THE BORDER REIVERS

Those who live in the north of England know only too well who the Border Reivers were! They inhabited  the counties that glare at each other across the English-Scottish Border: Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham; Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and Dumfriesshire.

The Pennines form the backbone of the Durham Dales and proved a barrier, though the Eden Valley provided an easy route to rich pickings. Every northerner knows the story of the monks at Blanchland in County Durham who cowered in their church as the Scots raiders passed by on their way home to Scotland. Relieved, they rang the bells in thanks. The Scots heard the bells, turned back and raided the little village hidden in its deep valley.

George MacDonald Fraser described the reivers in his book The Steel Bonnets: “not the most immediately lovable folk in the United Kingdom. Incomers may find them difficult to know; there is a tendency among them to be suspicious and taciturn, and the harsh Border voice, whether the accent is Scots or English, lends itself readily to derision and complaint. No doubt there are Cumbrians who are gay, frivolous folk, and Roxburghshire probably has its quota of fawning, polished sophisticates; they are in a minority, that is all.”

Qualities such as those he described were forged in harsh times which passed by most of Britain. From the late thirteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, the Borders were frequently a war zone. During those times armies marched in both directions across the Border lands, burning, stealing and despoiling as they went, for armies must eat, and the people of the Borders bore the brunt of it.

When the army seized a man’s crops and livestock, there was nothing he could do to support himself and his family but relieve his neighbours of the goods he needed. If the neighbour was in the same situation, then they joined forces and foraged further afield. Nationality was not a consideration in such desperate times; Scot raided Scot as readily as they robbed the English, and the English were not averse to raiding an English farm if needs must. Scots helped the English raid north of the Border and Englishmen aided Scots raids south of the Border. Families such as the Grahams had members straddling both sides of the line and no one ever knew for certain which side they would support on any given day.

In times of peace, the raiding went on. Habits once formed, died hard. Feuds developed, some across the Border divide and some within it. The Maxwells feuded with the Johnstones in one of the bitterest and bloody battles known in Scotland, yet now no one knows how or why it began; possibly a power struggle for supremacy between two powerful tribes that turned the Debateable Land into a wasteland according to Lord Dacre in 1528. Twenty years later Lord Wharton was busily fanning the flames to secure England’s interests and both clan leaders found themselves in and out of English prisons on an almost regular basis.

National policy tried to stop the lawlessness. The Borders were divided into six administrative areas known as the Marches and England and Scotland each appointed three March Wardens whose task was to defend against invasion in time of war and put down crime and maintain law and order in peace time. Some were good men and others were the worst raiders of the frontier. A Warden often used one reiving family to help them catch another. Tracking thieves on horseback in the dark across trackless and boggy wastes was not an easy task and no Borderer was about to betray another Borderer unless it brought him profit or it played into his feud.

Sex took no notice of national policy and intermarriages across the Border were common. Cattle rustling and protection rackets abounded. The words blackmail and kidnapping came into the English language via the Borderers. Overpopulation of the more fertile dales and greedy landlords contributed to the problems. The Tynedale custom of dividing a deceased man’s land among all his sons resulted in a situation “whereby beggars increase and service decays.”

Homes all over the Border were makeshift things in many cases. Often burned down, they were rebuilt astonishingly quickly out of clay and stones, sometimes turf sods with roofs of thatch. Larger villages had more substantial dwellings of stone and oak timbers. The Bastle was smaller, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastle_house) built on the same lines as a peel tower, which was more secure still; built of stone with massively thick walls. There was only one entrance at ground level, with two doors, one a yett – an iron grating - and the other of oak reinforced with iron. A narrow curving stair known as a turnpike led to upper floors. Usually they curved clockwise so a defender retreating to an upper storey had his unguarded left side to the wall; the man attacking up the stair was at a disadvantage with his sword arm to the wall. The Kerrs, notoriously left-handed, built their turnpikes anti-clockwise. http://www.peelcastle.co.uk/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smailholm_Tower

The standard of living was generally higher in towns such as Berwick or Carlisle, but the daily food ration of a soldier in the Berwick garrison in 1597 would not satisfy us today; he received a daily ration of a 12 oz loaf, 3 pints of beer, 1½ lbs of beef, ¾lb of cheese and ¼lb of butter. If that was what the English army lived on, consider the diet of peasant farmers whose crops have been trampled into the mud by an army passing through.

The people of the Border have not changed much in four hundred years; the Descendants of the Elliots, Armstrongs and Fenwicks, Bells and Nixons, Scotts, Maxwells and Kerrs are still living roughly where they were in the sixteenth century. It is not exaggerating to say that they form a distinct cultural and social bloc that is different from the rest of the British people.

There are poems, songs and tales told about the famous names that have come down through the years. The names alone give a flavour of the times: Kinmont Willie, Black Ormiston, Hobbie Noble, Fingerless Will, Nebless Clem, Willie Kang, Bangtail, Fire the Braes.

Everyday business and a splendid walk

Trips to the vet and the dentist today, so not a lot of spare time. Tim has to have his rabies booster so we can travel to France later this year, and I need to see my lovely dentist for the last of a series of appointments. Add to those the need to spend a couple of hours exercising Tim, and I think I won't get much writing done today. There's no hope for tonight, either, as we're out with friends.

We have sunshine, even though the temperature dipped below zero last night. Tim has left a set of footprints in the frosty grass in our back garden!

Yesterday was the same, weather-wise.  Too gorgeous to sit around indoors, so I persuaded dh to walk up to the Lion and the Lamb  where he could have a shandy and a bowl of chips (and a well earned sit down!) before setting off to walk back. I would call that bribery exactly, but it did add a certain something to the walk. The outward journey is all uphill, though the footpath winds around fields which makes the incline not too bad and the whole hillside is orientated south so we were in sunshine all the way. Tim scampered about running forward and back sniffing everything and nothing.

With the village of Horsley showing up on the horizon, I asked dh if he was looking forward to his shandy. "It'll be a pint of beer, not a shaandy," he said. We sat in the garden at the back of the pub, still in sunshine, and sure enough, he had a pint of Black Sheep with his bowl of chips.

 The walk back is all down hill, and as you might expect, the return trip always seems to go by faster. We paused on Ovingham bridge, which is still closed. Come June, it will have been closed for two years. Peering over the footbridge, we saw workmen using machines to take the rust off the pylons below water level, and marvelled at the flood debris piled up against the footings and on the walkways. Best of all we chuckled at the nice new blue plaque to commemorates the building of the bridge in 1883, and its refurbishment and re-opening in December 2015. Ha! It was open for two days and the the floods closed it again!
We got home with Tim still running about, having completed 5.9 kilometres. Well done us, I say.

Kippers, anyone?

I'm pretty close to releasing another book and wondering how many checks I'm willing to do on the text to make sure it is perfect! Once the plunge has been taken, I'm going to concentrate on PR and Marketing my list because I have ignored the need for it for so long. Most of this year, in fact. I am writing a second draft of a sequel to Abduction of the Scots Queen, but that will take some time and I don't envisage publication until next year at the earliest.

I'm also investigating the possibility of a week's holiday in a cottage on the Northumbrian coast in the autumn. It seems such a long time since we came back from France, and change of scene would be nice. The weather can be really good in the autumn, too - bright, cheerful days full of colour. I have to check carefully  before I book, because not only do we want somewhere nicely furnished and not too Spartan, but we want to take Tim. Some places won't take dogs at all; some charge for them. Some say they must be comfortable on the lead because of livestock and wandering cats and hens which is fair enough but not for us. Tim still pulls like an express train on the lead. What we want is wide open spaces where he can run to his heart's content. Then there's the internet/wi-fi situation to consider, I'd want to take my laptop and keep up with writing and all its attendant responsibilities, and dh will want to be in contact with the off-spring in Australia plus his interests. So, the coast seems a better option for us than the countryside with all its cows and sheep, and I'm looking at the area around Craster and Embleton. Craster is famous for kippers and not far from Dunstanbrough Castle and there are some gorgeous beaches along the Heritage coast. Might be windy, but it certainly won't be crowded!

Castles for courses

Of course, there are castles, and castles. Small castles at the business end of things, like Harbottle in Northumberland, only 5 kilometres from the border with Scotland, had few amenities. The name Hirbottle was first recorded in the thirteenth century, and probably derives from the Anglo-Saxon here-botl which means ‘army building.’ The castle towers over the major medieval highway into Scotland - Clennell Street - making it a point of strategic as well as tactical importance. The stone keep on the motte and the East and West bailey are surrounded by a curtain wall, and it was very much a working front-line castle. When Queen Margaret of Scotland gave birth to her daughter Meg Douglas here in 1515, there were hardly any women present to tend her.

Warkworth is a castle of a different kind. It began life as most castles did, with a walled enclosure and a shell keep on top of the motte. This was replaced about 1380 by a great tower of cut stone in which the service, public and withdrawing chambers are lit by different forms of window, and the earl’s bedroom is marked externally by a sculpture of a rampant lion, the heraldic emblem of the family. It was almost certainly designed by John Lewyn, who worked on Durham Cathedral in 1353 and was responsible for the great kitchen with its fine star vault. In 1368 Lewyn worked on Bamburgh Castle, and probably oversaw the erection of the Neville screen in the Cathedral in 1380. The screen was designed and built in London from Caen stone and shipped to Durham via Newcastle, and probably gave Lewyn the idea for the decorative crown of the great tower and watch tower at Warkworth.

The tower forms a Greek cross with four polygonal wings radiating from the central block. (In simple terms, imagine a small square surrounded by a larger square. Then visualise four small squares projecting outwards, one from each of the four sides of the larger square.) It was planned using a unit of measurement sometimes called a rod, a pole or a perch – 16 feet six inches.

In 1471 Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, ordered another re-organisation. Splendid porch towers were built over the hall and great chamber, the one over the hall bearing the modern and ancient arms of the family. The masons involved had also worked on York Minster. Work was interrupted by the murder of the earl in 1489. It seems the earl’s decision not to commit to the Battle of Bosworth until a winner had emerged so disgusted his household that they abandoned him to a mob during a tax riot.

For more information and plans that show the complexity of the building, try the website: Warkworth

Druridge Bay

A day out today! The weather looked good, the forecast promised sunshine, and for December the temperature was high. So off we went to Druridge Bay, just south of Amble on the north-east coast. Lindisfarne was a tiny triangle of white on the horizon. One day I must go and visit the castle there.


 Today was a walk along the beach and back again while Tim ran in and out of the sea, gaining confidence as he went along. Just like a child, really - he splashed through pools of standing water, and explored every nook and cranny of the patch of rocks we discovered. All the time the sun was warm on our faces and then on our backs as we followed our footsteps back to the point in the dunes where we came down. Important to get it right as the beach is over seven miles long and a mistake could have extended our walk far more than we intended!

Driving away after the walk we drove by a farm that has converted old buildings into a Cafe and Gift Shop, so we bowled into the car park and went inside for a fruit scone and a cup of coffee. Most welcome, but we didn't dare stay long as Tim isn't too used to staying in the car on his own. Fortunately the sun was strong enough to keep the car warm for him even with the window open a crack.

All in all, a beautiful day and a lovely walk.

Endings

I think I've written the closing words of my latest story Victorian Beauty.
 

‘It is already written,’ Melanie said with every appearance of simply stating a truth. She caught Adam’s eye. He knew it was a blatant lie, but his smile told her he approved.'

 

Tomorrow, of course, I might think of something even better. It is always difficult to know when the definitive ending is there in front of you, because there's always the temptation to think that you could do better if you just thought about for a few more days...but that way, nothing ever gets finished and nothing ever gets published. Re-writing could go on endlessly and it doesn't always mean the work will necessarily improve.

Deadlines are great, because they impose an end point.

 

 But I'm pleased with this story. Set in Northumberland in 1864, it begins with Melanie arriving at Gavington to interview for the post of housekeeper to Lord Jarrow. She has something to hide, and so does her potential employer. Both are strong characters, and they need to be when her past catches up with her and threatens to expose Jarrow as a smuggler of illicit whisky.

 

Victorian Beauty

I have set myself a goal. I want to have a new book self-published on Amazon in time to catch the Christmas buying extravaganza. So I've begun second-editing a story for which I wrote a swift first draft some time ago. I've called it Victorian Beauty, and I've reached page 92 of 192. The title may change as I'm not sure it gives exactly the flavour I want.
There's still some way to go, and the ending will require a little more work than the rest of it because I finished it off in a great hurry. It needs more story to complete it properly, maybe an extra two chapters. In between editing, I'll be playing around with a cover as well. That's more like fun. It's good to be back in the mood again after all this time away having fun.

The story is set in Northumberland. After all, why struggle with locations in the south when I know Northumberland so well? why give myself problems?

If you are curious about the orange van in the picture, I spotted it on the road in Australia. Click on the pic to enlarge it and read the words scrawled on it!

The North-South divide

The Tyne Valley

here's a link to Hazel's blog, in which she talks about the North-South Divide that exists and flourishes in this country.
Hazel lives just down the road from me, belongs to our local writers' group and has just published her second book, which is set in Northumberland. I was amused to see that even as someone not locally born, she notices and probably resents the total lack of knowledge about Northumberland that exists in this country - and probably in the rest of the world. The comments she mentions are ones I've heard frequently over the years. Even the weather forecasters on tv skip over the north of England, or they talk about "the north" and then mention Birmingham or Manchester.

Manchester is somewhat closer to us, but it's still 3 hours driving time, in a car on motorways, to get there. In that amount of time, I can be over the border, beyond Edinburgh, cross the Forth Bridge and drive north to Perth in Scotland. Another three hours will take me to Inverness, and a further hour to Ullapool on the north west coast of Scotland. People down south seem to think we still have nothing but coal mines, slag heaps and steelworks, with maybe the odd shipyard thrown into the mix. I can't deny they existed up until the late fifties and sixties, but they're not there now. Green fields and grazing cattle exist where once the mines flourished. Forget the images you remember from films like 'Get Carter' and tv series such as 'When the boat comes in' or 'Vera' because they simply don't do the place justice.

The Olympics pointed out just how London-centric this country is. Some football matches were played here in Newcastle, and that's it. That's all we saw of the Olympics. When we go south on our annual trip to France, we're always horrified by the traffic volume, which starts to build south of Leeds and is truly horrendous by the time we reach either the M25 or the Southampton-Portsmouth area.So many people everywhere, so many cars rushing in every direction. Coming home, we start to relax once we've left Weatherby behind. I once applied for jobs in Chichester, Portsmouth and Crawley, went for interview and was disappointed when I didn't get the post. Now I thank the good lord that I'm here in the north...

I’ve finally managed to publish a book through the Amazon Kindle programme. FAIR BORDER BRIDE was published briefly in 2009 as Till the Day Go Down, but the publisher went into liquidation very soon afterwards, and returned my rights to me. It seemed a good idea to give Harry and Alina some sort of life rather than abandon them to oblivion, so here is their story – 5,000 words lighter, re-edited and with everything I’ve learned about writing fiction in the intervening three years adding into the final polish.

The setting is Northumberland in 1543. Alina and Harry meet in Corbridge market place and because he is working for his father, the Deputy Lord Warden of the West March, he tells her his name is Harry Scott. Alina’s father is at feud with the entire family Scott, flings Harry into the dungeon at Aydon Castle and threatens him with the Leap next day. Alina creeps out of her bed to visit Harry at midnight when the castle is quiet.

“Tell me,” he said, before he forgot all practical things in the delight of her presence. “Your father threatens me with something called the Leap. What is it?”

“She dipped her head, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “It’s the ravine, Harry.” She pointed towards the dark bulk of the hall. “On the other side is a ravine. It is deep, with the Ay burn at the bottom. Father…he makes prisoners jump from the precipice outside the hall.”

“Ah.” He raised her knuckles to his mouth, and kissed them to dispel the shadowy presence of Death looming in the darkness behind him. He remembered looking into the ravine the night he rode up here. His tongue probed the cleft between her fingers. She gasped. Harry’s blood sang through his body, and he kissed her knuckles again. “How deep, do you think?”

“Twenty times the height of a man, they say.” She shivered and frowned as she watched him nuzzle her fingers. “There are rocks and trees…”

“And no one survives?”

Her face crumpled. “Oh, Harry, sometimes they do, but they are broken, twisted creatures—”

A deep voice sounded from above, and Alina flung up her head. “Matho, please!”

Matho must have agreed, for she turned back to Harry. Her hand had warmed in his and when he kissed it once more, her other hand snaked through the bars and stroked his face, crept to the back of his neck.

“Ah, Alina,” he murmured. “Would that we had no iron bars between us.”

His flesh hardened. If this was his last night on earth, he wanted some pleasure to beguile his thoughts. He reached both hands through the grill and drew her close against the iron bars and in truth she was not reluctant, even when his hand roamed beneath her cloak, caught a ribbon and her nightgown gaped from neck to waist. His palm found the firm weight and curve of her breast and nestled around it.”

You can find FAIR BORDER BRIDE on either of the links:  http://tiny.cc/g7ddy and http://tiny.cc/930k5

Oh dear

Vera is the latest offering on tv that is set in the North East of England. I watched the first two episodes with great expectation, but gave up on the third and fourth because I couldn't bear listening to the dreadful attempts at a so called Geordie accent. With few exceptions the delivery was painfully slow, as if the actors had to frame the sounds in their heads before they attempted them in reality. The addition of 'pet' on every other sentence was an irritation. The leading actress was a strange choice, and the younger officer might have been a better leaad. Certainly he had the right sound.

Tv film makers seem bent on seeking out the locations that hark back to the North East of fifty years ago. There are no pit heaps now. The pits are long since closed and grassed over. The steel works have gone. The shipbuilding has very nearly disappeared. There are many beautiful places here, but do the filmakers seek them out? They do not. They want grim and gritty, and show them ad nauseam.

But I suppose there's virtue in their madness. Tourists won't be swarming into Northumberland and Durham on the basis of Vera, and that means we can keep Britain's best kept secret all to ourselves.

The Key of Redesdale

Henry III loved building and complained that the privy chamber of his wardrobe smelt badly, and advised no one to build such a style again. A wardrobe was a small room next to the great chamber, usually with a latrine beyond a kink in the corridor. The wardrobes were used as changing rooms, store rooms for clothes hung on rods like towel rails. Rich silks and furs would be put in great chests and scented with herbs and perfumes. Sometimes a scribe or secretary had to work in a wardrobe.

I think if you click on the pic you'll get a larger view. and be able to read the legend. It is part of the edisplay board at Harbottle Castle.

Seaton Delaval

Seaton Delaval Hall ~ the finest work of the English Baroque and one of the most important historic houses in Britain. The Grade I listed building was built between 1718 and 1731 by Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. The recent National Trust campaign allowed them to take over the house, its gardens and 400 acres of surrounding land from Lord Hastings, who died, aged 95, in 2007.

This is the third weekend it has been open to the public, and we enjoyed our visit. The gardens are particularly lovely and we promised ourselves we’d go back again in a week or two when more plants will be in bloom.

The house is a surprise. From the outside it looks wonderful, but inside it is an empty shell. A fire in 1822 burned out all the floors and walls between the ground floor and the roof. All that remains is the brickwork skeleton and stone staircases. Fireplaces are dotted at various heights about the walls. The earthen floored cellars stretch beneath the house, and the hastily placed legend tells that men and women servants ate their meals in two separate rooms down here. Hard to believe. There are few windows, and it isn't as if the hall lacks for space. The east wing is given over to stone stables, still bearing the names of the horses who lived there, and the West wing, we are told, is where the servants were quartered.

The drinking troughs in the stables are lead lined, so perhaps the horses were slowly and unknowingly poisoned. There is a huge ornamental lead flower pot dated 1662 in the garden, and an orangery with dancing cherubs decorating the roof outside.

Lord and Lady Hastings lived in the West wing since 1990, where they made a comfortable family home because the central house had long been let go. There are some lovely paintings in their quarters, and carved oak chairs. The whole place is very much a work in progress, and fascinating because of that. The tiny church among the bluebells dates from 1102 AD - yes, from Norman times. It is far, far older than the house.

There is a tea room in the east wing, but it is tiny and when we wnt it was crammed with people and hot as a Turkish steam bath. We didn't stay. Maybe plan to take sandwiches and eat in the car!

Read more courtesy of the Daily Mail. As the long article says, the place is an unexpected treasure in a very industrial corner of Northumberland. I'd never been before, yet it is barely twenty miles from me. I found an extra dimension to the visit because one of my fellow critiquers writes of the period this house was built and first lived in. I looked at the paintings, the great seals, the documents and imagined her characters seated on the carved oak chairs. I'm already looking forward to going back again.

Characters must have

More words of wisdom, this time on CHARACTERS. First of all, Don't Introduce a Character to No Purpose.

Always remember your character has to have one; he must be more than a gender stereotype. Err on the side of the specific, concentrate on features and qualities.

Above all, Ignore that Mirror!

Remember that a POV character knows what she looks like, and that a POV character "sees" whoever she thinks about.

Don't overdescribe clothes, and don't use politics as an accessory.

Lastly, but important - perfect people are boring.

As for SETTINGS - don't stop in the middle of an action sequence to describe the scenery. If you're running from a murderer you don't think "What a beautiful tree" as you tear by. Well, you wouldn't, would you?
Mention food only to advance the plot or illustrate a mood.

Reading the comments in a list like this, it is so easy to chuckle and think well, of course not. Which idiot would fall into such traps? But beginners do, and occasionally so do we all. I know I have. Food isn't one of my things, I'm happy to say, but I've read many potential books where each meal is described in loving detail and I suspect the author is salivating as she writes. All it does for me is make me groan and skip to the next bit.

My fault line, as it were, is describing outside locations. Less is more, I keep telling myself, hoping I'll learn the lesson eventually.

(Top pic is one of the orchards at Acorn Bank; bottom pic looking north west across Northumberland from the Roman Wall.)

Northumberland's flower

The newly appointed county flower of Northumberland - Bloody Cranesbill. It is of the geranium family and has a Latin name but I can't remember it. It is a shade that is hard to reproduce via a camera - it should be more purple than blue, and the veins are redder, hence the bloody tag.

I'm reading more of the Gotham Writers. It struck me that the aim of screenwriters is to " see a movie on the page..fly through it, experiencing the story. " I wonder if that is seeping into the fiction writing that many editors demand these days. All the instructions regarding show, don't tell, writing in the present tense, capture a scene in a few well honed words, short sentences, no ambiguiity, cut out the adjectives... don't write "Sally looks sexy," instead tell us "Sally sashays by, shimmering in satin."

Apart from anything else, that sentence is almost a tongue-twister of the Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper fame.

I wish I knew what sashay meant. For years I have read American words and phrases in novels by authors from Evan Hunter to Nora Roberts and although I can usually grasp the meaning, sometimes it isn't at all clear. My dictionary says this of sashay: "Walk or move ostentatiously, casually or diagonally." I'm not sure but I think the average American would have a different picture in their head as to how Sally walked!

Northumberland and loglines

I needed two pictures and even then couldn't show the whole of the landscape I could see as I stood there in late afternoon sunshine at minus 2 degrees. Nor could I get this silly blog format to publish them side by side, which is what I wanted. However, this is Northumberland, folks, looking west five or six miles north of the Tyne valley where the land starts to rise to the Border hills. Smack in the middle of the one on the left is some sort of ruin perched on top of a small rounded hill. It is listed on the map as Ancient Homestead and Dovecot, doesn't even have a name. We drove right by it as we continued home from Wallington and these little chaps.


Work continues on Till the Day Go Down. I went through yesterday and added costume detail where I thought it would enhance the scene. Today I'm thinking about landscape, though I think I've layered that in as I went but it wouldn't hurt to check. Anything to make the scene REAL to the reader.

As for loglines....here are my next efforts: "Christian Emer, kidnapped and sold as a slave to Pagan Viking Flane, thinks of nothing but escape and refuses to sleep with him unless he marries her."
Didn't seem right, so tried again:
"Pagan Viking Flane buys Christian Emer as bedmate and then finds he must either rape or marry her before his future wife gets rid of her for good."

H'mmm. More interesting, but not exactly polished. More thought needed.