The talking plate
Here’s a bit of historical detective work that I did some years ago, when this exhibit in a French museum caught my eye. My nose for a good story did not let me down. Read more…
Rain and Roses
In this, the fourth chapter of my forthcoming novel The Lion at the Threshold, Leonardo Michiel – a young Venetian boy captured by pirates and presented to the Ottoman imperial palace as a slave – is slowly coming to terms with his new life. One spring morning, in the course of his duties, he has an encounter with the Sultan and an unknown man who will come to have a profound effect on his future career. Read more…
Lads and the Land
I thought I was researching an Essex manor house. Instead, I stumbled across one of Britain’s forgotten social experiments – the labour colony movement. In the early twentieth century, organisations such as the Church Army established rural training farms, where unemployed young men learnt agriculture before emigrating to Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
One of those farms was at Hempstead Hall in north-west Essex. By the time of the 1911 census, teenage boys were living there, learning to milk cows, repair harnesses and work the land. Within weeks, many were sailing to the other side of the world. Read more…