Sunday War Poet...

Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson MC

1883- 1916

Before Action

By all the glories of the day,

And the cool evening's benison,

By that last sunset touch that lay,

Upon the hills when day was done,

By beauty lavishly outpoured,

And blessings carelessly received,

By all the days that I have lived,

Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of man's hopes and fears,

And all the wonders poets sing,

The laughter of unclouded years,

And every sad and lovely thing;

By the romantic ages stored

With high endeavour that was his,

By all his mad catastrophes

Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my unfamiliar hill

Saw with uncomprehending eyes

A hundred of thy sunsets spill

Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,

Ere the sun swings his noonday sword

Must say good-bye to all of this;-

By all delights that I shall miss,

Help me to die, O Lord.

***

William Noel Hodgson MC (3 January 1893- 1 July 1916) was an English poet of the First World War. During the war, he published stories and poems under the pen name Edward Melbourne. 

Known as "Smiler" to his friends, he volunteered for the British Army on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and served in the 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. For the first year of the War he was training in England, before landing at Le Havre on 28 July, 1915 and being sent to trenches near Festubert. His first major offensive came on 25 September during the Battle of Loos. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Military Cross for holding a captured trench for 36 hours without reinforcements or supplies during the battle and he was subsequently promoted to lieutenant. 

Before Action was written 2 days before his death. He was killed on the 1st of July 1916 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme when attacking German trenches near Mametz.

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Review ~ Kingmaker : Winter Pilgrims by Toby Clements

Century
Random House
2014

Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims is a good solid start to a very promising War of The Roses series by new historical author Toby Clements.

The story opens in 1460 when a catastrophic betrayal at the Priory of St Mary in Lincoln forces Thomas, a young monk and Katherine, a nun, to flee the relative safety of their cloistered life. Together they embark upon a journey which plunges them into the very heart of civil war and the maelstrom of battle. And as the house of Lancaster pitches against the house of York, both Katherine and Thomas have momentous decisions to face before they can be at ease in this very troubled world.

This very accomplished historical debut focuses on the uncertain future faced by a country at odds with itself. Stark, often violent, the story pulls no punches in the face of conflict and even as Thomas discovers a penchant for soldiering, it is perhaps Katherine who needs to adapt the most, as her skill for healing is brutally realised in the face of fierce disturbance.

The story concludes in 1461, with the bloody and brutal battle for Towton, which was fast, furious, and lacking in any sort of human compassion but which undeniably marked a turning point in this deadly game of thrones. However, Thomas and Katherine’s story is far from concluded, and I am heartened that the ending of the book lends itself to a continuation of this commendable series of historical novels.

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About the Author

 Toby Clements was inspired to write Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims having first become obsessed by the Wars of the Roses after a school trip to Tewkesbury Abbey. 

This is his first novel.

***

Maya Angelou....

Maya Angelou
1928-2014

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

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Review ~ Precious Thing by Colette McBeth

St Martin's Press
2014

This book delves into the minutiae of friendship and trawls through the almost impossible situation when one friend seemingly acts completely out of character, leaving the other bereft of feeling. Rachel and Clara are childhood friends who once declared that they would be friends forever and yet when a catastrophic event happens; it brings into dispute everything that was once thought was true about their friendship.

This is a difficult book to truly analyse as it throws up several anomalies about the unreliability of both narrator and perpetrator which is quite an interesting way of telling such a complex tale. However, there is much to take in; both in the way the story develops and also the way in which the characters are exposed and I think that to give too much away would be to spoil overall impact of the story for future readers.

I suppose what I must take away from the story, is that however well we think we understand someone, there is always the possibility that life can throw up a few unexpected surprises and not all of them will be pleasant ones.

My thanks to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my review copy of this book.

Author Guest Post and Giveaway with Elisabeth Gifford..

I am delighted to welcome back to Jaffareadstoo

Elisabeth Gifford

Author

of

The Sea House

St Martin's Press
April 2014

Are there mermaids and seal people descendants living in the US today?

How legends sometimes hold lost history.

When I first heard the legend of the seal people I was struck by how sad it was. Selkies are seals in the water but become human on land. If someone steals their sealskin they can never go home to the sea again. I was amazed to find out from Gaelic historian John MacAulay that behind this legend lay very real people: kayakers in sealskin canoes and jackets who used to come down to Scotland and Ireland from Arctic Norway up to 200 year ago. If their kayaks and sealskins were damaged or stolen, then they would really be unable to return home.

               The Sea House became a story about people who can never go home again: about Moira who is cleared from her village and has her home burned by the landlord to make way for sheep; about Alexander who struggles to remain at home in his rigid beliefs; and a hundred years later, Ruth who not only has lost her mother but also her peace of mind after being cruelly treated in foster care. As the characters began to take on their own lives, I was especially surprised by Moira, how she seemed to want to jump up and speak for the anger that these dispossessed speakers carry. And she insisted that I give her a knife – the only question then being would she use it to take her revenge against her landlord, or would she find some kind of grace in her life to begin to build a new life?

               Writing The Sea House also became my attempt to try and create on the page the lives of two endangered ancient cultures, the Sea Sami and the Gaelic crofters, both communities that were persecuted and cleared from their lands and identities for years. And sadly for the Sea Sami, their branch of the Sami tribes has indeed disappeared in Norway, after the Samis were forcibly assimilated through laws and taxes. Both Sami and Scots Gaelic culture went through a period when even their beautiful language was banned and children were beaten if they spoke it in school.

               The Selkie story is in fact very old oral history, describing the Sami kayakers and how they appeared to the Hebridean islanders, as they stepped out of their seal skin kayaks and jackets and became men and women, sometimes falling in love with islanders and getting married.

               Some families in the Hebridean islands are known as the children of seal peoples, such as clan MacOdrum. Due to the clearances there are now no more MacOdrums left in Scotland, but I have begun to contact some of the remaining descendants in the US and Canada. This family really does have the sea people gene! They are probably partly descended from Samis who kayaked down from Norway hundreds of years ago.

               Sometimes these visitors to the Scottish coasts were described as mermaids. There is a famous mermaid funeral recorded on Uist in 1830, with people claiming to have seen and touched the body –a scene that I used in the novel. The idea for The Sea House began with a letter sent to the Times in London in 1809 reporting a mermaid sighting by a Scots schoolmaster. There were many such sightings, and it isn’t so surprising when you think how the Sami kayakers must have appeared to people who’d never seen a kayak before. The kayak would become waterlogged at the end of the day and sink just below the sea surface, so all you would see was a skin-clad half figure with a tail-like appendage wavering in the water!

               200 years ago the sightings stopped - exactly the date when the Sea Sami disappeared. By then, along with those of the Viking invaders, Sami genes were a part of the Scots heritage.

               And it’s a heritage that has carried across the Atlantic. Walking around in the US and Canada today will be descendants of mermaids and selkies, whose ancestors’ genes are not only Scots but also part Norwegian Sea Sami.

               The Sea House also explores the power of story, both to heal and to pass on actual history. Although the book is written as a quite gothic mystery, all the facts are from research and I hope will give the reader a feel for the experiences of the clearance years in Scotland, and of crofting life in the Hebridean islands – and of course a glimpse of the lost Sea Sami and their Eskimo style technology.

Harries island in the Hebrides
The setting for The Sea House

A seal gut jacket as worn by Arctic kayakers

Secrets of the Sea House in the UK.

Corvus
2013

Here is Julie Fowlis who sang the Gaelic tracks on Brave singing a song written by MacOdrum, the famous bard.

More information: 

elisabethgifford.com

Facebook- Elisabeth Gifford author

Pinterest

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Elisabeth ~ thank you for sharing this fascinating glimpse into a forgotten world and for giving so generously of your time.

Elisabeth is very generously giving away copies of The Sea House to 2 lucky US readers of this blog

and

And also a copy of Secrets of the Sea House to one lucky UK reader.

Enter this giveaway 

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Sunday War Poet...

Lady Margaret Sackville

(1881-1963)

Nostra Culpa

We knew the sword accursed, yet with the strong

Proclaimed the sword triumphant. Yea this wrong

Unto our children, unto those unborn

We did, blaspheming God. We feared the scorn

Of men; men worshipping pride, so where they led

We followed. Dare we now lament our dead?

Shadows and echoes, harlots! We betrayed

Our sons; because men laughed we were afraid.

That silent wisdom which was ours to kept

Deep buried; thousands perished; still we slept.

Children were slaughtered, women raped, the weak

Down-trodden. Very quiet was our sleep.

***

At the outbreak of WW1, Margaret Sackville joined the anti war Union of Democratic Control.  In 1916 she published a collection of poems called The Pageant of War. It included the poem "Nostra Culpa", denouncing women who betrayed their sons by not speaking out against the war. Her brother, Gilbert Sackville, was killed during the conflict in 1915.

Margaret had a passionate love affair with Ramsey MacDonald between 1913 and 1929, but refused to marry him. She never married.

Review ~ Crimson Shore by Gillian E Hamer

Gillian E Hamer
2014

Crimson Shore sees a new departure for this author, who, with her previous books has made an impact with cross-genre crime fiction. However, in this new series of procedural crime novels the focus is more on the dynamics of an active crime office, and the back room banter between close knit colleagues allows a fascinating glimpse into the pressures they face, not just in their daily work, but also within their personal lives. 

When a series of unexplained dead bodies start to show up on the peaceful island of Anglesey in North Wales, the Bangor CID team, headed by DI Amanda Gold, have the devil’s own job in trying to keep one step ahead of a murderer who leaves virtually no evidence behind. With precious little to go on, DS Dara Brennan and DS Kelly Jones are left struggling, not just with a series of complex murder cases but also with their growing attraction to each other. As with any new series there is much to take in, the mechanism of a bustling CID office and the repartee between colleagues is done with a realistic understanding of the vagaries of police hierarchy, however, it is the journey into the mind of a killer where the story really starts to bite.

Placing a series of gritty crime novels in this peaceful corner of North Wales is an inspired choice of location, and this quiet, or maybe not so quiet little island really comes to life under the watchful eye of this talented author. However, don’t be fooled by the idyllic setting, as this story is by no stretch of the imagination either tranquil or cosy crime; there is a brutal killer on the loose and as the hard hitting violent behaviour thumps you into taking notice, very soon you start to jump at shadows and you see evil in every hidden corner.

I read Crimson Shore over the space of twenty four hours as I couldn’t tear myself away from it and was gripped by the sheer competence of an author who leads you gently by the hand into the presence of pure evil, and believe me, to have a safe pair of hands to hold in this novel is very comforting indeed.

I am sure that this is the start of a commendable series and I am already eager to catch up with DI Amanda Gold’s CID team in the not too distant future.

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Meet the author and enter this giveaway to win a Kindle copy 

or if you can't wait then buy your own copy 

Available for kindle download now or in paperback from 1 June 2014

 Amazon.co.uk

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