The first in a great series

I’ve just finished reading A CLUBBABLE WOMAN by Reginald Hill. It’s his first novel about that “odd couple”, Dalziel and Pascoe, published originally in 1970. And it’s fascinating to see the beginning of what became one of the most popular of British mystery series.

The setting is Yorkshire, though the background isn’t as strongly Yorkshire as in later books. But the characters are strong all right. Superintendent Andy Dalziel is outspoken, coarse, ruthless, but sensitive on occasion and above all a brilliant detective. Peter Pascoe is a graduate, idealistic, liberal and very bright, but still quite naïve at this stage. They’re a fascinating combination, and – as in all the later books – the interaction between them gives depth and strength to the mysteries. In this first book, we watch Pascoe gradually moving from being appalled by his boss to feeling grudging respect for him, and even a hint of affection by the end.

The setting is a rugby club, where Dalziel feels at home; a former player, he knows everyone, and is aware of undercurrents among players past and present and their wives and girlfriends. When one of the wives is found beaten to death, he approaches the case from a position of knowledge, whereas Pascoe, who is still a sergeant, is the new boy, learning as he goes…about detection, and about his Superintendent.

I love this series and had read maybe ten of them before I found my way to Number One. That  made me realise how skilfully Hill has tackled the main problem of writing a series. How can you make each book stand alone and be enjoyable for itself without necessary reference to the others? After all you can’t expect readers to progress tidily through a sequence of novels, but you want them to read the lot eventually, no matter where they begin. This needs careful handling…I know because I face the same challenge.

The very fact that I happily read Hill’s books in no particular order shows how well he succeeds in this. And that’s in spite of the fact that he allows his characters to move on through their lives, book by book; they don’t remain stuck in a time-warp. I’ve met Dalziel and Pascoe at different stages: Pascoe with a wife and then a child, Dalziel divorced, then with a lady friend…and so on.

In each story I had just enough information about their situations to make things clear without becoming tedious. Back-stories are important, but they must be filtered in as sparingly as possible. I’ve discarded more than one mystery – no names, no pack-drill – on discovering I was expected to absorb large indigestible lumps of “the story so far” in order to understand the current tale. That’s not a fault I’ve ever found in the Dalziel and Pascoe series.

I’ve read that Hill intended A CLUBBABLE WOMAN to be a standalone novel at first, but that would have been a sad waste of two terrific characters. Even in this first book, he seems to know them so well and understand what makes them tick. Perhaps that’s why he decided to feature them again. I don’t know. But I’m extremely glad that he did.

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.

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.

Call me Ishmael

On second thoughts don’t, because I won’t answer.

Call me a writer who finds it hard to answer that frequently-asked-question, “Where do you get your ideas?”  “From everyone and everywhere,” I reply, and knowing this is wildly unhelpful, I do my best and add, “Very often I get an idea from research.”

And I’m not the only one. This week I saw the skeleton of a sperm whale that inspired Herman Melville to write MOBY DICK. It’s at Burton Constable Hall, a stately home in East Yorkshire, only about an hour’s drive from us. It’s an interesting place in itself, but when just the other day Richard heard about the whale there, we simply had to go and look.

The whale, about 18 meters long, (about 60 feet in old money,) was washed ashore nearby in 1825, and was a sensation. People came and hacked pieces of it off as souvenirs, till a celebrated Hull surgeon began to study and carefully dissect it.  Then Sir Clifford Constable, who had ancient rights of ownership over anything interesting that washed up on the foreshore in those parts, had it brought to his park.

It was erected on a wrought  iron frame and people could come and look at it…as Herman Melville did while on a visit to Britain. He published MOBY DICK in 1851, and included this:

“At a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale … Sir Clifford’s whale has been articulated throughout; so that like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his long cavities—spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan—and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.”.

It’s rather sad to think of this mighty animal being treated like that, and in due course its many years in the open led to it falling apart. But now it’s being taken seriously; it’s under cover in the stable block, which is to be repaired and restored to create a proper home for it.

And Melville took whales seriously; he’d been a whaler himself and he knew how fearsome they could be. So although now the Burton Constable whale looks a little forlorn, use your imagination and you can see something of its former grandeur, especially its length. Picture a vast monster 60 feet long, (that’s 20 yards – nearly a cricket pitch!) and imagine you’re facing it in the middle of a stormy ocean in an open boat.

No thanks. I’ll settle for reading about it…and being glad that there’s something left of it today.

Trains and chariots

There’s a fascination about steam trains, isn’t there? This photo (taken by Richard) is of one of the most famous of all steam locos, the Flying Scotsman, when it came belting along our local line a few years back. I’d love to have been riding its train, not just watching it go by.

Its usual home is the National Railway Museum at York, where I and a group of friends went last weekend. It’s a great place for an outing, with more than 100 historic engines and masses of other railway paraphernalia, from the technical to the trivial.

There are exhibits right up to the present day, but it was the ones from the past we all wanted to see: like the replica of Stephenson’s original Rocket, the first modern steam loco, which achieved a whopping 24 m.p.h. in trials in 1829.

My favourites were several royal trains built for the likes of Queen Victoria and Edward VII…the height of luxury, naturally, with beautiful wood panelling everywhere, and wonderfully comfortable-looking chairs and beds.

We couldn’t actually go inside Their Majesties’ coaches, but we were invited to sit in a first class carriage used between the wars, and luxuriate in the soft, roomy seats which presumably kept you content and relaxed over even the longest trip. And the bathroom next door…I wouldn’t mind something like that at home!

OK, I know I’m being over-romantic about the old days of steam. The journeys were long and slow, and if you opened a carriage window, soot blew in your face and spattered your clothes. I remember all that, from rail trips as a child. But I also remember how exciting those trips were, a real adventure.

Someone at the Museum, discovering my interest in the Romans, asked me about the theory held by some train buffs that the Romans were responsible for the gauge of our modern railways – 4ft 8.5 ins between the rails – because that was the standard gauge of an Ancient Roman war chariot. This is proved, they maintain, by wheel-ruts in Roman roads, which caused the standardised width to be handed down through generations of vehicle designers till Stephenson adopted it for his trains.

It’s a nice colourful theory,  but it’s wrong.

First, forget the idea of war chariots; the Romans didn’t have them. Chariots were important for racing and for grand parades, not for fighting. Boudicca had chariots when she fought the Romans; that’s why she lost.

But they had farm carts, travel coaches, and heavy freight wagons, capable of wearing ruts in roads, and yes, similar in gauge to modern rail tracks. But there was no official standardisation, no set rule for vehicle design. In a pre-industrial society, how could there be? It’s just that if you build a wagon or coach to be pulled by a pair of oxen or horses, the natural length of the axles is determined by the beasts’ width, and comes out at between four and a half and five feet. That was as true for Stephenson as it was for the Romans.

He simply constructed his rolling-stock and tracks to a width that was familiar from the carts and wagons he saw every day. So he was, in a sense, following in the wheel-tracks of former generations, because that was what common usage and common sense dictated.

But not because of war chariots. That theory has gone well and truly off the rails.

Spring and birdsong and all that

“Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king.” That’s the start of a poem I remember from my schooldays. I found myself quoting it on a beautiful spring morning recently; it’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s by Thomas Nashe, who lived from 1567 to 1601 – which makes him a contemporary of Shakespeare.

Like most youngsters, I assume, I had to learn and recite great chunks of our Glorious Literary Heritage in school English lessons. We memorised an assortment of poems, and Shakespeare speeches of course, and (if we were taking any foreign language exams,) we tried to learn a tiny bit of France’s or Germany’s G.L.H. too, so we could drag in a quote to liven up an essay.

I can still recall some poems now: “If…” (I can do most of that!) and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” (only the first verse alas, but I know it has a dreadfully sad ending,) and “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” – yes, I was interested in the Romans even then.

And, as I said, “Spring, the sweet spring”. It has stuck in my mind because it made us kids laugh. I still think it’s comic on account of the Elizabethan “special effects” at the end of each verse, which aren’t at all what one expects of the G.L.H.

Try reading the first verse out loud:

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Now even at the ripe old age of twelve I could identify birds that went “cuckoo” and “to-witta-woo”. But what in Bill Oddie’s sweet name are the others? “Pu-we” could be a peewit, I suppose. Or maybe a thrush, one of those that has a big repertoire of phrases, and (to quote a quite different poet) sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture that first fine careless rapture.

But I can’t recall ever having heard anything on the wing or up a tree going “jug-jug”.

I wonder, was Nashe just having a laugh, or was he making a serious attempt, in those pre-sound-recording days, to reproduce birdsong for his audience’s delectation? It’s hard to credit it now, but there used to be people who made a living in the variety theatres by performing bird impressions on stage…anyone in the UK remember Percy Edwards? He was a terrific mimic of birds and animals. But I’m sure he never went “jug-jug”.

Well, we have wonderful spring weather as I write this, which I’ll celebrate with the rest of Nashe’s poem.

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!

And to think I’ve remembered him all these years! Isn’t education wonderful?

Good news, bad news

I’ll start with the good news.

An exciting glimpse of the past has come to light in the market town of Malton, only a few miles down the road from me. Contractors building an extension to a primary school found an Ancient Roman pottery kiln, complete with lots of bits of broken pot. They excavated it and moved it so it can be reconstructed somewhere else, as it couldn’t remain in situ; the school needs its new kitchen and dining-hall.

Before the move, the school’s children had the chance to look at the excavations and talk to the archaeologists. Good – if you want to interest people in history, catch ‘em young!

Mind you, people are already quite used to digging up history in Malton, which was a busy centre for the Romans. There was a fort there, mostly garrisoned by cavalry, and a civilian settlement grew up round it. Those are facts, but another (rather frustrating) fact is that we don’t know for sure what the place was called in Roman times, because the ancient records are contradictory. It was probably Derventio (same root as its river, the Derwent,) but it could just be Delvicia. I’ll stick to Malton for now.

The news reports don’t give much detail about the kiln. What was its date? Was it primarily used for making pots, or for manufacturing roof-tiles? You can often tell this from the kiln’s internal structure. And what else did they find nearby – any coins, perhaps? My curiosity was running at full speed as I wondered about all this. I don’t exactly need this information for the work-in-progress…but when did that ever stop me from following an interesting research trail?

What I do need, I thought, is someone who’s knowledgeable on local history. I’ll ring up Malton Museum, in the market place. They have some interesting Roman stuff there, and are bound to know. Perhaps they’ll even put me in contact with the archaeologists who examined the kiln.

And that’s when I ran into the bad news. Malton Museum closed down at the end of last month.

There must have been publicity about this, but I completely missed it, and the closure comes as a nasty shock. From what I can gather, the Museum lease comes up for renewal in April and apparently the landlords have raised the rent to the point where the Trust can’t afford it. So this month all the precious artefacts are being packed away, to go into storage till a new home can be found. Who knows when that will be?

The trustees bravely maintain that the Museum will “go into the Community”. They’ll continue their educational work,  giving talks and presentations in schools, and they’ll display what they can of their collection at events around the Malton area.

Good luck to them, and may they find a new home soon. Museums are important. I hate to see one disappear.

Dreaming of a white…November?

Our first real snowfall has come early this year. We’re used to a few flurries in November, a brief whiteness that doesn’t last a morning. But this is the real Deep and Crisp and Even, all over East Yorkshire. As usual with snow,  it’s good and bad, depending on where you are.

Today it’s been good; we’ve had bright sunshine in between the snowfalls, so our garden and the trees behind us have looked like a Christmas card. The roads have been decidedly iffy, but we’re lucky that we haven’t had to struggle to get anywhere – being retired, there’s no boss on the phone demanding to know where we are, and why can’t we fight our way through snow and ice to get into work.

It’s still good now, well after midnight so I can’t see out to tell whether it’s snowing or not. As the song says, “Our hearts are warm, our bellies are full, and we are felling fine.” (Carousel, I think.) I’m listening to radio commentary on the England v Australia cricket match going on right now in Queensland, where they presumably have no snow – I assume somebody would have mentioned it if they had. It’s the first Ashes test match of this winter, and we have to stop the Aussies regaining the said Ashes…well if you follow cricket you’ll know why that matters, and if not, never mind. Take it from me that it does!

Nothing remarkable about this, you’re probably saying. If a crazy Brit wants to spend half the night listening to cricket, it’s no big surprise. But sometimes I find myself pausing a minute to remember just how amazing the world is nowadays. Here I’m sitting in my office in Yorkshire, listening to a radio broadcast from the other side of the world. I’m hearing the commentary, the shouts of the crowd and sometimes even the voices of the players…all in real time. The commentators, when there are gaps in play, read out emails they’re receiving from other cricket fans in different countries, and many of them like me are burning midnight oil.

And simultaneously I’m using a computer (which is about a zillion times more powerful than the computers used for the Apollo moon landings) and writing a blog-post which I’ll send off into cyberspace. Then anyone, in any corner of the world, can read it and comment if they like, even people in Queensland in between the drama of the cricket.

I’m connected to the whole wide world, in two quite different and important ways. Even now, when it’s snowing! Though the roads may get blocked, I don’t have to be cut off from what’s happening everywhere else.

Mostly we all take modern communications entirely for granted…but now and then I try to consider not only what I’m doing, but how I’m doing it. And it’s great, isn’t it?

Mad dogs and dog-walkers

I take our  two spaniels for their morning walk each day. Today it poured with rain (unlike in this photo – sorry for the lack of realism, but I don’t waste my time trying  photography in downpours!) It chucked it down the whole time. Talk about “après moi le deluge!” But they enjoyed themselves, and so did I in a bizarre sort of way.

While ploughing through the puddles, I came up with this ditty…with apologies to N.C., who was more at home in the midday sun.

Mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.
The cricketers don’t care to,
The footballers don’t dare to.
Runners and tennis buffs gaze out through their window-pane,
But we just put a mac on
And crack on.
When thunder rolls over eighteen holes
There is not a soul in view,
Yet dogs abound in the woods around,
And their dripping owners too.
For dog-folk don’t mind a soak
Though friends tell us we’re insane,
Yes, mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.

Mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.
The smallest lop-eared rabbit
Deplores this foolish habit.
Badgers and moles regard wet days with immense disdain,
They stay safe underground for
A downpour.
Every cow will head for a nice dry shed,
Every horse will find a stall,
But canines tramp through the cold and damp,
And they just don’t care at all.
And why we’re so full of cheer
Is something we can’t explain,
But mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.