Living and Writing in York

 

Or in Yorkshire.

We retired to York 9 years ago for many non-writing reasons, but basically because we loved the city. However, it wasn't until I got the writing bug and started exploring the area that I realized how remarkable the County was! I mean, ANY county that produces the Bronte sisters, James Herriot, JB. Priestley, WH Auden, Alan Bennett, Val Wood, Kate Atkinson, Laurence Sterne, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Frances Brody, Ava Manelo, Jane Lovering, K LShandwick and Leah Fleming has to have something special going for it.

Of course, in terms of novels actually SET in York, I give you the amazing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, with its very Gothic presentation of the city. Going back in time, Bernard Cornwell had York – or Jorvik, feature in many of his Uhtred novels! York is such a compact city you can walk around the encircling walls in an hour – and many of the streets have changed little over the last thousand years.

No piece discussing Yorkshire and its writers could be complete without mentioning the fabulous Milly Johnson - who was presented with the Rishard Whiteley Award for giving outstanding inspiration to others within the County.

If you are in the mood for Historical fiction (or fact), a walk around the city can give you a host of plot ideas! As can the city pubs! Ghosts abound – as do real-life characters like Guy Fawkes, Dick Turpin and Anne Lister.

Come at the right time of year, and you could find the Romantic Novelists Associationtion hosting an event there too. Recently they have been holding them in the Merchant Taylors Hall. In addition, you may find a writers' conference being held at York University.

Of course, all the attractions bring a downside too. A local paper ran a piece recently entitled "Death by Hen-Party". York being a central transport hub, Friday about 3 pm., the arriving trains start to decant groups of jeunesse dorée all determined to have a good time. To be fair, they are mostly harmless, and there is usually room for everyone.

York's other claim to fame is, of course, chocolate! Terry's and Rountree's were the big players in the chocolate markets of the Victorian era.

Like many chocolate makers of the era, they were Quakers and had a very paternalistic attitude to their workforce. However, they are STILL significant players in the property market. Rowntrees even built a theatre for their workers, and the Joseph Rowntree Theatre is in vibrant and popular use today.

When writer's block strikes, take a stroll, think back and imagine these very stones being trodden by King Richard III. You can literally walk in their footsteps. Towton, Stamford Bridge, Marston Moor and Fulford, some of the most infamous and bloody battles fought in England, have been fought here!

Finally – a word about hedgehogs! Our local ones seem to have gone into hibernation already. This is early but not exceptional. We have at least three who regularly visit us and seem to come back every spring.

Hedgehog Street! A link worth clicking on!

Hedgehogs from earlier this year.

We are STILL putting the food and camera out – just in case. As it happens, we live next door to an old orchard with a large area of the untended garden. Heaven for hedgies – and they have a hedgehog highway through to our garden. My expert advisor for hedgies, Toni Burrell, says they only take about 15% of their food from what we put out – they get the bulk of their diet from what they forage.

Winter is definatly approaching. It is noticably cold at night, and the nights aare drawing in. Hibernating sounds like a good idea (if only!) Take care over the winter, and curl up with several good books. Hopefully, by the time spring comes around they will be joined by one or more of your OWN books!

Murder Your Darlings Dreckly!

As writers, we all know the agony of editing and erasing some of your favourite prose.



The phrase "Murder your darlings!" was coined by Sir Arthur Quiller Couch (“Q”), compiler of the Oxford Book of English Verse and a host of novels about his native Cornwall.

  A quick check on Wikipedia gives a list of 45 books associated with Cornwall. Lots of familiar names, too.



The list is dominated by Winston Graham, and the Poldark series, (the man solely responsible for the recent surge of interest in scything!) and by Daphne du Maurier, surely the doyen of Cornish authors. There are many others though. Enid Blyton set her “Mallory Towers” series of school novels in Cornwall.

Back in Victorian times, RM Ballantyne gave us “Deep Down! A tale of the Cornish mines.” A very readable story and the result of three months he spent at the Botallack in St Just. Coincidently, and a nice example of "what goes around, comes around," Deep Down is the title of a recent Jack Reacher story.

Rosamunde Pilcher hit a literary gold mine with The Shell Seekers; Victoria Holt, Mary Wesley and Susan Howatch too have fallen under the “Kernow Spell”

So why? What is it that brings these amazing authors to write of Cornwall?

For me, it’s the atmosphere. I find that the land and sea, the mines and manor houses, cast a spell. Its as if a parallel world exists when you cross the Tamar.

Many modern authors have set their stories there and use the land or its history as a foundation for their stories, including Victoria Cornwall, one of the Novel Point of View bloggers. I read her first novel – The Thief’s Daughter and loved it. An excellent historical romance adventure, and packed with bona fide detail! .

This is a county where history and legend can be found around every corner, and in every glade in the woods and every cove and bay along the coast. It’s a coast that has seen every phase of history from Phoenician traders coming for tin to make bronze, through raids by African pirates seeking slaves, the mining of tin, copper, arsenic and china clay, the rise and fall of a massive coastal fishing industry based on pilchards, flowers, farms and American soldiers and sailors for the invasion of France in WWII, and now a massive and growing tourist industry.

Some authors make the county their own. Liz Fenwick, American by birth, is now, according to the Guardian, “An award-winning author of eight novels, dubbed 'the queen of the contemporary Cornish novel' “ Her latest novel, The River Between Us, has just been awarded the Popular Romantic Fiction Award by the Romantic Novelists Association..

And so to come right up to date with the myriad of modern authors, across all genres and tropes who succumb to the mystic charms of this multifaceted corner of the country. Check out Melanie Hudson, Jane Johnson, Phillipa Ashley, Mandy James, Kate Ryder, Kitty Wilson! They and others ALL weave their tales using Cornwall’s magic to set their scenes, and very well done, too.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley Cornwall again,” and we are off there on holiday in a couple of weeks!