St. George’s Day

St. George is England’s patron saint, and today is his Big Day, yet we English hardly notice the occasion, and certainly don’t celebrate it, unlike our neighbours in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, who mark their special saints’ days in style.

This lack of enthusiasm is said to be because of the English stiff-upper-lip culture of not getting too excited about things – which is rubbish, in my opinion. We can get excited about the Olympics, or a royal wedding, (or even football, they tell me…though this last leaves me cold, I have to confess.)

Well then, are we just too irreligious these days, or too lazy, to go bananas about a saint? Maybe we don’t think he’s good enough…though a knight who risked his life to rescue a damsel from a dragon seems pretty good to me.

Sadly, it’s too good to be true. The dragon-and-damsel part of George’s story is pure myth. The town terrorised by the evil dragon who demanded a human sacrifice every day…the king’s daughter due to be handed over to him…and George riding to the rescue, capturing the dragon and eventually killing it, having converted the whole town to Christianity…a great tale, but not the reason he was made a saint.

Mind you, his real life, what we know of it, had its own share of drama, and his courage and loyalty were outstanding. He was born in the third century of Christian parents in Cappadocia, (now part of Turkey but then a province of the Roman Empire.) He became a Roman army tribune, but when Emperor Diocletian began persecuting Christians, George resigned from the army in protest, and tore up Caesar’s order against the Christians. The Emperor was, not surprisingly, furious, and George was imprisoned and tortured, but refused to give up his Christian faith. He was executed, and his martyrdom led to his becoming a saint.

George was revered in Europe all through the Middle Ages, and miracles and myths gradually collected round him. Many people doubtless believed in dragons…but for the more sceptical, there was symbolism too, because the dragon was equated with the devil. Gradually George’s flag, the red cross on a white background, came to be regarded as an emblem of England, and by the time that he was made patron saint of the Order of the Garter by Edward 111 in the 1300s, the dragon-slaying exploit was the major part of his legend. He became truly part of English folklore…including giving his name and image to a good many “George and Dragon” pubs!

He’s still a powerful symbol in modern times. King George VI established the George Cross as a medal for “acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger’, and its silver cross has the saint on it…slaying his dragon of course.

I’d say this is a patron saint to be proud of, whether in real life or in myth. But how can we English be persuaded to give him the kind of celebration he deserves on this day every year?

Thoughts on a funeral

There are two opposing views about today’s famous funeral in London. I can’t go along totally with either of them, and I don’t intend to get involved in political arguments about them here. So I’ll just quote from some famous epitaphs and leave the choice to you.

This is Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Under  the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

But here is Hilaire Belloc’s Epitaph on the Politician Himself:
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
I wept, for I had longed to see him hanged.

Finally, Shakespeare had it right (doesn’t he usually?) with this:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun;
Nor the furious winter’s rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.

What’s in a name…February?

It’s the simple-sounding questions that often catch you out, isn’t it?

Such as when someone asks: “Why is February called February?”

“Named after a Roman god, I expect,” someone else answers.

Then they look at me. “Jane, you know about Roman stuff. Was February named after a Roman god?”

“Er…very likely. I don’t know which one though.”

“You don’t know? But you’re a historian!”

“And like all true historians,” I answer, “if I don’t know a thing, I at least know where to look it up.”

A combination of books and the Internet gave me the answers, mostly from an essay by Plutarch, the Greek-born Roman writer who lived from 46 to 120 AD. All the Roman months, which gave us our familiar month-names, were either called after a deity – like January from Janus, June from Juno – or else, more boringly, named just for their numerical position in the calendar. September was the seventh month, October was number eight, and so on. Those numbers are out of sync now, but they made sense in the very early days, and I do mean early: the Romans dated the foundation of Rome to 753 BC. Back then they started their year in March, and their ancient calendar covered only 304 days, ten months. They knew a year was longer than that, they just didn’t bother to include the winter days as part of the sequence. Confusing? It must have been.

Eventually (still well inside the BC time zone) they realised how much better a twelve-month calendar would be, and tacked January and February onto the end of their existing one, using up the spare winter days. Only later still did things get switched round so that January became the first month of the new year. But the number-names were set in stone by then. Whoever said the Romans were logical?

When February was the last month of the year it acquired several festivals concerning the dead and ancestors, and on Feb 15^th a religious purification ritual called “februa”. Plutarch says that’s how the month got its name.

But that’s not quite the end of the story. “Februa” was almost certainly linked to a deity, (though Plutarch doesn’t say so,) called Februus, god of ritual purification and of the underworld. He was very ancient, but never made it into the Roman Pantheon Top Twenty in his own right; he got amalgamated with another and better-known underworld god, Pluto. However, it’s not a bad form of immortality to give your name to a month, even a gloomy one like February.

By the way if anyone asks me where March’s name originated, that’s much simpler. It comes from Mars, of course, god of war, and the Romans’ favourite chocolate-bar…

Dogs’ rules for humans

I’m just acting as messenger for this post. It really comes from our two cocker spaniels.

Copper is the red one (as his name implies,) a real show-type dog, although he came to us from a dog rescue, because he has a dramatic temperament that not everyone finds easy. Rosie doesn’t have Copper’s looks, but she does have a pedigree as long as your arm from a working spaniel strain – they’ve been bred as gundogs for years – and she’s sweet-natured and laid-back; as laid-back as any cocker spaniel ever is.

When I saw this list of doggy rules for humans, I laughed out loud because they could have been written by our two rascals, who would certainly want me to pass them on to you. Especially Rule 5 and Rule 9…

Les bicyclettes de Yorkshire

We heard this week that the Tour de France cycle race is coming to England next year, and the opening two days will feature some hard riding in Yorkshire.

Our local media have been going bananas. Well, why not? We’ve got plenty of steep hills for the riders to go at, and some lovely scenery and historic towns, and…OK, you get the picture. They’re only with us for two days, then it’s off down south, and onward to France itself for most of the tour. But that hasn’t stopped Yorkshire folk from rejoicing in the excitement of the sport and the prospect of many thousands of enthusiasts flocking here to spend their hard-earned brass.

I can’t help wondering what the French think about calling it the Tour de France when part of it happens this side of the Channel. York, Leeds, Ilkley, Sheffield, Holmfirth, Aysgarth…the names lack that Gallic je ne sais quoi, don’t they? Oh well, Sand-fairy Anne, as my Dad used to say in his Churchillian French. And he’d be right; it doesn’t – matter, that is, what they call the race, as long as the cyclists know which way to go, and the spectators know where to stand…

AND as long as they all ride a good clean race without dosing themselves with any naughty substances to help them along. They won’t need them, anyway, if they stick to a proper local diet: Yorkshire pudding with their roast beef, and Wensleydale cheese with their home-made apple pie. This last may strike some non-Yorkshire folk as odd, but we say, “An apple pie without some cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.” To anyone who hasn’t tried this lovely combination, I strongly recommend it, but don’t do what a friend of mine in London did once, and add custard. Really, I despair of southerners sometimes!

I suppose we’ll all start brushing up on our French phrases to welcome the cyclists and their entourages and fans. My conversational French used to be quite good many moons ago, though it may be a touch rusty now. Still, I’m sure it would come back to me, although I’d struggle with cycle-related chats about punctures or dodgy brakes, or details of race stages. How do you say, “That hill’s an absolute stinker, watch out for the 1-in-4 S-bend near the top or you’ll go base-over-apex”?

Being a lover of puns, I always enjoy the spoof “fractured French” translations that go the rounds from time to time, and doubtless will again next year. Rendering “pas de deux” as father of twins, and “mal de mer” as mother-in-law, makes me smile, not to mention translating “Chateaubriand” as your hat’s on fire. And in our family we call Chateauneuf du pape “The Pope’s Newcastle.”

I wonder if the French have the same sort of jokes the other way round? If so, what can they make of “Ee by gum” or “Where there’s muck there’s brass”?

Well, bonne chance to the cyclists; rather them than me, flogging up and down all those hills. Let’s make sure they enjoy themselves in Yorkshire, and hope they can make time to look around them as they belt along and admire the beautiful countryside they’re riding through. However beautiful is La Belle France, there are bits of Yorkshire that beat the rest of the world hollow.

My Next Big Thing

I’m delighted to pick up the baton from Ruth Downie in this cyber-relay called My Next Big Thing. It’s for authors to answer a set of questions devised by…I don’t know actually who devised them originally, but they’re good questions. Ruth gave good answers last week at http://rsdownie.co.uk/2012/12/11/my-next-big-thing/

Now for my two penn’orth:

What is the working title of your book?
At present it’s called BLOOD ON THE ROAD. I’m not totally sure about that title, (sounds too much like a motorway accident!) but the book isn’t finished yet, and something better will occur to me as I go on writing.

Where did the idea for the book come from?
It’s the fifth in a series about Roman innkeeper Aurelia Marcella  She runs an inn on the road to York in the Roman province of Britannia, at the end of the first century AD, which is not all that long after the Romans invaded Britain. So native hostility to the conquerors is still sharp. Aurelia prefers peace with both settlers and native tribes, but she keeps getting drawn into solving crimes, often at considerable risk. So far her adventures have been in what we’d call Yorkshire, but then at the end of Book 4 (DANGER IN THE WIND) a perfect reason emerged to send her off to London, and it’s working out beautifully. I’m having such fun researching Londinium and trying to see it through the eyes of a country innkeeper.

What genre does your book fall under?
Historical mystery.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Having a film made from one of my books is a fascinating thought, but I’ve one small qualm. Until that fairly unlikely event, I and all my readers can have our own idea of Aurelia, Lucius, Quintus, and the rest. Once movie images arrive, they restrict people’s imaginations a bit…hey, what am I saying? I’d be over the moon, of course I would, so if any movie moguls are reading this, feel free to get in touch!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Plans for a happy Roman wedding are wrecked when the bridegroom vanishes and his bride-to-be is threatened with death if she looks for him, but Aurelia must look, because he is her brother.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It’ll be published by Poisoned Pen Press in the USA and by Head of Zeus in the UK and Commonwealth.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
There are quite a few authors writing mysteries set in Roman times, which is great. But we’re all different, so comparisons are difficult and I’m not sure how useful. Google “Roman historical mysteries”, we’re all there for you to try!

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
You could say it was a natural development, being part of a series. But what made me choose my particular period? I’ve had a lifelong interest in Roman history, since living in York as a child, and then as a teenager read “I CLAUDIUS” by Robert Graves, a truly brilliant book. They say “write about what interests you,” so I do.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s told from the point of view of a woman, which is very unusual for Roman-era mysteries. I wanted to look at Roman society through feminine eyes because it was in legal terms very male-dominated, but I knew that, as in so many other eras of history, smart women like Aurelia could learn to work the system and live their lives more or less as they liked.

Tag time
Now I’m going to tag my good friend Rebecca Jenkins, another writer of historical crime fiction, and a fellow member of the Mystery Makers group. Her novels set in Regency England involve Raif Jarrett, adventurer, spy, soldier, and artist…a fascinating mixture of a sleuth. Rebecca’s Next Big Thing will be posted soon at http://www.rebeccajenkins.com/Rebeccas_blog

Seeing the Romans from space

I recently watched a fascinating BBC television programme about archaeology from space. No, it didn’t show archaeologists in spacesuits whizzing round in orbit collecting up bits of junk that have fallen off rockets or been jettisoned by astronauts. It was about using space satellites to look for traces of the Roman Empire that can’t be seen from the earth below.

ROME’S LOST EMPIRE was presented by historian Dan Snow and based on the work of Dr. Sarah Parcak from the University of Alabama. She’s been analysing images and photographs sent back to earth from orbiting satellites, which can examine the surface of our planet in considerable detail. They can do this not just visually, but using infra-red wavelengths as well, which are invisible to human eyes but enormously useful sources of information. She produces maps that make clear differences in the surface that you can’t distinguish from down here.

Each feature of our planet – sand, rock, vegetation, buildings – has a different “signature” in the data from space, and not just when they’re on the surface. The images can show buried remains too, such as sites of forts or farms from Roman times, even when they are now hidden below ground level.

Dr. Parcak has worked for some years finding hitherto unknown ruins in Ancient Egypt. Dan Snow’s programme got her to focus on the Roman Empire. She analysed maps of various parts of the Empire looking for sites that might be interesting archaeologically, and with modern global positioning techniques she could pinpoint them to within a meter or two. Then she and Snow and other experts visited these interesting places, and discovered remains on the ground that corresponded with the images from space…the “lost” sites that had either not been known at all by today’s scholars, or had been known about in theory but never found before.

Snow and Parcak looked at Portus, the vast ancient port west of Rome where warships and trading vessels anchored. The coastline has receded over time, and much of Portus is built over now, but the space images found an important ship canal leading directly to Rome and bypassing the longer route via the Tiber. They also discovered the site of what was almost certainly the enormous Portus lighthouse, which in its day was on a par with the great Alexandrian Pharos, rated one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

After other successful finds in Romania and Jordan, they focused on north Africa, examining the 1500-mile long frontier line between the prosperous and fertile Roman settlements and the nomadic barbarians in the desert nearby. How did the Romans protect their farmlands? Guided by the space images, Parcak located sites of a string of forts, which had been suspected but never found till now. The programme included delighted comments from Professor David Mattingly, who has spent years looking for traces of them, but needed Parcak’s new technology to find their exact whereabouts.

I hope this programme will be repeated soon, and I’m also hoping that a book will follow, or at least articles telling us more. Meanwhile, take a look at Sarah Parcak’s website, http://www.sarahparcak.com/index2.php#/home/ which covers her satellite-based findings in Egypt. It makes fascinating reading.

Have mystery, will travel

We launched SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT last week as planned. It was an excellent party.

It was a truly dark and stormy night, but that didn’t deter nearly thirty guests from coming along to Waterstones in York to share my celebration.

Among them were two people from Head of Zeus, the publishers hosting the party, an assortment of other mystery enthusiasts…and as I promised,  two real-live Roman soldiers. They were brilliant…good company, very knowledgeable about their period and their armour and equipment, and of course by far the best-looking men in the room – well I’ve said before I’m a sucker for guys in military uniforms! Victor and Germanus belong to the Comitatus Late Roman History e-enactment group. Check out their website at www.comitatus.net. Next year I hope Aurelia the innkeeper will be  joining in some of their events.

But till then, I shan’t be resting on my laurels. Apart from having my next book to write – Aurelia number 5, which still hasn’t even a working title – I hope to be busy with a new project, the Mystery Makers. I’ve got together with two other authors who have published historical whodunits, and we’ve formed a triple-act, and aim to strut our stuff around the north of England. We sing, we dance, we…OK, you don’t believe me, so I’ll be serious. We all love writing mysteries, and discussing our own and other writers’ work, and we are available to give talks, panels, and workshops to writers’ and readers’ groups, and in libraries, in bookshops, at conferences, in fact anywhere where mystery lovers meet. The pub? Well, why not?

The other Mystery Makers are two very good friends of mine, Dolores Gordon-Smith and Rebecca Jenkins. Our books cover a wide spectrum of history: I’m earliest with the Romans, then comes Rebecca in the Regency period, and Dolores is the most modern, if you can use that word to describe her chosen time, the 1920s.

I’ll post more about us soon, but meanwhile take a look at our new website, www.mysterymakers.co.uk. And get in contact if you’d enjoy hearing three hist-myst enthusiasts talking the hind legs off several donkeys.

A dream of two halves

Dreams come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve  had what footballers might call “a dream of two halves.” And Part 2 is coming true this week.

Part 1 happened nine years ago, when my first book was published. The first in my Aurelia Marcella series came out in the USA, and it was a great thrill to see my mystery as a real book with my name on it. Three sequels have appeared in the USA since, and I’ve been delighted each time, though sorry the bookshops and readers across the Pond were too far away for visiting. Some copies found their way here, but only a few. And as I’m a Brit and the stories are set here, I hung onto the hope that one day I’d be published in my home country too.

Now that’s happening. The first of Aurelia’s adventures, SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT, is being launched here this week, and the others will follow. They’ll still be there in the USA, so I have the best of both worlds, and that’s Dream Part 2 sorted.

The launch party for SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT (formerly GET OUT OR DIE) is being given by the UK publishers, Head of Zeus, on Thursday November 22 at Waterstones in York from 7.00 to 8.30. All sorts of friends are coming along for a drink and a chat…including some real live Roman soldiers! They’re part of a Roman history re-enactment group called Comitatus that I recently joined (well I never could resist men in military gear!) This photo gives a flavour of the wonderful displays they give. I don’t think the horses will be at  the party, but the guys look just as impressive on foot.  And if anyone is thinking of daring to utter a critical word about me, my books or my publishers, just bear in mind that Roman justice could be short and not very sweet!

No, this is going to be wall-to-wall fun. And all book lovers and history enthusiasts are welcome to come and help me celebrate my Dream Part 2.

Long live the BBC

It’s just 90 years to the day since the BBC sent out its first broadcast. That’s something well worth celebrating.

Oh yes, in spite of its present troubles, the BBC is still the best broadcasting organisation in the world. I know. I’m not only an enthusiastic listener and viewer, but I’ve worked for it as a freelance radio reporter and programme maker over more than 40 years – and I still do very occasional pieces on air now. I’m proud of that.

Of course I’m angered and saddened by recent revelations: deplorable not-very-investigative journalism that any cub reporter would be ashamed of, and horrifying stories of admired stars abusing their position in order to abuse youngsters. These are disappointing and sickening and just plain wrong. They must be investigated, the faults found and corrected, those responsible named and punished.

But while this is being done, let’s not forget the good things about the BBC. Most of us who contribute to it work hard and with integrity. We do our very best and we achieve good results. We give information and advice, we try to sort truth from lies and to see justice done…and on the lighter side, we stimulate all the arts, we amuse and entertain.

I’ve broadcast mostly for Radio 4 current affairs and magazine programmes, like “Woman’s Hour”, “You and Yours”, and one of my favourites, “In Touch”, the weekly magazine aimed at blind and partially sighted listeners…I say aimed at, but it has a widely varied audience, and it’s been going for 50 years, a respectable age even for a veteran corporation like the Beeb.

I’ve covered every topic from aviation to zoo-keeping, I’ve collected and distilled expert advice on everything from designing a new garden to using computers when you can’t see to read the screen.
I’ve done my share of digging out secrets that large organisations would sooner have kept hidden, and helping individuals get redress when treated by the authorities with neglect or stupidity or callousness. I’ve interviewed explorers and folk singers and inventors and a lion tamer and a bomb disposal expert and many other extraordinary people. I’ve enjoyed every minute.

AND I haven’t accused anyone of wrongdoing without checking my facts fully, or bribed or corrupted anyone, or been bribed or corrupted myself. I hope that I was a broadcaster that listeners didn’t rush to switch off, and that my radio colleagues thought of as honest and reliable.
I’ve turned my energies to mystery writing these days. But the BBC’s multitude of programmes are still full of reporters and investigators who work to high standards and believe in them…you can hear and see them every day. While that’s so, despite occasional rotten apples that have to be thrown out of the barrel, the BBC will be safe.

Many happy returns, BBC. May you still be here in another 90 years, and still able to show the rest of the world how broadcasting should be done.