Tag: London

LONDON’S WORLD OF WORDS AND STORIES ….

  By ROSEMARY LORD

“London Bridge is falling down…” so the song goes. Well, it’s not. It is thriving, bustling with people, merchants, tourists and local inhabitants who love this very special part of London.

I was there recently visiting my family in England. I had a meeting with my new Editor at Harper Collins Publishing offices (I still get a kick being able to say that: “My publishers, my editor”!) at London Bridge. Many of the major publishers and newspapers are housed in this towering building that is right next to London Bridge tube station.

Security was very tight. As I approached the main entrance to the office tower, security guards stopped me, ready to turn me away. But I had an appointment and had to show my ID, which was checked against the computer appointments records before I could walk through those hallowed doors. Once inside the lobby, I was checked again by security and ushered through a metal detector. Just like at the airports. I had to wait until someone came to escort me upstairs. And when I left, I was chaperoned back through the same security system. So, this is what it’s like working in London today! Not quite the fun, easy-going offices I recall from my days of writing for the teenage magazine Jackie and the host of women’s magazines in Fleet Street.

My brother Ted had accompanied me and waited patiently nearby until my meeting was done. We had decided to explore the area of London Bridge and Borough Market – the new Hot Spot in London.  The hip, cool place where the young hangout. Pop-up food stalls proliferate; vintage clothing stalls, cosmetics, tattoos, stacks of vintage records for sale, ‘Bubble Tea’ adverts and music from all over the globe wafted through the crowds. I never did find out what ‘Bubble Tea’ was. But it seemed very popular. The market was wall-to-wall students and young entrepreneurs in their eye-catching, colorful attire. Creativity and innovative ideas abounded.

One of the reasons for the throngs of young people in the vicinity selling and buying was, I realized, because the market was so close to the medical colleges and universities. Lots of medical students.

I also learned that this market began life in 1756 as a cluster of stalls at the foot of London Bridge. It’s come a long way, baby!

The tall, grim buildings on St. Thomas Street are a focal point of the medical world. The famous Guy’s Hospital, founded in 1721 by philanthropist Thomas Guy, stands cheek-by-jowl with St. Thomas’ Teaching Hospital – where Florence Nightingale trained her dedicated nurses. This hospital was named for St. Thomas Becket and founded in the Middle Ages but located here in Lambeth since 1871. These are part of the Kings College, London Medical Education programs.

Just across the road is the tiny Operating Theatre Museum, in the Herb Garret at the top of the narrow 17th century brick building. A museum of surgical history housed in the old apothecary.  Herbs and flowers used in those days are displayed, with mortar-and-pestle and hand-written notes on their efficacy.  Completed in 1822 is the operating theatre is the oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe for surgeries that predated anesthetics and antiseptics.   

What fun! It offers learning experiences for all ages. I especially loved the large yellow rubber ducks placed around the exhibits. They were each painted with some dreadful disease: blobs of green goo representing gangrene, or drooling, lumpy additions depicting small-pox, syphilis, or the black plague. Symptoms were written on a card next to the duck. You had to guess what they represented. The answer was found underneath the duck. I noticed medical student visitors taking great delight in guessing the correct answers.  The enormous, black all-encompassing metal head gear with the long snout, for the brave doctors during the plague in 1660 London was there. Various operating tools were displayed, including the large hacksaw next to the operating table that was labeled “for the removal of legs and arms”.

There were rows of seats where the medical students sat to observe the operations by doctors who had no awareness of cleanliness, let alone surgical gowns, masks or even handwashing. Hand-written notes, instructions and explanations of the various implements (of torture?) used, as well as reports of individuals’ surgical successes – or traumas!

Today’s root-canals are easy-peasy by comparison!

This part of London shared so many stories, characters, tragedies and successes. I made copious notes, as Ted and I later stopped for a delicious cake and coffee in a little corner French café. A quiet haven amidst the noise and bustle.

Everywhere I looked were stories, historic revelations and wonderful new ideas and a revitalized energy.

Charles Dickens strolled through these London streets at night when he couldn’t sleep, and claimed this was where he found inspiration for his timeless novels. Incidentally, did you know that in 1847 Dickens founded a ‘Home for Homeless Women’ in London?

We walked down to the water’s edge and followed the River Thames as it snakes its way through London, past Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre towards Charing Cross, watching such a polyglot of people of all ages – “a seething mass of humanity” moving on its way through lives humdrum, urgent, desperate, happy, exciting. Who knows?

There is so much written about London through thousands of years. It’s difficult for a writer not to come away with a myriad of story ideas, a cacophony of images and circus of characters. Painters and artists of all fields must be similarly affected.

As Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote in 1777, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For there is in London all that life can be.”

What is your favorite source of inspiration?

 

How I Use Nonfiction and Fiction for Research and Inspiration

By Guest Author,  Sara Rosett

Some writers can sit down at their computer with no idea of what they will write about and launch into the first draft of their book. They find the blank screen and the infinite possibilities exciting and inspiring. I’m not one of those writers. I must have an idea of where the story is going before I begin writing. Otherwise, the blank screen paralyzes me. Before I begin a book, I spend a lot of time researching and thinking about the story. I’ve discovered that both nonfiction and fiction inspire different aspects of the story for me.

Nonfiction

I like to dig into nonfiction as I brainstorm my historical mystery plots. Here are a few of the resources I’ve found most helpful:

Newspaper Archives—My historical series is set in early 1920s England, so the online British Newspaper Archive has been an invaluable resource. I scoured the Positions Available section, what we’d call the Help Wanted section today, which gave me an insight into the jobs were available, the qualifications required, and the salaries that were paid. The British Newspaper Archive has magazines in addition to newspapers, and those are wonderful for getting a feel for what people read in their leisure time. One delightful surprise came as I flipped through an issue of the Sketch. I came across the first publication of Agatha Christie’s short story, The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb with Poirot and Hastings.

Magazine and newspaper advertisements are also helpful for researching clothing and fashion as well as helping me keep in mind the attitudes of the time. Ads for fur coats and smoking tobacco seem a bit jarring to me as a modern reader, but browsing the ads helps me keep in mind the typical mindset of someone who lived in the early 1920s.

Nonfiction books—Once I have a general idea of the direction of the story, I search out nonfiction books related to the theme of the novel. I’ve read all sorts of books—everything from books on the English country house to code breaking during World War I. I find nonfiction is an excellent source for clues and red herrings. Nonfiction books have even inspired a complete plot. The second book in my historical series is about an author who keeps her gender secret from everyone—including her publisher. A real-life author who did the same thing inspired that story idea.

While researching the Egyptomania that gripped the world after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, I ran across a story of a British nobleman who had been connected to the excavation and committed suicide. That incident became the jumping off point for the third book in my series, The Egyptian Antiquities Murder.

Memoirs—One of the most valuable resources I’ve found for getting inside the heads of my historical characters are memoirs and biographies. The Bright Young People of the 1920s were a prolific and literary bunch. It’s easy to find information about them, and reading about their midnight scavenger hunts and paper chases across London as well as their extravagant themed parties meant that I had plenty of ideas for a book set in London among the high society set when it came time to write An Old Money Murder in Mayfair. In addition to story ideas, I also cull clues in red herrings from memoirs. I note down the things that people hid from their families or feared would become public knowledge.

Video clips—I didn’t realize how much video is available from the early 1920s. YouTube and stock image sites have quite a bit from that time. I’ve watched videos of people strolling in Trafalgar Square, dancing in nightclubs, as well as an informational video from the 1920s on how the brakes work on an early motorcar, which was critical when plotting how a certain murder was committed.

Vintage clothing auction sites—My readers want to imagine the characters wearing flapper dresses and elegant evening gowns. I need to know about the fabric, cut, and embellishments of the dresses. With multiple images of individual clothing items, auction listings of vintage clothes are a good source of detailed information about the materials and construction of the clothes of the era. Another great source for clothing details and inspiration is the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute with its extensive online collection.

Fiction

I was a fan of Golden Age mysteries, but I’d always read them for pleasure, not research. When I decided to write a historical mystery, I began reading and rereading my old favorites as well as seeking out new authors from the era. I read the books in a different way and found that they gave me a first-hand view of day-to-day life in the time. I used my fiction-reading to glean small details that gave my stories the feel of the time.

Dialogue—Writing dialogue is one of my favorite parts of writing a High Society Lady Detective series. Much of the verbiage is inspired by my reading of Golden age fiction. Terms like old bean, old thing, topping, and that’s not cricket are common in Golden Age mysteries. The posh set was fond of their adjectives and adverbs, so I use those types of words in conversation in my historical books in a way that I wouldn’t do in a contemporary novel. Everything was ghastly, frightful or screamingly. I sprinkle those terms throughout conversation to give it a feel of the 1920s.

Culture—As I read Golden Age fiction, I made mental notes of how the characters’ lifestyles: the size of their houses, whether or not they had telephones, what they ate for meals, as well as what types of cars they drove—even if they had a car. Another thing I noticed was the formality of conversation and address. People rarely used their first names when they spoke to each other unless they were well acquainted. I fold all those details into my stories.

I’ve learned to allow some time to delve into research before I begin a book. I gather these all these details and ideas, then let them brew in my mind for a while. By the time I sit down to actually begin writing, I have a pretty good idea of the direction I want to go and some of the clues and red herrings I’ll use. If I take the time to absorb ideas from both nonfiction and fiction that blank screen isn’t as intimating and my writing goes much faster.

 

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Sara Rosett Author Photo 2016 Headshot 1500 copyUSA Today bestselling author Sara Rosett writes lighthearted mysteries for readers who enjoy atmospheric settings, fun characters, and puzzling whodunits. She loves reading Golden Age mysteries, watching Jane Austen adaptions, and travel. Publishers Weekly called Sara’s books “enchanting,” “well-executed,” and “sparkling.”

She is the author of the High Society Lady Detective historical mystery series as well as three contemporary cozy series: the Murder on Location series, the On the Run series, and the Ellie Avery series. Sara also teaches an online course, How to Outline A Cozy Mystery, and is the author of How to Write a Series. Sara’s latest release is An Old Money Murder in Mayfair. Find out more at SaraRosett.com.

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This article was posted for Sara Rosett by Jackie Houchin (Photojaq)