All Roads Lead To York!

On behalf of members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, your intrepid bloggers set off for a long weekend in York, the highlight being the Tea Party at the Guildhall organised by Jane Lovering and Lynda Stacey. Two trips to Betty’s, a cruise on the Ouse and many miles walked around York and we are home and exhausted.

Thank you to Jane and Lynda for the following words and John Jackson for the images.

Lynda Stacey

It was a cold, windy day in York, but inside the Guildhall it was warm. More than ninety people came to the first RNA Afternoon Tea event, and of those, more than half had never attended an RNA Party before, so we were delighted that so many were prepared to come to York as their first introduction to partying, RNA-style!  They were greeted by glasses of Prosecco and the chance to mingle and chat, helped by the familiar RNA name badges and lanyards, which meant nobody had to ask that awkward question ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’

 

Grace was said by Kelvin Woolmer, husband of RNA Chapter Liaison, Jean Fullerton after which we drank tea out of vintage cups and saucers and ate sandwiches, savouries and cakes from gorgeous vintage china. The setting in the beautiful fifteenth century York Guildhall, with its vaulted ceiling and ancient beams was awe inspiring.



 

Milly Johnson, who gave a very funny talk on the subject of ‘The Northern Bird’, filled with

scurrilous remarks and observations. She then performed her own parody of the well-known Robert Burns poem, with her ‘Address to the Scone’, followed by the delivery to the tables of heaps of scones, with clotted cream and home-made jams.

The proceedings closed with a rush to the Pic n Mix table, where guests helped themselves to sweets for the journey home. Thanks to everyone who came, and to John Jackson for documenting the event so thoroughly in photographic form!

Thank you, Jane, Lynda and John.

So where to next? Cornwall, Scotland, Wales or the South Coast? It will soon be time for another RNA event. In the meantime don’t forget the RNA Winter Party on Wednesday 18^th November at the Royal Overseas League, Park Place, London. Click here for details and booking form.

The RNA blog is brought to you by,

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write for the blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com

John Jackson: The Botallack, a Cornish Icon

Who knew the RNA had their own connection to Poldark? We welcome member John Jackson to the blog to tell us about his connection to the Bottallack Mine.

Most readers will have seen either the new series of Poldark, or remember the old series with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees as Ross and Demelza. The old mine buildings at Pendeen, all part of the Botallack Mine, or Crown Lands, lie at the very tip of the toe of Cornwall, and they have been photographed more than any other major landmark in the area (with the possible exception of the Land's End signpost).

The mine produced copper, tin and other minerals for several hundred years but closed down in the early 1800s when the seams or reefs of ore ran out.

My great-great-great-grandfather, one Stephen Harvey-James, then took the lease on the mine and, with the help of investors, brought it back into production, becoming the Purser of the Botallack in 1836 (i.e. the head of the mine) and holding the position until his death in 1870. The post was then taken on by his son, also Stephen, who saw the reefs finally run out and production halted five years later. The elder Stephen was Purser when the Prince and Princess of Wales visited the mine in 1865.

At its greatest the mine shafts ran to a depth of 250 fathoms, or 1500 feet, and up to a quarter of a mile out to sea. In the height of a storm, the miners in the shafts and adits closest to the seabed could hear the sound of boulders and stoned being rolled around and crashing against one another in the waves.

The miners used to descend on wooden ladders, wearing leather aprons and a leather or felt hat with a candle stuck to the brim. This was their sole source of light. Miners did sometimes get lost in the maze of tunnels. Deaths were frequent in all the Cornish mines. The concept of “health and safety” didn't exist in those times.

The miners would hack out the ore and it would be taken  up to the surface in buckets or tubs, using blocks and tackles or pulleys in the earlier years. Steam power, when it arrived, allowed the mines to work deeper, as they could pump out the water that always leaked through the cracks in the rocks. When they developed winches they could pull larger buckets of ore out. The ore would be spread out on wooden tables near the head of the mine and broken up into small pieces by teams of women. After the rubbish had been removed the finished ore would be sent inland to the smelters.

Sporadic attempts have been made to restart production at the mine but, even with the massive rise in the price of copper and tin, so far it hasn't proved a practical proposition. R M Ballantyne, the late-Victorian author, wrote a book about the mines called “Deep Down”. It's free on Kindle and provides a very real picture of life in a mining community. Its also very readable.

Both the Stephen Harvey-James' mentioned here are buried in St. Just Church – the churchyard there is FULL of James' in particular. Later Harvey-James' tended to go into the Indian Civil service. My cousin, Justin is, I think, the last of the Harvey-James line.

John Jackson

NWS Member

John is a member of the New Writers Scheme and is some 75000 words into his first book, based on some family history. He Tweets and posts on FaceBook incessantly.

Thank you, John for a most interesting article.

The RNA Blog is brought to you by:

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to contribute to the blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Cornish Myths and Giants

We are delighted to welcome Angela Britnell today to tell us about her latest book and a few things we may not have known about Cornwall.

Angela grew up in Cornwall and met her husband Richard, a US Naval Officer, while serving with the WRNS in Denmark. After multiple moves and having three sons they settled in Nashville, Tennessee where a creative writing class awakened her passion for writing. Since that she’s had short stories published, several pocket novels with DC Thomson and eight contemporary romance novels. Her latest ‘Celtic Love Knot’ was recently published by Choc Lit.

Can two tangled lives make a love knot? Lanyon Tremayne is the outcast of his small Cornish village of St. Agnes. Susceptible to fits of temper and with a chequered past behind him, he could even be described as a bit of an ogre. But nobody knows the painful secret he hides.

Olivia Harding has learnt a thing or two about ogres. She’s a professor from Tennessee, specialising in Celtic mythology and has come to St. Agnes to research the legend of a Cornish giant – and to lay to rest a couple of painful secrets of her own. But when Olivia meets the ruggedly handsome Lanyon, her trip to Cornwall looks set to become even more interesting. Will she get through to the man beneath the bad-tempered façade, or is Lanyon fated to be the ‘ogre’ of St. Agnes forever

I’m sure we’ve all heard the ongoing discussions about whether authors should primarily write about what they know and having grown up in Cornwall I freely admit it’s been the inspiration for many of my stories. It was only when I was writing my new contemporary romance ‘Celtic Love Knot’ that I discovered how little I really did know!

I must confess that I don’t plot and at the most have a vague idea of my main characters when I sit down and start to write. When I started the first draft of ‘Celtic Love Knot’ Olivia Harding soon revealed that she was a Celtic mythology professor from Nashville, Tennessee heading to do research in Cornwall around the St. Agnes area where my hero, Lanyon Tremayne, lives. I’d visited St. Agnes several times so that wasn’t a problem but my knowledge of Celtic mythology would have fitted on the proverbial head of a pin. I immediately delved into a lot of research and as Lanyon is a physically big man came up with the idea to link him with the legends of the Cornish giants. I had vague memories of hearing about the giant at St. Michael’s Mount but the existence of any others was a complete mystery to me. If you’re interested in reading a little more you can check out one of the sites I used here.

The story that particularly caught my imagination was of a giant called Bolster. He was supposed to have terrorised the local people until the brave St. Agnes outsmarted him causing his death. I became increasingly fascinated by the story and the way in which it’s still celebrated in the local community today. Its place in my book crystallized when I discovered a You-Tube video of the annual Bolster Festival held every May in St. Agnes. The story is re-enacted and culminates on the cliffs where Bolster is reputed to have died. Here’s a link to this fascinating video. Going to see this is definitely on my list of things to do!

Lanyon Tremayne’s links with the festival begin in his childhood when he takes part in the pageant along with his brother. Circumstances conspire to make him something of an outcast in the community until Olivia arrives and challenges him to find a way to change both his own and other people’s perceptions of himself. His re-involvement with the village and the Bolster Festival are interwoven with Lanyon and Olivia’s growing relationship until the two stories merge in a fascinating and unexpected way. It was totally unexpected to me anyway!

‘Celtic Love Knot’ became more than a ‘normal’ book as I discovered so many things I should’ve known about Cornwall and its rich history but didn’t! This story proved to me that writing what you know is often maligned as being an easy option which can be a million miles from the truth. Instead it can be an open door to even more interesting stories.

Contacts:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Amazon US 

Amazon UK

Very interesting and informative. Thank you, Angela

This blog is brought to you by Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman. If you would like to write about the craft of writing or perhaps be interviewed about your writing life please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com