolent, rich with potential. When there is nobody to ask any more as to the provenance, we are free to make up the answers ourselves. There could be a novel in there, no doubt, but I haven’t got time to think about that now. I’ve got cards to write.

"Fashes in the Flood" by Penny Dolan

Whenever fierce winds blow, as they have all this December, a particular ghostly ballad haunts me. “The Wife of Ushers Well” is set around one of the old quarter days, Martinmas which comes in late November. It has many other festival links, including its nearness to All Souls and All Saints, but it was also the start of the long Advent fast that once led up to Christmas. 

 

The Wife is definitely a ghost story. However, for me the tale doesn’t centre around the ghosts but around the recognisable rage of the main character, the wealthy widowed mother.

The get-rich scheme she set up for her family has gone wrong so badly and sadly that she turns that hatred outwards. 

This mother – or so it seems to me – dominates her three sons, sending them off on a journey where they will do her bidding and bring more riches back home to her. In her pride she forgets that the sea can be hungry but eventually she hears news confirming her beloved sons are drowned.What does she do then, this woman? What would you do if you sent your child off on an errand and something dreadful happened? She does what so many must wish to do. Almost like Lear, she calls all the winds and weather to witness her sorrow. She uses her mystical powers to hurl rain and floods across the land. It is never clear if this is witch-craft and magic or simply the elements responding to the intensity of her rage. At last, some other natural power hears. She knows her sons are coming home again and all is stilled. 

They do come, those ghostly sons, for one calm night. They seem gentle whispering souls. They know where they have come from and how soon their night by the fire will be over.  They witness their mother, in her haze of hurry and delusion, eager to have the fire well lit, eager for comfortable beds to be ready and that all is comfortable for her boys. She even makes sure – or so I read it - that the pretty sweetheart of a servant girl is there to lie beside him. When the cock crows and dawn comes, the three sons get ready to leave once more, knowing that when they depart this time, their sleeping mother’s grief will overtake her mind. 

Forget the white sheets and rattling chains and howling in the night of the traditional ghostly story. In this tale, it is the living grief that is horrific.

 

This is an English version sung by Martin Carthy, one of the great preservers of English ballad history, and a very different Appalachian version. Which do you prefer?

Meanwhile, for those who love to muse on the words alone, here is the text that tells it all for me. :

THERE lived a wife at Usher's well,
         And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
         And sent them o'er the sea.

They hadna been a week from her,
         A week but barely ane,
When word came to the carline wife
         That her three sons were gane.

They hadna been a week from her,
         A week but barely three,
When word came to the carline wife
         That her sons she'd never see.

'I wish the wind may never cease.
         Nor fashes in the flood,
Till my three sons come hame to me,
         In earthly flesh and blood!'

It fell about the Martinmas,
         When nights are lang and mirk,
The carline wife's three sons came hame,
         And their hats were o' the birk.

It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
         Nor yet in ony sheugh;
But at the gates o' Paradise
         That birk grew fair eneugh.

'Blow up the fire, my maidens!
         Bring water from the well!
For a' my house shall feast this night,
         Since my three sons are well.'

And she has made to them a bed,
         She 's made it large and wide;
And she 's ta'en her mantle her about,
         Sat down at the bedside.

Up then crew the red, red cock,
         And up and crew the gray;
The eldest to the youngest said.
         ''Tis time we were away.'

The cock he hadna craw'd but once,
         And clapp'd his wings at a',
When the youngest to the eldest said,
         'Brother, we must awa'.

The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
         The channerin' worm doth chide;
Gin we be miss'd out o' our place,
         A sair pain we maun bide.'

'Lie still, lie still but a little wee while,
         Lie still but if we may;
Gin my mother should miss us when she wakes,
         She'll go mad ere it be day.'

'Fare ye weel, my mother dear!
         Fareweel to barn and byre!
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass
         That kindles my mother's fire!'

Note: Have been triply cursed - by Blogger, by power cuts when editing, and by the Carthy "Ushers Well" video vanishing from all searches. Feel the Carline Wife is alive and still cursing . . . Off to put up boughs of fending greenery,

May you have a much happier and more contented time this Christmas!:

www.pennydolan.com 

A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E, published by Bloomsbury Childrens Books

Finding A Way To The Past by Catherine Johnson

There! See that? It's a lovely spread page of one of my all time favourite books. I hope it's big enough for you to realise how lovely it is. It's one in a series of London A-Zs from Elizabethan up to Victorian edited by Ralph Hyde and published by Harry Margary. That one there is Georgian, the John Rocque map reproduced in facsimile and, I must admit, my favourite. The books are all big, A4 size when closed, and I can happily spend ages exploring my characters' neighbourhoods. This book has been invaluable to the last few history books I have written. It lets me follow my characters as they go about their lives. Tracing their routes as they hare around the city and of course, the wonderful thing about London is that an awful lot of the streets are still there. I do love a map it's so much more than just a picture, there are whole ways of life there, markets, churches, prisons, schools, fields, reservoirs, burials grounds, slums and manor houses. And the names of the streets; Liquorpond Street, Coldbath Fields, Bleeding Heart Yard, Seven Star Court, Little Bear Key, Adam-a-digging Yard.
I'm there already.The books are pricey but if you're looking for a useful tax deductible present for yourself any of them would be ideal.

This post isn't just a plug though. I've written six historical novels now - three published, two in the (very long) pipeline with various publishers and one that lives in the drawer - and all have been set in London.

And this is where you, dear readers may be able to help. I am about to start the second in a series and this time my protagonist is out of the door and on a boat before the thing's started. What am I going to do? How can I possibly manage without a map?
Anyone know any good ones of pre- revolutionary Paris? I need all the help I can get,

Season's Greetings to one and all!

Victorian Christmas - in Denmark; Marie-Louise Jensen

I enjoyed reading Mary Hooper's wonderful post on Tuesday so much that I decided to post another Christmas scene, set at a similar time but in a different country. This is from my first book Between Two Seas, and is Marianne's first experience of Christmas in Denmark:

Hannah pulls the door open and hugs me before I
have a chance to knock.
“Marianne! Come and see our decorations!” she
cries at once.
“You’ve made it so pretty!” I exclaim. The tiny
house is bright and clean. There is an apple studded with cloves on the table. I smell the warm exotic scent at once. Red paper hearts are pinned to the walls. The table is set simply but prettily, with china and serviettes. Soft candlelight completes the atmosphere. Hannah beams with delight.
“The cloves came from the wreck,” she tells me. “Mother bought them at the auction.”
Hannah’s mother shakes my hand. “Welcome Marianne! Come and warm yourself by
the stove.”
“I have a small gift for you first,” I say a little nervously, laying two tiny parcels on the table. It has been a puzzle to know what to give them, as I still have absolutely no money. In the end I chose my two best handkerchiefs and embroidered them with the prettiest threads from
my sewing box. The parcels are wrapped in the tissue paper that lined my trunk. I watch anxiously while Hannah and her mother unwrap them. To my relief they both seem pleased. On Hannah’s I’ve embroidered an intricate “H” in one corner and tiny pink flowers in the others. For her mother, a blue “C” (her name is Charlotte) and blue flowers.
“Marianne, they’re beautiful,” breathes Hannah.
“That was too generous,” her mother tells me, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “It must have taken you hours.”
“Oh no,” I assure her. “I learned to sew as soon as I could hold a needle.”
They lay the handkerchiefs on their bed, and Hannah’s mother puts on her apron and begins to fry fish.
“We only have dried fish for our Christmas
meal, I’m afraid,” Hannah tells me apologetically. “And we need to eat much earlier than usual, as mother has to go back to the hotel to help prepare the Christmas meal there. They have lots of guests.”
“That’s no problem at all, I promise.” I am glad the supper will be early. Having not eaten yet today, I’m starting to feel faint.
“But just wait until you see what we have for dessert,” Hannah adds. She hugs herself in excitement, her eyes gleaming.
“Dessert?” I ask, surprised. I can’t remember the last time I had any kind of dessert.
“You look like you could do with some,” Hannah’s mother tells me, coming back into the room. “Are you going very short of food at Jacobsen’s?”
I hesitate, unwilling to lie outright, but not keen to admit the truth either. “We’re managing,” I tell her.
“Well, there’ll be no fresh fish while the sea stays frozen,” says Hannah’s mother seriously.
Hannah must have been teasing me when she said there was only dried fish for supper. There are also potatoes and carrots with melted butter. It’s the best meal I’ve had in months. I eat hungrily. Then Hannah proudly helps her mother lay two serving dishes of dessert on the table.
“It’s ris à l’amande,” she explains.
I don’t realise for a moment that Hannah’s using a French name. Then I understand. Rice with almonds. It looks as though there’s a generous amount of cream stirred into it as well. The second dish has fruit in a sauce.
“Does this have a French name too?” I ask.
“No, that’s kirsebærsovs,” she laughs. Cherry sauce. “They’ve made a huge portion for Christmas at the hotel. They gave mother some to bring home,” Hannah explains, handing round bowls and spoons. “It’s what they’re eating later tonight, so we are as grand as they are!”
I taste a spoonful of my portion. The rice is rich and creamy, and the pieces of almond crunch deliciously. The cherries burst on the tongue adding sweetness. Hannah and her mother are watching me expectantly, waiting for my reaction.
“It tastes so good,” I assure them. “I love it.”
I eat very, very slowly, tasting every spoonful, making it last as long as possible. I store up the memory of the taste. When we’ve eaten every last bit, we clear away, and Hannah’s mother
brews some rosehip tea from the rosehips they picked in the autumn. Then she wraps herself in her shawl to go to work while Hannah and I settle down by the fire to drink our tea and talk.

How we annoyed our ghosts, by K. M. Grant

Please forgive a little personal history, but our theme is ghosts, and our ghosts usually appear when we put up our decorations. Only today they didn't. It seems we've rather carelessly annoyed them.

You see, over the summer, we altered the house. When the final child went off to university, it was either that or moving. So we shifted the kitchen, changed the sitting room, did a few things up. We’re very pleased with the result, but it wasn’t until I began to prepare for Christmas that I fully realised how gains entail losses. The doors of the ‘old’ house were pricked full of small holes from Christmas drawing pins; one wall was blotted with strange stains from enthusiastically lit puddings; the hall carpet was pitted with evidence of the Advent candle’s waxy wobbles; and the kitchen table bravely bore the heavy scars of a wreath that went up in flames more than a decade ago.

Our decorations - so randomly collected they might be an Emin art installation – rattle with the ghosts of all the Christmases we’ve had here. I’ve grown accustomed to bumping into them as I tread a well-worn path round the house. However irritable I am gathering bluetack and ladder, as soon as the decorations tumble out of the ancient and most inconveniently sized cardboard box marked ‘Christmas’, a spell is cast. Here's the rather hideous horse that inspired an (unpublished as yet) story that cartoonist Annie Tempest illustrated for me. As you can see from the picture further below, the Christmas Horse* she's created is utterly delightful. You'll also see the little present that one child, or was it another, made when in primary something, and here's the wooden pig sent by my oldest sister 26 years ago, the Christmas after our wedding.


Pride of place always goes to the clown my mother made in ten minutes for the top of the tree the first Christmas my husband and I celebrated alone, unable to go to my home because our second child, just three months old, was too ill to be out of range of the hospital. (This is not a sob story! The baby’s illness was only momentarily serious: she’s now 22 and fit as a flea.)

As these and a multitude of other familiar comforts have slotted into their usual places, I have happily given in to mishy-mashy sentimentality. Oh come all ye ghosties, joyful and triumphant.

Not this year. Impolitely ousted from their dens by joiner, plumber, electrician and painter, the ghosts are in a huff. As I put the decorations up in unfamiliar locations, not one ghost came to visit. Not only that, but it seems we have a fightback on our hands. Cross ghosts must be the reason two sets of lights are operating a ‘go slow’, another set has ceased to function and the bow I tie round the banisters keeps coming adrift. I’ve tried to placate, but I don’t think I’ll succeed because I must have hoovered so robustly after the alternations were finished, I can’t find even one elderly pine-needle to offer as an old welcome.

I was sad at first. I pottered around in a pleading, apologetic kind of way. Now I say stuff it. No irritable ghost is going to ruin my favourite time of year. Never mind Christmas past. Our children are either already home or on their way home. One is bringing her new husband. If the old ghosts want to join us, splendid. If not, I’m doing no more grovelling. New ghosts will arrive in due course. Welcome, all.

*The Christmas Horse image is copyright Annie Tempest.

A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS - Mary Hooper

This is an excerpt from VELVET. It is Christmas in London, 1900. Velvet, an orphan, has been asked by her new friend Lizzie to share her family’s Christmas Day...

"Velvet managed not to open Charlie’s present until Christmas morning. When she did, she was disappointed - which was extremely wicked and ungrateful of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help thinking that Charlie’s mum must have chosen
the gift within: a pink-and-green flower corsage for an outer coat, made of felt and not at all fashionable. She’d been hoping that the box might contain a
pretty hair decoration with which to keep back her curls, or even a little silver necklace to enhance the Sunday-best dress that she intended to wear to
Lizzie’s house that day. But what was she thinking of, she admonished herself, for if it had been a costly piece of jewellery or something similar, then she
would have had to return it. A girl couldn’t accept a gift like that from a male friend unless they were engaged - and it wouldn’t do to give Charlie ideas. He was a sweet boy and she liked him very much, but he wouldn’t make a husband for her. He was part of the past which she intended to leave behind.

At Lizzie’s house she was delighted to find that the family kept a good Christmas, the sort she’d never had before. In the doorway hung a kissing ball of ivy and mistletoe, and in the hall the Christmas tree was liberally decorated with candles, gold foil and ivy ribbons. She felt shy at first, but was welcomed so warmly into the family that before long she was joining in
everything - even the raucous singing games around the piano – as if she’d
known them all for years.

Mr Cameron, Lizzie’s pa, was a source of amazement to Velvet. Whereas her father had always seemed to be teetering on the edge of a display of bad temper, Lizzie’s pa was a
happy-go-lucky chap who whipped off his jacket and waistcoat to show his daughters how to dance the hornpipe, and made paper hats for their dogs. When they sat down at the table and Lizzie’s ma discovered that she’d forgotten to put the stuffing in the breast of the roast goose, Velvet went cold, fearing a terrible row, but Mr Cameron had roared with laughter and called his wife a
flibberty-gibbet, then kissed her and said he wouldn’t have her any other way.

After the goose came a flaming plum pudding containing small silver charms: a
boot, a coin, a top hat, a dog, a lucky horseshoe and a ring. Velvet got the
tiny horseshoe (she decided that Lizzie’s kindly mum had arranged it that way)
and everyone made much of the fact that this was the best token to have and
that the coming year was bound to be very lucky for her. After the meal there
was charades, with forfeits if you didn’t get the right answer in a certain
number of minutes, then blind-man’s buff and – as the afternoon grew more
boisterous - a game with a Ouija board which Lizzie’s sisters played most
enthusiastically, getting in touch with all sorts of “spirits” but failing to
get anything sensible out of them. HSTRETYZZ said one in reply to a question
about his name, WERPRSIT said another when asked where he came from.

At tea time everyone had a barley sugar stick from the tree, a slice of iced fruit
cake and a bon-bon, and when Velvet pulled hers with Lizzie’s mother she was
delighted to discover within it a tiny pair of nail scissors, a paper hat and a
joke (My dog has no nose. How does it smell? Dreadful) which for some reason sent everyone into near hysterics.

Complimenting Mrs Cameron on the wonderful fruitfulness of the cake, Velvet, looking around the table and
feeling very happy, wondered if her mother and father had ever had good times together. She decided they had not, for – from as far back as she could remember - her father had been an impossible man to please. Why, only last Christmas she’d made an effort to create a little cheer, buying a ham for their Christmas dinner and studding it with cloves, and her father had sniffed it, said that he hated cloves and thrown the whole thing to the floor.

He’d taken exception to the way she’d decorated the room, too, and tossed the evergreens outside saying they were a pagan tradition which he would not tolerate (although he was certainly not a religious man)."

HISTORY SISTERS by H.M. Castor

As Christmas draws closer and, with it, the prospect for many of family gatherings, I hope no one will mind if my post today has a family-related theme. This site has featured lovely posts by other History Girls about their first history teachers. Mine was my older sister Helen.

(above: The Writing Lesson by Albert Anker, 1865)

We are the youngest two of four children in our family, and are separated in age by just under two years. Whilst we argued and squabbled (and even on occasion fought) as much as the next pair of siblings, I formed the firm and unshakeable conviction at an early age that my sister was, well, where it was at. Her friends, effortlessly, seemed cooler than mine. Her talents were obviously the most worthwhile ones to have. And whatever Helen was doing or was interested in was, by definition, The Right Thing.

I have a distinct memory of Helen asking me – at the tender age when one ponders such questions – whether I liked gold or silver best (I think it was around Christmas time and we were contemplating sparkly pens). Gold, was my reply. Helen then revealed that she preferred silver. I remember quietly trying, really trying, to hang on to my liking for gold, even as the manifestly superior qualities of silver began to make themselves plain as day – its elegance, its sophistication…

You get the picture. So when I say that Helen was interested in history from an early age you will instantly understand how I came to find history fascinating too. I later followed in her footsteps by taking a degree in history, and now – though we have done some other, very different things in the last couple of decades – it is perhaps no surprise to find we’re both writing history books, albeit of very different types, since she writes non-fiction for the adult market. (No direct competition – which is both a relief and just as it should be: we are, at bottom, very different personalities.)

Feeling as I do that if it weren’t for Helen I might very well not have learnt to love history as early and as fervently as I did, nor perhaps have become a writer of historical fiction at all (since she introduced me to the authors who were my histfic heroines), I very much wanted to ask Helen what it was that drew her to history as a child, and what role historical fiction has played and continues to play in her love of the subject. I have therefore conducted a sibling interview, which you can read below.

But first, here’s my proud sister bit:

After studying for both her BA (in which she was awarded a starred First) and her PhD at Cambridge University, Helen spent several years as an academic historian (latterly as Director of Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, of which she is still a Fellow). Now, however, she concentrates on writing non-fiction history books for a broader audience. She has been described by Saul David in BBC History magazine as ‘that rarity: a professionally trained historian who can write.’

(photograph © Chris Gibbions)

Her latest book She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, has won great critical acclaim both here and in the US, being described by Hilary Mantel in The Guardian as 'Highly readable, exciting and thought-provoking,' and by Kathryn Hughes in the mail on Sunday as 'Combining top-notch scholarship with fizzing storytelling ... a fascinating account of a group of women who refused to do what they were told and, in the process, paved the way for England's great female rulers.'

Her previous book Blood & Roses is a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, whose remarkable letters are the earliest surviving collection of private correspondence in the English language. Blood & Roses was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005, and was awarded the Beatrice White Prize by the English Association in 2006.

Helen is one of the presenters of the BBC Radio 4 series Making History. This year she made her debut as a presenter for BBC4 with a film entitled A Renaissance Education: The Schooling of Sir Thomas More’s Daughter. She has recently finished filming a set of three documentaries based on She-Wolves, which are due to be broadcast by BBC4 next year.

I must point out that, were Helen here with me as I’ve been writing all this, she would have been blushing and cringing in equal measure – she is one of the most unassuming and genuinely modest people I know! But now, without further ado, I will present the questions I sent her and her answers.

Do you remember how and when you first became interested in history?

Helen: I must have been about five, I think, when I read Jean Plaidy’s two books for children – The Young Elizabeth and The Young Mary, Queen of Scots. And I absolutely fell in love with history: the sixteenth century, to start with – there’s no one more charismatic than the Tudors – but then later I found my way back into the middle ages.

Why do you think history particularly grabbed you at that age?

What I always loved – and still do – is the combination of human experience with an alien-yet-recognisable world. That’s also why I love science fiction – but history’s even better, because it really happened… In those two Jean Plaidy books, I could immediately identify with Elizabeth and Mary, fascinatingly different characters though they were, but then the world in which they lived was so strange and glamorous and frightening and thrilling. I can still see every one of the illustrations in my mind’s eye…

Did you enjoy studying history at school or was history, for you, an outside-school interest?

I loved history at school. I would have loved it anyway, but I was lucky enough to have two wonderful history teachers who opened up the whole subject in the most exciting way. What history as an academic discipline has to offer is the forensic exploration of complex evidence – but because it’s complex evidence with human beings at its heart, that forensic exploration has to be infused with psychological understanding and intuition about individual behaviour and group dynamics.

And, because conclusions have to be expressed in written form, studying history is also a training in how to write clearly, coherently and precisely. Language is at the heart of the subject – which is why I think the process of studying languages is crucial for historians. Translating from one language to another is the best possible way of understanding a text from the inside – what’s unsaid as well as what’s said, and where the disjunctions come between different cultures. You couldn’t get a better training for reading a historical text than that.

Would you say that historical fiction played a role in fostering your enthusiasm for history as a child and teenager? (And if so did it do anything in particular in that regard?)

Without a doubt. Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time conveys an overwhelming sense of the excitement of the detective-work (literally, in her hero’s case) involved in historical research. And, given that a lot of academic writing is more concerned with analysing the past from a distance than reinhabiting it from the inside (if that makes sense), it was Dorothy Dunnett’s fiction that provided me with experience, rather than simply intellectual understanding, of the complexity, sophistication and unpredictability of the medieval and Tudor world.

Do you still read historical fiction now?

Yes, though selectively rather than omnivorously. I regularly re-read Dorothy Dunnett. Your book is wonderful! And Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and A Place of Greater Safety are extraordinary and utterly inspiring. I know I’m not alone in counting the days till Bring Up The Bodies is published.

Historical fiction has something of a bad name among some academic historians. David Starkey famously never reads it, Niall Ferguson has argued that it “contaminates historical understanding” and Anthony Beevor has expressed deep concern about novelists using real historical characters in their writing. What are your thoughts on this?

I’m a great admirer of some of David Starkey’s books, but I hardly think it’s a good idea to take everything he or Niall Ferguson says seriously…

Clearly, a lot of professional historians feel uneasy about (or actively hostile to) historical novels. I don’t, though. I think the presence of historical fiction can help keep academic historians honest – because, for all the care and rigour with which we need to treat our sources, we still do have to join the dots, to produce an interpretation of the past (and especially of human behaviour in the past) that we find convincing. The past is gone, and in attempting to summon it up in our own words historians are engaged in a process of creative writing – creative writing according to different rules from writers of historical fiction, of course, but creative writing all the same. And I think that the explicitness of the process of creation in historical fiction can be a useful point of comparison and contrast with what we’re doing; and also a reminder that it won’t do to treat our own protagonists as pieces on a chessboard rather than three-dimensional human beings living in a three-dimensional world.

Maybe that reminder is more necessary to someone like me, writing pre-modern history where it’s much harder to find the evidence on which to base three-dimensional characterisation. But I was very struck by reading responses to Wolf Hall that said, for example, that Hilary Mantel had got Thomas More ‘wrong’. That wasn’t at all how I’d seen it; I tend to think that human beings are extremely good at living in contradiction, which is why one person can summon up such contrasting responses in others. It seems to me that a reminder that the evidence for Thomas More’s life can be read in a multiplicity of ways from a multiplicity of perspectives can only be historically helpful.

Much more problematic, in fact, for me, are books which purport to be history, written for a general readership (and therefore not subject to the kind of academic reviews which would pick up on what I’m about to say), which contain glaring historical errors and pages full of footnotes (to give that sense of ‘referenciness’) that on closer scrutiny are meaningless because they’re so non-specific that they can’t be followed up. I’m all in favour of writing for a general readership; and I’m entirely conscious that we all make mistakes; and I don’t think you have to have footnotes at all, so long as you offer a gateway to the sources you’ve used through some kind of bibliographical discussion (as many popular history books and academic textbooks do) – but, whatever gateway you offer, if you’re writing history it does need to be possible to interrogate your evidence one way or another, rather than being led up a blind alley…

Do you think that the work of your favourite historical novelist/s has in any way shaped or influenced your own approach to writing?

Yes, I do. The history I write now is narrative history – storytelling – because that, for me, is the way to put human experience at the centre of my work. I try as hard as I can to see the worlds I write about through the eyes of my protagonists, without hindsight in so far as that’s humanly possible. (One of my self-imposed rules is never to use the phrase ‘little did he know that…’) I weigh up my sources as best I can and then tell the story as it makes sense to me, rather than laying out the details of historiographical debate, because – valuable though that is in other contexts – it immediately jolts me out of the historical moment and into the distant present. And I try to give a physical and psychological sense of the world in which my protagonists lived.

The best historical fiction, of course, is based on rigorous historical research; and the works of history I love most allow me to explore the worlds of the past from the inside – Thomas Penn’s Winter King being a wonderful recent example. There’s an utterly distinct but relatively narrow dividing line between the two.

What are you working on now?

I’m working at getting back to writing after the exhilarating and fascinating but very different experience of making some documentaries based on She-Wolves. And I’m afraid I’d rather not say out loud what I’m trying to write about – it’s still at too early a stage of gestation…

Completely understood! And many thanks.

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, and Blood and Roses are both published in the UK by Faber, & in the US by HarperCollins.

Helen Castor's website is here.

H.M. (Harriet) Castor's website is here.