About Writing my book

 I met a man at a party. He said "I'm writing a novel" 
I said “Oh really? Neither am I”   (Peter Cook)

I have always been interested in writing but lack of confidence has prohibited me.  When I was a child I used to love writing stories, I devoured Enid Blyton books and was always interested in Mysteries.  I never really pursued a career in this art though.  When my second child Matthew was born I took a writing course from The Writing School, London, it was a home study course that claimed you could earn the cost back by the end of the course or they would give you your money back.  Did I finish the course dear Bloggie?  Of course I did not, I did keep the course materials for many years though as the course claimed that there was no expiry time, thinking maybe one day I will finish it.  I remember writing articles on various topics and sending them off to magazines but with no success.  

Emily

Emily Hobhouse 1860-1926

As mentioned in an earlier blog I have a keen interest in the Victorian humanitarian, campaigner and philanthropist, Emily Hobhouse, who was born in South East Cornwall, UK.  Ever since my husband Martin came home from work with a copy of local author Frank Beer's book, Angel of Love about Emily Hobhouse.  I was smitten, determined to find out more I have now given talks about her to various groups.

This particular blog is not so much about Emily but my journey into writing about her which has been going on since 2009!  I don't really want to count the years because I am sure those monkeys will have written the complete works of Shakespeare before I finish my book.  

At the time of my reading Frank Beer's book, I had been ferrying my children  to Quethiock VA School near Liskeard (in Cornwall UK) for well over a period of 10 years or so.  We lived locally and each day I would drive them to this quiet country church school down the pretty Cornish lanes passing a creepy old gothic style house surrounded by high stone walls and tall trees.  I often wondered about this mysterious house.  

The Chantry 2015

The house called  ‘The Chantry’ at the time turned out to be the birthplace of Emily Hobhouse.

Emily had visited the Concentration Camps in South Africa during the Boer War and seeing such death, disease and lack of basic needs for life provided there by the British Army, her own countrymen, came back and campaigned to improve the camp conditions.  This she achieved by perseverance and dogged determination, much more on her in a later blog.

A Bit of Background

I am half South African, my mother was born in Johannesburg 1931 to an South African born English mother, Pearl Ashley and Boer Father, Rudolf Marthinus Muller. Unfortunately Rudolf was blown up at the age of 36 whilst working on a road in Johannesburg when Mum was 5.  Pearl went on to marry his friend after three months and Mum was sent to live with Rudolf's mother  Gertruida.  Pearl and her husband divorced and she then met and married a British Tommy (Les) and moved to South Wales. Les had impressed her in South Africa with tales of prosperity and his own property in the Welsh Valleys.  In truth it was a two-up, two-down terraced house just outside Cardiff!   My mother was 15 and her brother Danny was 12.  Pearl was horrified and never forgave him.

By and by my mother went to do her nurse training in Bristol and married her first husband, she didn't finish her training as my sister Pat was on the way, shortly followed by Penny two years later.  Mum had wanted to return to South Africa but had fallen out of love with Peter  who she then sent off to South Africa to find a job and to build up a home for her and the girls to join them.  However while he was away she met my father.  My father was my mother’s second partner Paul was born in 1958 and I was born in Bristol, in 1960.   I grew up in England  my mother left me with my father in 1962 when she  returned to South Africa with my siblings and my father’s best friend!   I didn't hear from her again until I was 10, so we had quite a distant but cordial relationship.  

At the time of me reading Frank Beers book about Emily, my mother was on her fifth partnership, (I would say husband but she was never fond of going through matrimonial ceremonies).  1982, Mum was living in Italy with her latest boyfriend Shelly, Sheldon Goldstein, a young American artist.  They had been lent a remote farmhouse that was owned by a Contessa from the fashionable Crispie family.  A beautiful almost derelict building overlooking a medieval city called Lucignano in Tuscany.  A beautiful location and Shelly produced many impressionist style paintings there of olive trees and landscapes.  

long after Shelly left her to return to America with a younger woman.  Mum had continued to pursue her career as a sculptress in the lovely terracotta clay that was found locally. When my mother died in 2019 the contessa was still alive and stood by her initial word that Mother and Shelley could stay in the house for as long as they liked.  Not really sure she meant 35 years though!

Mother and relations

I had asked Mum if she knew of Emily Hobhouse, and she then told me that everyone knew of Emily Hobhouse in South Africa when she was growing up.  Her father's mother, Gertruida Muller was greatly affected by the concentration camps in the Boer war and lost many relatives in them.  In fact when my mother was a child Gertruida forbade her to speak English in her presence.  Armed with this knowledge I was determined to find out more about my South African side of the family; The Boer War, the Camps and all the ancestry involved along the way.Along with the finer details of Emily's life.

In the heat of all this enthusiasm people were saying I should write a book about it all.  Very few locally at the time I started out had  heard of Emily.

Research

  My first stop in 2009 was to visit the Museum and the Liskeard Library to find out more information, (remember this was the days when the internet and smartphones were not as easily accessible as they are today.)  The Liskeard Museum were very friendly but they had very little information for me.  The library could not find anything except one other book besides Franks book, To Love One's Enemies by her niece, Jennifer Hobhouse-Balme.  I was a bit deflated that the Library didn't have any further information.  An elderly lady sitting by the information desk looked up from her newspaper and said how lovely it was to hear Emily's name mentioned.  We got talking and I soon found out that this ladies name was Mrs Wormald and she lived in The Chantry, the place where Emily was born in St Ive.  She invited me to come and look around any time I liked.  I mentioned that I was researching for a book I was going to write about Emily and my family.  She was very encouraging and said that Emily deserved more recognition in this country.

Well, doesn't time fly when you have young children? although my plans were still in place they took a back seat to life happening around me.  Before long a year or two had gone by and I was no further along in my task.  I bought all the books I could find on the Boer War but I needed time to actually read them.  Apparently you can't absorb them just by owning them.

Then I took a weeks writing course at Faber & Faber in London.  I loved it and it reignited my desires to get the book written.  I had made contact with Jenny Hobhouse-Balme and she also was very encouraging with my writing.  Jenny is a lovely lady now into her nineties and we have become good friends.  She lives in Canada and has visited a few times. I kept up regular contact and through my writing course learned how to set out my book by using a very good programme called Scrivener.  Since then I have been chipping away at the book deciding which way to go with it.   I sometimes sent Jenny snippets of my writing and she always says, "Oh, what happens next?" I have to say I don't know, I haven't written it yet.  Or she will give advice on how they may have spoken to one another at that time.

What Direction?

Many books now have been written about Emily and I probably have them all.  A below average (imho) film has been made but still no real feeling has come through about the grit and determination of this woman and the hardships of the family life in the camps.  

Genealogy has come on leaps and bounds and after going down a few rabbit holes sometimes in the wrong direction I have more accurate details of my family in South Africa.  Both my South African great grandmothers were of Boer descent and I am still researching their stories.  I have visited South Africa and stood at the foot of the Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, dedicated to the women and children who died and suffered in the camps and where Emily's ashes are interred.

The Story of Emily , St Ive, Liskeard.

Mrs Wormald has since died and I never got to look around while she lived there.  Recently Emily’s birthplace has been completely upgraded to a fantastic museum called The Story of Emily, dedicated to Emily.  Her house has be restored to the Victorian era with furnishings that would have been there when Emily was there.  Also there is an amazing war-room that leads you around a labyrinth of rooms telling the stories from both sides.  Largely created by the unstoppable force of Elsabe Brits a South African writer who has surpassed me in getting Emily's story out there by writing several books to date.

So you see there is no excuse for me now not to finish my book.  I don't think a book like mine is out there yet.  Of course some of the action on my side of the family has to be embellished so I have decided to write it as an Historical fiction loosely based on facts for dramatic purposes.  I hope I will be forgiven any errors.  The research has taken forever as stated before I knew absolutely zilch about the Boer War or the living conditions of my Boer family but I mean to document as accurately as I can what I have discovered and what may have happened.  

In conclusion

Doing this blog every week this year is giving me some discipline about my writing and I hope that I can get down to some serious writing about my book which I am going to entitle 'Faded Flowers'.  The title taken from a phrase Emily used about the weak and ill children she saw in the camps.

I hope I get to finish it but people are starting to roll their eyes at me when I say I am still writing my book!

Hence the opening quote.

Incidently, apologies, this blog is a day late due to family visiting and a rather large snotty cold!