A Heroine who is Hard to Like

Henrietta was third daughter and fifth child of Mr and Mrs Symons, so that enthusiasm for babies had declined in both parents by the time she arrived. Still, in her first few months she was bound to be important and take up a great deal of time. When she was two another boy was born, and she lost the honourable position of youngest. At five her life attained its zenith.... When she was eight her zenith was past, and her plain stage began. Her charm departed never to return, and she slipped back into insignificance.

These opening lines of Flora MacDonald Mayor's The Third Miss Symons gave me high hopes for this novel, and I liked that rather ironic, detached tone, and the exploration of relations within a family. But overall I was disappointed and I found it hard to like Henrietta – or Etta, as she is known to her family - and it's a somewhat bleak tale.

Henrietta reminded me of Alex, in EM Delafield's 'Cosequences' (http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/consequences-beware-of-spoilers.html ). They are set in a similar period, and although Mr and Mrs Symons are middle class their attitude towards their offspring is very much like that of Alex's aristocratic parents. Mrs Symons is not fond of children (so it's unfortunate really that she has so many of them), while her solcitor husband finds it difficult to provide for his ever-increasing family.

Like Alex, Henrietta is desperate for attention, and wants to be loved – but she doesn't know how to make herself lovable. She' never seems to fit in, and is regarded as 'difficult', so by the age of thirteen she has 'settled down to bad temper as a habit'. she had settled down to bad temper as a habit'. She hopes that when the 'magic season of young ladyhood arrived, a Prince charming would come and fall in love with her'. But it never happens.

The only person Henrietta gets along with is her youngest sister, Evelyn, who she adores, but when she causes a rift between them she becomes even more lonely and bitter, convinced that people despise her, and that nothing ever goes right in her life.

I could see how her experiences soured her and sapped her confidence and, just as with Alex, I felt sorry for an unloved child who grew into an unloved woman - but she was so disagreeable it was difficult to feel any sympathy. And once again I found myself wondering about the way Victorian and Edwardian women were treated, and how that treatment affected their attitude and relationships with their children.

Gardens and Wild Places

Two reviews today as I'm still trying to catch up on posts. The reading is more or less on track, but the writing isn't! There's a link of sorts between these books, since they are both about about the environment, with reflections about man's place within it, and both authors are intelligent, articulate, passionate about their subject, and excellent writers.

First up, The Morville Year, by Katherine Swift. Her earlier book, 'The Morville Hours', which charts her creation of a garden in the grounds of the Dower House, at Morville, in Shropshire, is a superb mix of gardening know-how, history and folk-lore, with a rich appreciation of the natural world and the passing of the seasons. 'The Morville Year', which is every bit as good, is a selection of the weekly articles she wrote for the Saturday edition of The Times between 2001 and 2005. She writes about the weather, her work in the garden, taking up bee-keeping, buying a motorbike, local places events – and, most of all, the plants themselves. In her introduction she explains:

When I began the research that would underpin the garden, I found that every plant had a story – who first grew it or collected it from the wild, gave it a name or painted its picture, wrote a poem about it or used used to cure some ailment? Every one came trailing clouds of glory.

That urge to discover everthing she can about each and every plant makes for some fascinating reading. On 29 January 2009, for example, she discusses the weird world of lichens: there are 1,700 varieties in Britain, and each is made up of two organisms, a fungus and an algae, living in perfect harmony, since neither can exist without the other. And did you know that those bright, crusty-looking orange and yellow lichens, and the flat grey and white ones, only grow on alakine rock, like limestone? And the cushiony green and pink types thrive on acid surfaces like granite, slate and sandstone. And all lichens need a smooth surface – they won't grow on new, smooth, polished gravestones... and they need sunshine... and clean air. I never realised they were so interesting, but I've been looking at them in a whole new light since I read this.

Lichens on an old gravestone at Offchurch, in Warwickshire,
look almost like plants in a rock garden. There seem to be flat
and cushiony ones here, so I'm none the wiser about the rock.

And Swift makes some wonderful observations about plants and wildlife. In one of her October pieces she writes:

The search for hibernation sites is also on for the newly-mated queen bumble-bees and the big brown-and-yellow hornets (surprisingly pacific despite their fearsome appearance) – the Harley-Davidsons of the insect world, with a deep resonant buzz quite unlike the Suzuki whine of the black-and-yellow wasps which have terrorised us all summer.

The comparison may sound odd, but think about it for a moment, and you realise she is absolutely right.

Gardens are generally regarded as well ordered places, where man (or woman) has tamed nature, but Swift is concerned about the extent to which gardeners can relinquish control, stepping back to allow nature to take take a hand and create some wildness.

And it's wildness that attracts Robert MacFarlane. In The Wild Places he takes his interest to what many of us would consider to be extreme levels, for he searches out the most inaccesible places it the British Isles, so remote that the land remains untouched by human activity. Each site he visits has a different landscape – his journeys take in an island, a hidden valley, a moor, a mountain summit, a forest, and an ancient holloway.

Much of his exploration is magical. On the island of Ynys Enlli he watches seals and birds, finds a heart-sized stone of blue basalt, marked with white fossils, and sets 'a thin shell afloat, carrying a cargo of dry thrift heads'. But elsewhere the terrain is almost alien. When he tries to climb the Pinnacle of of Sgurr Dear, above Loch Coruisk, you sense that this land does not wan him there and MacFarlane – who is obviously an experienced traveller well able to cope in adverse conditions – is surprised by his reaction.

I stood, walked to the start of the Pinnacle's incline, and laid a hand against its rock. It was so cold that it sucked the warmth from my skin. But this rock had once been fluid, I thought. Aeons ago it had run and dripped and spat. On either side of the Pinnacle, the ground dropped immediately away. I took a few steps up the fin. Suddenly I felt precarious, frightened: balanced on an edge of time as well as of space. All I wanted to do was to get back off the ridge, back down into the Basin.

At this point he decides it not merely be dangerous to climb, but 'impertinent', which seems a strange word to use, but you understand that here is something powerful and ancient.

Like Swift, he's the kind of magpie author who gathers facts, and one piece of information leads him on to another, and another, and another... In the chapter on Ynys Enlli for example, he talks about the tide race, ancient Irish monks, the origin of the word 'pilgrim', the connection between inner and outer landscapes, George Bernard Shaw's trip to the Skelligs, boats, faith, the wildlife n the island, the word 'wild' and our reaction to wilderness, and the Chinese wanderers who wrote and painted, and believed there was no divide between nature and human.

That sense of oneness with the natural world pervades the writing of Swift and MacFarlane. The landscapes they inhabit may be very different, but each knows their place, and they recognise its importance. And each makes a plea for us to work with nature, nurturing and preserving what we have.

Gunpowder Plot

Not having written anything for a week, I think I've forgotten how to do it, so forgive me if this post doesn't pan out quite as planned! I've been at my mother's again, as she is still not well, and everything else seems to have gone by the board. However, I returned home to find those lovely people at Persephone Books have included a snippet from one of my reviews ('How to Run Your Home Without Help' by Kay Smallshaw) on the 'Our Bloggers Write' page of the latest 'Biannually', and that really lifted my spirits. Definitely a 'pleasing' as Lyn at dovegreyreader would say, and I am delighted that Persephone liked what I wrote.

There seemed to be a fair amount of catching up to do, but after I'd tackled the washing, looked at the ironing pile, and shoved all the junk lying around the house into cupboards and drawers where it can't be seen, I bought myself a bunch of flowers, made a cup of tea, and dipped into the book again to find out what the perfect housewife did circa 1949 – without actually following any of the advice!

Then the postman delivered my copy of Sylvia Townsend Warner's 'Lolly Willowes', which was another pleasing, as I am really looking forward to reading it. And a friend invited me round this morning for a cup of tea and some home-made cake, and I've been asked to meet up with another friend this evening to celebrate her birthday. And the sun is shining (although it's a bit windy), and the leaves on the trees are turning to glorious shades of yellow, red and orange. So there you are: lots of 'pleasings' or cheerings to make me thankful for the good things in life.

Anyway, the purpose of this blog was to write about a book, but because my brain is not in gear, and I can't think about anything serious, I couldn't decide which book, so here are my thoughts on Gunpowder Plot by Carola Dunn, an author I have never read before, but people kept telling me I would enjoy her Daisy Dalrymple mysteries (published by Constable and Robinson) – and I did!

Let me start by saying that if you like your reading to be difficult and challenging (like this year's Booker judges), then this is not the book for you. And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who likes their crime novels peppered with violence and gory descriptions of dead bodies, or to enthusiasts of of taut psychological thrillers.

But I don't like any of those things: I like my crime to be gentle and cosy, and that is exactly what 'Gunpowder Plot' is. Daisy, daughter of a viscount, is a thoroughly modern young woman (but do bear in mind this is 1924) and earns her own living as a jourrnalist. She is visiting old schoolfriend Gwen Tyndall to write about the family's 400-year-old bonfire festivities.

It should be a pleasant assignment, but all is not well, for tensions are surfacing in the Tyndall family. Gwen's eldest sister Babs, who is running the estate, clashes with their traditionalist father over modern farming methods, while their brother Jack is also in trouble because he wants to be an aircraft engineer. Then, after the firework display, hot-tempered Sir Harold and a female guest are found dead. It is thought Sir Harold has shot the woman and killed himself, but it soon becomes apparent that both have been murdered and the culprit must be one of the family, or the dead woman's Australian husband.

Daisy's husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher (from Scotland Yard), is called in to investigate, aided by Daisy herself, and the story romps along along at near break-neck speed as local VIPs squabble about who should be in charge, various family members are questioned, and hidden secrets come to light...

It's not great literature, but it's not that badly written, and while the characters may lack depth, they are not so two-dimensional as to be unbelievable, and they are not caricatures, although they are viewed in a very conventional way – roughneck, uncultured Australian; autocratic landowner, and so on. There no great insights into human nature, and it's not too difficult to guess the killer, but there are enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you reading, and there's enough period detail to be convincing. I'm not sure how accurate the police procedures are (not very, In suspect), but the same could be said for an awful lot of crime novels, and this was such fun that I don't care! It's all down to the willing suspension of disbelief I guess, but I really did enjoy it.

Daisy herself is a rather charming amateur sleuth, who is sympathetic and intelligent, and finds herself a key witness to events at various points in the story, as well as using her charm and sympathy to gain information from people without them realising what is happening. In this novel she is six months pregnant, and spends much of her time ravenously hungry or desperately needing the loo, which added a touch of humour (and, contrary to what I thought at first, did actually have a bearing on the main plotline).

I gather there are about 20 Daisy Dalrymple books, but I seem to have plunged slap bang into the middle of the series, so I need to backtrack and start at the beginning, if only to discover how Daisy and Alec first meet. 

Downfall of a Victorian Fraudster

Jabez, pictured on the front cover, was
described by contemporaries as being
short  and stout with spindly legs.

Jabez Spencer Balfour was a Victorian businessman and MP who had some very creative accounting methods. When his fraud was discovered and his massive business empire collapsed, he ran away to Argentina with a young lady who was not his wife (she was in a mental hospital), leaving thousands of destitute victims behind. Some of the people whose lives he destroyed were so distraught they killed themselves: unable to face a future where they had nothing to live on, they preferred death to the workhouse.

Today Jabez is largely forgotten, but in the mid-1890s he was at the centre of a huge scandal, involving financial mismanagement, corruption and fraud. Colourful and charismatic, his life and his misdeeds rival anything you'll find in fact or fiction. The obvious comparison in modern times is newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, with a touch of 'great train robber' Ronnie Biggs thrown in for good measure. And his story also echoes that of Augustus Melmotte, in Anthony Trollope's 'The Way We Live Now'.

The similarities are not lost on journalist David McKie, who pieced Jabez' history together. Initially looking to write an article about this flamboyant swindler, McKie soon realised he had enough material for a book, and the result is Jabez,The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Scoundrel. I borrowed it from the library because Jabez was, for a time, MP for Tamworth (where I live), and I couldn't put it down. It's a riveting and well written tale, which reeled me in and kept me reading into the early hours of the morning, because I wanted to know what happened to Jabez.

By the way, I should mention that he preferred to be known as J Spencer Balfour, especially after he entered Parliament – perhaps he felt it made him sound more serious and important. But I shall continue to call him Jabez, because it is such a wonderful name!

Born in 1843, his mother was Clara Lucas Balfour, who lectured on literature and the status of woman and was a famous temperance campaigner. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Jabez was also a great temperance man – yet after his fall from grace a collection of fine wines and champagnes was found at his home, one of many contradictions in his life.

Jabez,  painted in watercolour by Sir Leslie
Ward. The painting, which was originally
published by Vanity Fair in 1892 is in the
National Portrait Gallery.

However, he owed his success to the temperance movement and its non-conformist supporters. His company, the Liberator Building Society, aimed to help non-conformists buy their own homes, rather than renting. While poorer folk saved what little cash they could spare, Jabez also persuaded wealthy non-conformists to invest. He attracted many powerful backers, and the business went from strength to strength. Jabez was invited on to the board of many other companies, and became involved in ambitious property developments, as well as a scheme to reclaim Brading Harbour (now known as Bembridge) on the Isle of Wight.

A staunch Liberal, he was MP for Tamworth, and later for Burnley, but was rejected by voters in Croydon (where he made his home), so decamped to Burcot, near Oxford, where he lived in style and set himself up as squire, distributing largesse to the local community.

When the crash came, in 1892, investigators discovered an interconnected web of companies (including the London and General Bank) where assets had been grossly over priced, and cheques for huge sums of money were passed from business to business, which may have looked good on paper – but there was no actual money to change hands. The same directors sat on many boards, and did very nicely out of it, while Jabez's trusted henchmen also seemed to have fingers in many pies. On the whole, it seems there were no proper accounting systems or auditing, and little discussion: everything was decided by Jabez, who was known as Skipper.

Jabez when he was Mayor of Croydon.

Protesting his innocence, he insisted he was a wronged man, said it was all a mistake, and claimed the money was there but he needed time to sort it out – then fled to Argentina accompanied by two young women, one of whom appears to have been his lover. All efforts to have him sent home failed, until 1895 when a Scotland Yard detective kidnapped him!

He was jailed, as were some of his business associates, and after his release in 1906 his memoirs about prison life were serialised in the Daily Mail. After that he became a consultant mining engineer (though what his credentials were for this it's hard to know), travelling to Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and Burma, where he hoped to work in a tin mine. He died on a train in February 1916, while travelling from Paddington to Wales, where he was due to start a new job. He was 72.

A sketch made by P Renouard, showing
Jabez at his trial. 

Jabez is a fascinating character, but it's hard to know what his motives were. Alongside the business scam, he did a lot that was good. Over the years the Liberator Building Society did help many people buy a home. In Croydon, Jabez was actively involved in numerous worthy causes to help the community, and he gave £1,000 and a peal of bells for a new Congregational Church. In Burcot he replaced farm workers' cottages, installed gas lights in the village and built an institute for residents.

I can't decide if he was a scoundrel who set out to deliberately defraud people, a victim of his success, or delusional. McKie seems to have the same problem. Did his many business interests get too big and unwieldy, making them difficult to manage? Did something go wrong, and in an effort to put things right did he borrow from one company to pay off another, intending to put the money back? Was he some kind of egomaniac who thought anything he did was OK, and that he was above the normal laws of society – or was he some kind of fantasist who genuinely thought everything was all right?

Whatever the truth, I can't help but feel a certain admiration for him, even though he fooled so many people and wrecked so many lives. He was hard-working, enthusiastic, always grabbed life with both hands, and managed to pick himself up and start all over again when things went wrong. And he does seem to have been genuinely interested in improving the lot of those need. Not that any of that excuses his behaviour, but it does seem he was more complex than I originally thought, and wasn't a total villain. 

A House on Stilts

Ledbury, in Herefordshire, is one one of those beautiful, historic, little towns where everything in the town centre seems to be hundreds of years old. It's where my mother lives, so while she was ill and I was looking after her I took the chance to wander around and take some new photographs, since most of mine were taken a long time ago, so here are a few for this week's Saturday Snapshot.

The Market House, a distinctive black and white building, stands on 16 wooden stilts, with narrow steps leading up to the entrance. It dominates the main street and is generally regarded as the jewel in the town's architectural crown – and when you see how impressive all the other buildings are you realise this one has to be pretty special.

Timber framed, with brick infill, it was built in the 17th century as a corn warehouse: the grain was stored inside the raised structure, where it was protected from the weather and was safe from rats, mice and other vermin, while traders sold their wares from stalls and shops in the covered area below. A market is still held there twice a week, which is a nice link with the past I think.

Work started in 1617, but was not completed until 1668 because somewhere along the line cash (raised by public subscription) ran out. Eventually the trustees took money from legacies set up to provide clothing for the poor, and in return were supposed to provide 12 sets of garments each year, paid from the profits made by renting out the Market House. It sounds a pretty fair deal to me, but I've no idea whether the promise was ever carried out!

At that stage the house itself had two floors, and it's possible one was use for storage, and the other for meetings. But when the Turnpike Act was levied in the early 18th century, traders couldn't afford to pay the toll gate taxes, so they brought samples of corn to the market, and the building where they had previously paid to store grain got emptier and emptier, and had to be used for wool, hops and acorns for the local tanning industry. I knew very little about the Turnpike Act, or its effect on people, but that's what I like about local history - you like at a building, and think how gorgeous it is, then discover a whole social history attached to it!

It brought in little money and was rarely full. However, the enterprising Victorians stripped out the inside, leaving the outer shell intact, and created space for meetings, exhibitions, sales and performances by travelling theatre companies. It was also been used as a Town Hall. Today it still provides a venue for meetings, sales and exhibitions and, more recently, weddings were held there, but the Disability Access law put paid to that.

It's thought much of the construction was undertaken by John Abel, who was appointed King's Carpenter by Charles I. He was a local man, and a number of Herefordshire buildings are attributed to him, but there is no evidence to support the theory that he was involved with Ledbury's Market House. The wooden supports are made of oak, and were repaired and strengthened in 2006, when the entire building, including the posts, was raised into the air with the aid of hydraulic jacks. It was a tremendous feat of modern engineering, and somewhere I have a photo showing it surrounded by scaffolding, and perched on metal framework, but I can't find it anywhere, although I have searched and searched.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog at http://athomewithbooks.net/