Arnold Schwarzenegger got his pregnant. The Duke of Westminster took out an injunction to prevent his from spreading untruths. A court case currently rumbles on in the UK between the Dowager Countess Bathurst and her housekeeper, accused of stealing a million dollars’ worth of art and antiques, including a Picasso sketch. . . . 

Why does the housekeeper still fascinate us?

I think it’s because she knows all the secrets. The combination of absolute power, a bunch of keys--and, historically, a black silk dress and a whalebone corset--is a seductive one. Is it partly a sexual fascination? In film, TV and fiction she’s portrayed as a stern dominatrix, safe-guarding the aristocracy’s secrets--from Mrs Danvers of the 1938 novel Rebecca, to Mrs Hughes of TV’s Downton Abbey.

The truth, I discovered, is far more poignant. For three years now I’ve been digging up the past, exhuming the true stories of a handful of country house housekeepers who worked for the great and the good both in England and America over the past 150 years. This was an immensely powerful ‘upper servant’ position, on absolute equal footing with the butler but with more responsibilities. She was the career woman of her day. She controlled whole household budgets and dozens of maidservants. The entire happiness of the household rested on their shoulders.

So who were these women? How did they think? What were their ambitions?

I read many Victorian books on servants’ duties, but I’d invariably find my eyes start to glaze over. The minutiae of household tasks bored me. I wanted to know what it felt like to do, or oversee them--how physically hard, how emotionally demeaning, how monotonous. I wanted to understand the human story, rather than 19th-century recipes for removing stains from riding breeches (steep in urine, in case you’re wondering).

Exhuming the stories of these women, traditionally the souls of discretion, was not easy. I trawled through the neglected service archives of great English country houses--the yellowing bundles of estate letters; the housekeeping ledgers, shopping bills and laundry lists. I longed to stumble upon a racy diary: a forbidden love affair with the master, or a scathing attack on a spoilt Edwardian mistress. But I’m not sure such diaries ever existed: discovery would cost you not just your job, but also your career. The two collections of diaries I did read were preserved because they throw light on other, more interesting people.

Mary Wells, elderly and incompetent housekeeper of Uppark in West Sussex, was mother to the famous Edwardian writer H.G. Wells. Her diaries give a powerful sense of what it was like to be trapped in a dark basement day after day, with an endlessly quarrelling tribe of maidservants. ‘How dark in these underground rooms,’ she writes in 1893, after dosing herself yet again with cod liver oil.

The 44 diaries of Grace Higgens, housekeeper to the ‘Bloomsbury Set’ for fifty years until 1971, are valued today for their sprinkling of famous names--though her writings are largely trivial in content (‘Hen on goose egg’; ‘Water pipes frozen.’). I pounced on any small but telling references to how Grace, ‘the Angel of Charleston’, was treated: dinner spoilt yet again by guests turning up late; mistress Vanessa Bell infuriatingly vague on arrangements (‘Extraordinary woman. Never says the same thing twice.’).

My greatest triumph came in piecing together the story of Hannah Mackenzie, a Scottish housekeeper of tremendous chutzpah and some cunning. Sacked during the First World War from Wrest Park country house hospital because the land agent fell violently in love with her, she went on to enjoy a fabulous second coming. I managed to track down her great nephew Ross – and discovered that his great aunt crossed the Atlantic in 1924 to work for the greatest and most exacting hostess of them all: Grace Vanderbilt III. Here Hannah oversaw a regime so sumptuous that the bed sheets were changed twice a day.

Sending off for death certificates to see how a housekeeper had died always felt tense and exciting because so real: the final piece of the jigsaw, and often a sad one. But not in the case of Hannah. I discovered that she died in 1983 aged 102, enjoying 100 cigarettes and a bottle of whisky a day.

Four of the five housekeepers whose tales I tell ended up getting the sack. I didn’t set out to look for this, but it did become a bit of a theme. In part, because these stories are far more interesting to unpick than that of the ‘treasure’ buried in the family graveyard after half a century of loyal service. Why did they get dismissed? Was it fair? Were they working in an impossible situation? I enjoyed the sense of settling scores, of rewriting history, of giving them back a voice. 

The story of Ellen Penketh at Erddig Hall was fascinating: a 32-year-old Edwardian beauty, imprisoned for allegedly stealing £500 of the Yorke family fortune. I felt like a detective with a magnifying glass as I set about resurrecting her side of the story--this villain whose name went down in the National Trust’s subsequent narrative as ‘the thief cook’. As a result of my book, Erddig has now repaired Ellen’s reputation, the guides telling her side of the story to those who visit this 18th-century gem in the Welsh borders.

There is nothing like visiting the house in questions to reappraise a housekeeper’s time below stairs. At Erddig, the servants’ quarters are preserved just as they were in Ellen’s time. She had been purged from the house’s narrative, but I swear I felt her ghost as I paced those chill, flagstone passages. I couldn’t wait to make her flesh and blood again in The Housekeeper’s Tale.  For me--and, I hope, for my readers--Ellen Penketh lives.

• The Housekeeper’s Tale (Aurum Press) will be published on 12 August. 
www.housekeepers-tale.com

Dear Anglophiles:  I must share with you my exclusive interview (below) with James Wharton, a former member of the British armed forces who came out as gay while serving his country, and offer you the scoop about his new, best-selling memoir, Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier. 

In a word, Wharton's book is brilliant.

So, one day, an email from James' publicist came across my desk, telling me about Out in the Army, and I thought, sure, I'll be happy to promote that--I've always been a strong advocate for LGBT rights.  But the thing was, I didn't want to take time to read the book.  I'm a busy person.  Very busy.  I thought I'd just offer you dear readers a blurb from the jacket cover and let you make your own decision.  Then I read the first page of Out in the Army . . . then the second page . . . and the third . . . and before I knew it, I was fully engrossed in Mr. Wharton’s fabulous page-turner and could not put it down until finishing it.  Not only does Mr. Wharton have something to say, he says it exceedingly well.

So, who is James Wharton and what did he do?  If you follow the news, you probably saw him or heard of him when the US military, a couple years ago, repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell"--for by that time, Wharton was a gay-poster-boy for the British Army, after appearing on the cover of Soldier, a British army publication.  Wharton, from North Wales, joined the British army in 2003 and become a member of the Household Cavalry, the regiment of horsemen that escorts the royal family on state occasions, and later he served in Iraq.  Most captivating about Wharton’s book, is its gut-wrenching, emotional honesty.  Wharton doesn’t mince words, use euphemisms, or skirt around details.  He’s brutally honest, and his story draws the reader into a world of sexual exploration, coming out, London gay-night-clubbing, and army bullying.  A particularly amazing account tells of Wharton, who served under Prince Harry, sharing a tank with him, and the prince’s intervention in a bullying incident that was spinning out of control.  The memoir also recounts two very important weddings: James’ own, to his husband Thom, and that of William and Kate's, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, an event James participated in as a member of the Mounted Cavalry.   If you care about LGBT rights or simply want a riveting read, I say run, don't walk, to buy this book!

INTERVIEW WITH JAMES WHARTON
(Author of Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier)

Zella: Greetings, James.  I'm Zella Watson, from Brooklyn, NY, publisher of the website Anglophiles United.  I just finished your book and was wowed by it!  Both your story and your writing are captivating.  Job well done!  When I completed the book, a few questions sprang to mind. . . .

James: Thanks for the kind words!

Zella: You left the military, hoping to help gay youth.  How is that work coming along?  Surely it’s a huge task!  Are you making headway?

James: I think I’m just fitting in to the greater effort, globally, improving the lives of young GLBT people. Like many others, the frequent news of teen suicides really affected me and I’m pleased I’ve been able to add to the effort in combatting the issue. It’s something we can all do, we just need to find a way we’re each comfortable in contributing to. I like to talk to classes of kids in schools, and write columns for magazines and newspapers. Some like to protest and express their support in other ways, which is fantastic! I think the It Gets Better campaign was a real game-changer in tackling this problem!

Zella: What advice do you offer young people who are considering coming out to their parents but are afraid to? 

James: It’s a bit of a cliche, but I really think the line ‘you are not alone’ is very relevant. There are millions of kids around the world all considering coming out and talking to their parents. There are safe places to access support, in the UK, there’s a youth site by Stonewall which offers real support; I would also recommend telling a third party who you trust, just incase further support is needed. Perhaps a close friend of teacher?

Zella: What advice do you give parents who receive news that their child is gay?  How can parents best show their support?

James: In an ideal world I’d tell them to grab their kid and give them the biggest hug in the world, as they’d have just done the bravest thing in their young lives. I think sometimes gay people forget just how difficult those two words actually are, but when we really try to remember, coming out is terrifying. There are, simply to young people who are coming out, support groups for moms and dads who need advice, and maybe support.

A huge mistake would be telling them you didn’t love them for being unique and beautiful.

Zella: Many claim that those who “protesteth too much” about homosexuality are, oftentimes, themselves gay.  Did you see this phenomenon often in the military?  (I would say that in the States, we’ve seen our fair share of politicians and ministers who fall into this camp!) 

James: You’re right, people do say this often and I can recount a few times when the sexuality of an assailant has certainly been pulled into question. ( I talk about his in my book when I’m horrifically beaten and hospitalised at the age of 18. I saw the guy in a gay nightclub some months after kissing a guy). We’ve also seen this recently with Cardinal Keith O’Brien in Scotland; he kicked up a massive homophobic fuss over gay marriage here last year, only to be outed as a bit of a dirty old man, accused of harassing young male priests for years. One does raise an eyebrow.

Zella: You concluded your book by saying that the British army has done a lot to help gay and bi-sexual soldiers, but it still has much work to do.  What about transsexuals?  Did you know any closeted trans-men or trans-women in the military?  Is it an issue at all?    

James: I know an out Transexual in the army, who I think has had an extremely positive few years since transitioning. My honest opinion is that I feel Trans equality is lacking behind gay equality by about ten years. Some feel the GLB community should separate themselves from trans people and issues, which I think is nonsense. We must do all we can to make trans peoples lives better… the answer is not to say ‘sort your own shit out!’ Imagine if straight allies, presidents and prime ministers included, said that to us gay folk. We’d be pretty upset about it!

Zella: When you hear about things such as the draconian, anti-gay laws enacted in Russia last year or about nations—particularly some African nations—where homosexuality may result in a death sentence, do you ever itch to work on the world stage as an activist?  (I think many would agree that you have the personality and leadership skills to perform such a task!)

James: I would love to do more for the rights of GLBT people in Russia and other places, and when I can, I do my bit. But to do things abroad, you need some backing, mostly financial, and I think it makes more sense to donate to the likes of GLLAD and Stonewall who are extremely established and filled to the brink with experts who can drive real change. I genuinely lose sleep thinking about our brothers and sisters in Russia. I was particular upset to read last week about the cancelling of a pride event in the Ukraine due to Russian influence in the area. Such a tragedy.

Zella: You’re a wonderful writer!  Growing up, did you know you had that in you? 

James: I have to admit, I’ve had a passion for writing since a very young age. I knew I’d write a book one day, just didn’t know what it would be about. My English teacher from school, now a good friend, always praised my writing in my teens. I thanked her in my book! I’m slowly working away at a gay themed novel, based in New York as it happens. But I can’t really say anymore at the moment.

Zella: I understand you’ve been on a cruise!  Care to reveal what ports of call you’ve visited?  (I trust you’ve had a marvelous time!)

James: I got back to the UK yesterday morning- and I’m sad to be home, as I’m sure you can imagine! We had a blast. We sailed out of Miami and enjoyed a 7 night western Caribbean cruise. We stopped at Cozumel, Mexico; Belize; Hondorous and Grand Cayman.We sailed with Carnival and I was delighted to see they had a gay and lesbian gathering twice daily at the cocktail bar on ship. There were dozens of gay couples also on-board and it was a real treat to make so many new friends from the US and Canada whilst on holiday. I’m keeping in touch with them and I think we might all cruise again together next year. Bravo Carnival Cruise Lines for thinking about us!

Zella: Thank you very much, James, for answering my questions.  I wish you continued, great success with Out in the Army!

Visit James Wharton's website HERE

PURCHASE Out in the Army (hardback) HERE
PURCHASE Out in the Army (Kindle) HERE
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Dear Anglophiles:  I've discovered a book you may enjoy!  A Fine Romance - Falling in love with the English Countryside  is a handwritten and water-colored diary by Susan Branch.  The diary records  her transatlantic crossing and 2-month ramble through the English countryside, visiting the cottages and gardens of her literary heroes, including Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm and Jane Austen's house.  The 260-page book has maps, recipes, a reading list, and over 300 photos.  You can buy it at bookstores, on Amazon (US & UK), or on the link below.  For a signed copy, go to www.susanbranch.com.  

Enjoy!

PURCHASE A Fine Romance FROM AMAZON HERE
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Well, I would say the British Library (and Microsoft, who did the scanning) has given us an interesting, little Christmas gift.  The library has posted over one million images from the pages of 17th, 18th, and 19th century books in their collection!  The images fall into many categories (maps, adverts, portraits, etc.) and are posted on Flickr Commons, which means they're in the Public Domain.

Below is but one example from the cache: an illustration from Monsieur At Home by Albert Rhodes, published by Field & Tuer, London, 1885.  It's quite...uh, phat, right?

Enjoy!

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Dear Anglophiles: Today's guest post is written by author Jennifer Richardson, an American who enjoyed an expat life in Britain.  She gives us a scrumptious-sounding recipe too.  Let us know if you try it!

Ode to the Pheasant: It's turkey time, but I've got pheasant on the mind
by
Jennifer Richardson

My move to the Cotswolds started in 2007 with a rented cottage for weekends away from London. It only took six months until my husband and I were seduced by the countryside into buying our own place, where we, along with legions of other Londoners, continued the weekend ritual of self-imposed exile for the next year. Then, finally, in 2009, I took a job within commuting distance of our weekend village and left the city behind for good.

It was not, however, my status as a full-time resident that made me finally feel like a local. This, instead, was marked by the evolution of my attitude towards a bird, a feathered creature that dominates the English rural landscape by virtue of both its abundance and airheadedness. I write, of course, of the pheasant.

My early encounters with the creature were marked by fawning. While out on a bike ride I would stop to admire the miniature beasts as they foraged the fields: the male with his crimson masquerade mask over a hood of teal, the female cloaked in a humbler but still handsome pattern of nutty browns. (I couldn't help admiring mother nature for the role reversal from humans in giving the male the responsibility for seducing a mate with his sartorial flair.) But soon my fawning and photographing morphed into annoyance. Too often when caught off guard—which was, apparently, always—the pheasant would panic and scurry toward our bikes rather than away. On the steep downhills of the wolds, the pheasant became responsible for one too many near misses of going head over handlebars. The same was true for driving; these birds are drawn to rather than repelled by headlights. I suppose it was inevitable, but the time finally came when such an encounter ended badly for both bird and car. It happened too fast to be sure, but there, on the steep downhill-side of the Fossebridge dip in the moments before impact, I'm sure I spotted this death-wish-with-a-plume flying straight for the car grill.

Not long after, I had my second encounter with a dead pheasant, this time in a farmhouse kitchen where my husband and I had been invited for Sunday lunch. This weekly gathering is a fixture of English life, and a ritual I had admired since we first moved from Los Angeles to London. Now we had been invited to our first Sunday lunch since becoming residents of the Cotswolds, and we were titillated at the prospect. We joined our hosts and two other guests around a weathered pine table, where the pheasant pie was served in a puff pastry-topped casserole dish, much the same as an American chicken pot pie. When I remarked with enthusiasm to the hostess that it was the first time I had ever eaten pheasant, she dismissed the dish as an excuse to rid her freezer of them. (Hers is a sentiment I imagine is shared by hundreds of other spouses of game shooters all around the English countryside.) Despite this, I enjoyed the meal, relieved to learn there was a savory use for this majestic if dopey bird. The afternoon continued to deliver on all my expectations of a proper English Sunday lunch. By the time snowflakes started dancing outside the kitchen window, I wouldn't have been surprised if Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson had walked through the door and joined us for the cheese course.

My transition from London expat to Cotswold local had been gradual, marked by subtle milestones—the first time I wore tweed without irony, for instance. But it wasn't until I asked for a second helping of pheasant pie in that farmhouse kitchen that I felt like a real Cotswoldian for the very first time. Should you ever be in the position to make use of a pheasant that has met with an unfortunate end, here's that recipe for pheasant pot pie.

PHEASANT POT PIE

Ingredients
3.5 tbsp (about half a stick) butter
1/2 lb. pancetta
4 leeks, cut into large chunks
3 celery sticks, sliced
3 carrots, halved lengthwise and sliced
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp plain flour
1 and 1/4 cups cider
2 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp double cream
6 pheasant breasts, skinned and cut into large chunks
3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 package of puff pastry
plain flour, for dusting
egg beaten with a little milk, to glaze

Directions
Heat the butter in a casserole dish and cook the bacon for 1 min until it changes colour. Add the leeks, celery, carrots and bay leaves, and cook until they start to soften. Stir the flour into the vegetables until it goes a sandy colour, then splash in the cider and reduce. Pour in the chicken stock, stir, then add the cream. Season, then bring everything to a simmer. Add the pheasant and gently simmer for 20 mins until the meat and veg are tender. Stir through the mustard and vinegar, then turn off the heat and cool.

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Pour the mixture into a large rectangular dish. Roll the pastry out on a floured surface, place over the dish and trim round the edges, leaving an overhang. Brush the pastry with egg, then decorate with any leftover pastry, if you like. Sprinkle with a little sea salt. The pie can now be frozen for up to 1 month; defrost completely before baking. Bake for 30-35 mins until golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 mins before serving.

GUEST WRITER BIO
JENNIFER RICHARDSON is the author of Americashire:A Field Guide to a Marriage, the 2013 Indie Reader Discovery Award winner for travel writing. The book chronicles her decision to give up city life for the bucolic pleasures of the British countryside.

You can find Jennifer online at:

Americashire.com

Facebook

Twitter

GoodReads

Pinterest

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BUY paperback version of Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage HERE or Kindle version HERE

TRAVELER: Vicki Speegle
PLACE: Haworth, West Yorkshire, England 
JOURNAL ENTRY: The Search for Penistone Crag (Aug. 28, 2013)

THE SEARCH FOR PENISTONE CRAG (Part 1)

Today I can truthfully say I’ve been from the heights of the moors on Penistone Crag all the way to the heart of London.  I can’t believe as I sit here at the desk in my dorm room, that just a few hours ago I was standing atop a giant rock overlooking the vast empty moors of Haworth.

After doing some digging online, I found a walk to Ponden Kirk that someone had posted, complete with pictures.  I painstakingly wrote down the directions, and this morning I set out again on my search for the kirk that Emily Bronte calls "Penistone Crag" in Wuthering Heights. 

This time I take the bus into Stanbury to save time.  Then I walk down a very steep hill to Ponden Mill.  Completely deserted.  I’m not sure if it’s still a working mill, but it doesn’t look like it.  A little creepy, I have to say.  But at the same time very beautiful.  There’s a stream running alongside the mill, and horses grazing in a field on the other side.  As I walk down the lane toward Ponden Reservoir, I can’t help thinking what a great walk this would be in the autumn, around Halloween.

I reach the reservoir, and it’s here that my directions begin.  Now I’ll find out if I’m going to get lost again, or if I’ll finally find Penistone Crag.  The directions tell me to follow the reservoir around to the west and up a steep hill.  And guess what?  I’m on the very road I was on yesterday before I turned around and headed back up Pennine Way!  Turns out I was going the right way after all.

I climb to the top of the hill and there before me is Ponden Hall – the house that was Emily’s inspiration for Thrushcross Grange in Wuthering Heights.  Dark, brownish stone.  Kind of foreboding but elegant at the same time.  Emily, Charlotte, and Anne had friends here that they used to visit.  And guess who they were?  The Heatons!  I have to wonder if our mason, Joseph Heaton, wasn’t related in some way.  But there’s no mention of him in the history of Ponden Hall that I’ve been able to find.

I continue past Ponden Hall up the hill, pass some old farm cottages.  At the top of the hill is a large, wonderful tree and Height Laithe Farm across the road.  I take the road winding past the tree to the right, up to a metal gate that I have to climb over.  Then along a cart path on which you can still see the ruts of the carts’ wheels in the old stones.

 

THE SEARCH FOR PENISTONE CRAG (Part 2)

Now a lonely signpost directs me to take a left directly onto the moors.  I walk up a heather-choked trail along a crumbling wall until I’m as high as I can go.  Here the wall ends.  I turn and look down and let out a little gasp.  The moors are spread out below me, with a breathtaking view of Ponden Reservoir and the town of Stanbury.

Now I’m well and truly on my way.  I turn and walk deeper onto the moors.  The path winds above a deep valley and before long I can hear the sounds of a stream.  According to my directions, this is a clue that I’m getting closer to Ponden Kirk!

 

THE SEARCH FOR PENISTONE CRAG (Part 3)

I have to look carefully for a safe place to cross the stream.  Last thing I want to do is fall and break my leg out here in the middle of nowhere!  I did pass a couple of hikers on my way up, but I haven’t seen them since I left the wall.  I step across the stream and continue on along the trail.  And there it is, just ahead of me – Emily’s Penistone Crag.  I can’t believe it.  I’m here!  I found it!

I walk slowly toward the crag, take far too many photos.  I want to capture this moment so I can look back later and remember.  There are actually two stones jutting out from the hillside, but I think Emily’s must be the larger one further up.  There’s a hollow at the base that you can crawl through, and a wonderful legend attached to it – according to tradition, if a maiden passes through the hollowed stone she will marry within a year.  Guess I’ll stay single because there’s no way I’m scooting down to that hollow.  It’s far too steep and a good drop down.  But I walk onto the crag and sit.  Look out over the valley.  I can see Ponden Reservoir from here, just a silver sliver off in the distance.

Wow.  I’m actually here.  I pick a few wildflowers from the crag.  Think about Emily’s story.  I can feel how this place suffused her writing.  How it would begin to seep into my own if I lived here for very long.  It’s hard to get up and walk away, but I have a train to catch.  And it’s pretty lonely up here.  Time to leave.

Back in Haworth, I have lunch at the Black Bull Inn.  Charlotte’s brother Branwell was a regular here.  Sad story.  He seems to have struggled all his life to find a sense of purpose and died an alcoholic and opium addict at just 31.  I wonder if he didn’t feel shadowed by the success of his sisters.

I get the train from Haworth to Keighley, a lovely old-fashioned steam train.  Then back to London.  In just a few days I’ll be heading back across the Atlantic to New York.  And I think I can definitely say that Haworth is the part of my journey here that I’ll treasure the most.

 

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NARNIA IN OXFORD
by
Vicki Speegle

Oxford, England, August 20, 2013
If there’s a mecca for me as a writer, it’s C.S. Lewis’s home in Oxford.  I’ve always wanted to visit.  To wander through the home of the man who wrote the most moving words I’ve ever read on faith, love, death, doubt – on life.  No one else has ever been able to put into words for me how I feel about God, what it means to be Christian.  Trying to describe faith to someone – WHY you believe what you believe – is like trying to describe the sound of a shadow, or what laughter looks like.  Impossible.  And yet Mr. Lewis has done just that.  His writing on grief helped me through the loss of my mother.  His writings on faith continue to inspire me on my journey closer to God.  And even more than his Narnia tales, I love his science fiction trilogy – Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.  Soooo good.  Like Narnia for grown-ups.

Lewis’s home is called "The Kilns" because it’s on the site of an old brick-making place.  What’s wonderful about it is that it is NOT a museum.  You can’t just go there on any day and see it.  You have to make an appointment, and they keep the parties very small.  When I arrive, there are only 15 people in ours.  The house now functions as a residence for students and artists, so they only show it once a week or so.  Our guide is Amanda, a student in residence, and she starts the tour in the garden by giving us a brief history of Lewis’s life.

Then we step inside the house.  I just can’t tell you how incredible it feels to be moving among the same spaces as the person who penned so many of my favorite words – surreal, moving, and comforting all at the same time.  Like being wrapped in a big warm blanket.  One of the lovely things about the tour is that Amanda shares personal stories with us about Lewis and his life in the house.  When Lewis and his brother had the house to themselves, before his wife, Joy, moved in, it became a real bachelor pad.  Both of them used to smoke but there were no ashtrays in the house.  They instructed guests to just tap out their ashes onto the rug and grind them in with their heels.  Lewis claimed it kept the moths away.  Or the story about Lewis’s old cat, Tom.  Once Tom had lost all his teeth, Lewis’s housemaid suggested they have him put down.  Instead, Lewis instructed her to go to the market every other day and buy a fresh fish, mash it up, and give it to Tom.  Lewis told her Tom had taken care of them all his life by keeping the house free of mice.  Now it was their turn to take care of him.  “He’s a pensioner now.” Lewis said.

After seeing the house, I walk down a wooded path to what’s now the Lewis Nature Reserve.  There’s a pond where he used to swim every day, and a bench on which he used to sit with his friend and fellow author J.R.R. Tolkien.  Many people don't know that it was partly through his conversations with Tolkien that Lewis became Christian.

Then I catch a bus into Oxford’s city center.  Walk around the most ancient university town in the English-speaking world.  See the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest in Europe – beautiful.  See the spot on Broad Street where Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley were burnt at the stake for refusing to renounce their Protestant beliefs.  But it’s when I leave Broad Street that I see something strange.  After wandering among so many ancient buildings, I turn the corner and suddenly I'm in the midst of a thoroughly modern shopping center.  There’s a KFC, Burger King, Clark’s shoes, some clothing stores, and even more fast food chains.  Weird.  Proof that time marches on, and nowadays, all roads eventually do lead to a McDonald’s.  Even in Oxford.

Ugh.

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Dear Anglophiles: I've made an exciting discovery of a book about the Guernsey evacuees, and if you enjoy WWII history and/or riveting personal accounts, you'll want to check it out.  The book was written by Gillian Mawson.  Many of us on this side of the pond became aware of the Guernsey evacuees through Mary Ann Shaffer's and Annie Barrows'  historical novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  Now, Ms. Mawson has taken this fascinating bit of history one step further by interviewing actually Guernsey evacuees.  The stories in Mawson's book are the real McCoys!  She also has a forthcoming book, due out next year, about British evacuees, so stay tuned for that.

GUERNSEY EVACUEES
by
Gillian Mawson

In 2008, I discovered that in June 1940, over 20,000 evacuees had fled Guernsey to England, just days before their island was occupied by the Nazis for five years.

I was astounded. I knew that the Channel Islands had been occupied during the Second World War but had no idea that almost half the population had fled their homes to England. I could not imagine how those rural islanders must have felt when they arrived in the industrial towns of England, penniless and friendless. Whole schools were evacuated from Guernsey and thousands of young mothers fled their homes with their infants. I immediately began to search for surviving evacuees to ask them about their experiences in England during the war, and five years later, I am still collecting their stories.

The interviews were very emotional as many of the evacuees had never shared their stories before, and the separation from their families in Guernsey for five whole years was still traumatic for them to recall. Child evacuees who had left home under 5 years of age told me that, by 1945, they had forgotten what their own parents looked like and had become attached to the English families who cared for them. Others told me that their Guernsey teachers had re-opened their schools in England, so that they could care for their pupils during the war. I was amazed at how much responsibility these teachers had taken on. One of the Guernsey schools was financially supported by kind Americans, and one child, Paulette, was actually supported by Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt. For quite some time, Paulette had no idea who Mrs Roosevelt was, and she wrote letters simply addressed to  'Aunty Eleanor'.

Some evacuees were killed in air raids and thousands joined the British forces as soon as they were old enough to leave school. Others worked in ammunition factories or built aircraft. The evacuated mothers' stories were particularly emotional, as they described the kindness of their neighbours who gave them, not just clothing and household items, but friendship.

When Guernsey was liberated on 9 May 1945 (a day after VE Day), many evacuees began to plan their return home, although some decided to remain in the communities in which they had settled. Sadly, many of those who returned to Guernsey faced criticism from those who had remained behind. One mother told me, "People in my street said that I was a coward and that I had run away from the Germans. To this day it makes me want to weep." Almost every evacuee I have interviewed wished to thank the kind people of England for the help they gave them during the war.

My interviews, together with a hundred wartime images, were incorporated into my first book 'Guernsey Evacuees: The Forgotten Evacuees of the Second World War'

At the present time, I am collecting evacuation stories from all over Britain for a new book, which will be published in September 2014. Already the stories differ greatly:  some reveal the excitement of living in a new area and making new friends, others reveal sadness and
issues regarding family separation.  

Every time I listen to a new wartime evacuation story, I am amazed at the resilience of children. How many parents today could send their children away to live with total strangers, for years on end?  It is vital that the memories from the Second World War are collected and preserved now, otherwise they will be lost for ever.


To read more about Gillian Mawson's Evacuees project, click HERE


To read Gillian Mawson's blog, click HERE

The Forgotten Evacuees of the Second World War
US readers may purchase the book HERE
UK readers may purchase the book HERE

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Dear Anglophiles: The amazing writer Mr. Douglas Watkinson provides today's guest post.  Mr. Watkinson has written for television (including the Midsomer Murders series, beloved by Anglophiles everwhere!) and for stage.  He is also a novelist, having created the detective Nathan Hawk series. 

I’ve written for television all my life. When I started out, it was the brave new artistic medium of the seventies and eighties and we had an absolute ball!

I was lucky. Most writers didn’t earn enough money to keep body and soul together, let alone feed, clothe, and educate four children as I did. Not that it was plain sailing all the way, and one year, 1997 to be precise, it required some very nifty improvisation. My wife decided that we would ‘do bed and breakfast’, assuring me that it would get us out of our financial difficulty of the moment. She was right. Within months, two small barns had been converted into guest units and were up and running and an incredible mix of people were coming from all over the world, for all manner of reasons.

Then, of course, I was offered more television work, this time in the shape of helping to set up Midsomer Murders and then writing for it. I was all for slimming down the B & B, perhaps even shelving it, but my wife, being a canny Northerner, wasn’t so keen. The guest units stayed, the business prospered, and these days we could fill the place every night of the year if we chose to.

As far as Midsomer Murders goes, I’ll cut to the chase. Fifteen years, 230 countries, and 208 bodies later, none of us who worked on those early stories can quite believe that they've been seen by one billion people worldwide. I have to repeat it to make sure I’m not dreaming. A billion people have watched it, and they all have one thing in common. They believe that the fictional county of Midsomer represents the true England, with the murder and mayhem being nothing more than a touch of colour. How do I know this? Because 15 years after we opened our B & B, 15 years after those first Midsomer stories, dramatised from Caroline Graham’s novels, people come to see the locations, and it just so happens that most of the series was made within a stone’s throw from where I live. Which means that many of them stay with us.

In general, people can’t believe that me writing for the series and helping to run a B & B in the thick of the locations is a happy coincidence. If anything, they imagine that British television works by a producer picking a location and then knocking on local doors to see if anyone would care to try their hand at a script. If only it were that simple!

And when I said earlier that we get visitors from all over the world, I wasn’t kidding. We get Midsomer fans from as far away as Estonia, Latvia, Australia, Canada, America, and Japan, to say nothing of our regulars from Europe. One couple from Sweden has been three times! We consider them to be friends. A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk to members of The Midsomer Murders Society, which meets yearly for a four day event, and they too represent all nations. Attending the evening feast, in a gathering of some 80 people, there were Germans, Belgians, Australians, Americans, Canadians ... as well as the English hardcore.

I have, as you might guess, come to know my audience over the past 15 years of the two businesses, writing and hospitality, running side by side, and I’ve discovered something which never ceases to surprise and delight me. There is a thirst out there in the world for all things essentially English - from the landscape and the people who live in it, to the history and architecture certainly, to the murderers, their victims, and the people who solve the crimes. One billion people testify to this fact. Their belief that what they see in a drama like Midsomer is quintessentially English and their desire for it to remain so, both baffles and enthrals me and, I must confess, chimes with my own wishes.

That’s one of the reasons why I created the detective Nathan Hawk book series, because as I looked round our one-billion audience, I saw that they didn’t have a huge variety of fundamentally English detectives to move on to. Plenty of Americans, yes, plenty of female sleuths, far too many professional policemen who seem to become very samish in their work! What I grandly thought the world was lacking was a rogue, English detective, with attitude and wit, who would open up for those of the one billion who want to read him, a place which already delights them - England.

It’s been a tough learning curve for me, however, because whereas when I wrote a script for The Onedin Line, say, or Poirot, or Howards Way, I needed to persuade only one person to like it, and then millions would watch the result whether they wanted to or not, now I have to persuade one reader at a time. And it’s taken me to the far out world of Facebook, Twitter, and running my own website. All highly enjoyable stuff, but I little thought, as I submitted my first script to the BBC that one day, I’d be able to reach everyone in the world in theory and the things I’d written would be seen by a billion people. All I ask now is that one percent of them buy a copy of Haggard Hawk, Easy Prey, or Scattered Remains. If nothing else, they are just about as English as it’s possible to be.

If you want to know anything more about me, Douglas Watkinson, or the Nathan Hawk series of detective books, or other things I’ve written, let me point you to this link:
www.douglaswatkinson.com

If you’re looking for a B & B within easy reach of London, Oxford, and the murderous, fictional county of Midsomer, let me point you to this link:
www.dintoncottage.co.uk

Zella's comment:  Dear Anglophiles, if you would like to sample Mr. Watkinson's books, here are links  to Amazon, where you can check them out.  (Perfect gifts for the Anglophile with an insatiable appetite for British detective stories, right?!)

• UK readers, go HERE

• USA readers, go HERE

• To pre-order the new book in the series, Scattered Remains, go HERE  (USA readers only)

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Dear Anglophiles: I recently received word of a captivating, new book.  If you were enthralled by Downton Abbey (and who of us wasn't?), then I can only imagine that you'll want to read Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times.  The book's release date is November 18, which will put it in our Anglophile hands just in time for Downton's Season Four premier on February 23, 2014.  Perfect timing! 

SERVANTS: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times
by Lucy Lethbridge

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Release date: November 18, 2013
Price: $27.95 hardcover
Summary: An account of the vividly told lives of British servants and the upper crust they served.

From the vast staff running a lavish Edwardian estate to the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle class house, domestics were an essential part of the British hierarchy for much of the past century. Servants were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers, even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. But how did these countless men and women live? How did they view their employers and one another? And how did they experience the rapid social change of the twentieth century? In this “best type of history” (Literary Review), Lucy Lethbridge brings to life the butlers and lady’s maids, the nannies and cleaners whose voices have been largely ignored by history. Drawing fascinating observations from a kaleidoscope of research, she delivers a discerning portrait of life in service from the Edwardian period to the 1970s and a new view of English society.

Author's bio:
Lucy Lethbridge has written for the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, the Times Literary Supplement, Art News, and Art+Auction. She has also been theTablet’s literary editor. She lives in London.

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