Debbie Young's Blog

After having to cancel a planned mini-break in Bruges due to illness, I’m now settling down into near-hibernation mode for the winter, at least in terms of travel. Not that I have travelled much this year, with short breaks in Norfolk and Scotland. Even so, I’m glad to raise my metaphorical drawbridge and spend a few months on my home turf.

Physically, that is.

I’ll still be travelling far and wide, but only in my imagination, by the power of reading–the most environmentally-friendly form of transport.

Of course, I’d jump at the chance of a real-life equivalent of Enid Blyton’s fictional Wishing Chair, whose legs sprouted wings, before ferrying young Mollie and Peter to enchanted places. When I was little, the Wishing Chair trilogy was my favourite Blyton series.

Even so, I preferred the actual destinations of the young voyagers in E Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet, although their trips often got them into trouble. The Phoenix and the Carpet is the second in a trilogy. Sandwiched between Five Children and It and The Story of the Amulet, it’s a timely read for November, because the story starts in the run-up to Guy Fawkes’ Night. When the unruly children ruin the nursery rug letting off fireworks indoors, the replacement carpet turns out to have magical powers to transport them anywhere they choose.

The five children’s access to fireworks may surprise modern readers, but even when I was their age, I could legally buy low-powered ones. Bangers and jumping jacks were popular, but my favourites were boxes of coloured matches, each burning with a different jewel-bright flame.

Written over a century ago, E Nesbit’s witty children’s fiction still feels fresh, not least because of the children’s apparent freedom, unthinkable in 21st-century Britain.

My vintage Pfufin edition of E Nesbit’s “The Treasure Seekers”

You don’t have to be a child to enjoy E Nesbit’s good-natured, escapist stories. I thoroughly enjoyed my recent binge-read of them.

This winter, my armchair travels will take me through grittier territory. By spring, I plan to reach Constantinople (now Istanbul) via yet another trilogy, this one written for adults. In 1933, aged 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor decided to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople–a journey that took him two years, through regions rich in history and culture, amid ominous signs of impending world war. So far, through the pages of the first volume, A Time of Gifts, I’ve reached Prague. Between the Woods and the Water and The Broken Road await my onward connection for the second and third legs of my journey. These are remarkable books. Although I’ve travelled a lot within Europe, I could never absorb and learn as much as Leigh Fermor imparts within these pages.

Thus, I don’t consider armchair travel second best to the real-life kind, but a welcome addition, and I for one am happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Another favourite place in my cottage to curl up with a book – my reading nook

This column was written for the Tetbury Advertiser’s November 2025 edition. I’ve since finished reading A Time of Gifts, of which I’ve shared my review below. 

In Other News

After I’d spent a large part of October being unwell with various minor ailments, all now resolved, thank goodness, it was my husband’s turn to be poorly in November. That’s why this is the first blog post I’ve had a chance to share this month, and I’m only just starting to catch up with myself.

Which is just as well, as my diary is packed with events between now and Christmas. (So much for my planned hibernation!)

South Devon Book Festival, Totnes (interview at 1.20pm, plus bookstall all day)
Saturday 22nd November 2025

University of Gloucester Creative Writing Festival (panellist on two panels plus stallholder)
Saturday 29th November 2025

Hawkesbury at Play Christmas Shopping Evening at Hawkesbury Village Hall (stallholder)
Friday 5th December (5pm-8pm)

Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival: Christmas Special at Bethesda Chapel (director and speaker)
Saturday 6th December 2025 (11am-3pm)

Cosy Mystery Talk at Shirehampton Library (with fellow crimewriters Frances Evesham, Jean Burnett and Jayne Chard)
Thursday 11th December (2.30pm)

The Fleece Christmas Craft Market, Hillesley (stallholder)
Saturday 13th December 2025 (9am-12noon)

Author Talk about my Christmas Books at Yate Library (speaker)
Saturday 13th December 2025 (2pm)

In the meantime, I’ll be putting the finishing touches to my next cosy mystery novel, The Importance of Being Murdered, to be published on 26th March 2026. The copy edit has just come back from my publisher, and my editor says it’s in great shape already – hurrah!

Meanwhile, there’s a 99p/99c special offer running for a limited time on the ebook edition of my latest novel, Death at the Village Christmas Fair, in the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia, so if you haven’t read it yet, now’s a good time to snap it up for next to nothing!

 

What I’m ReadingI adore Folio Society editions of favourite books – expensive at first hand, though, so I always look out for secondhand copies

A Time of Gifts
Patrick Leigh Fermor

I’d been meaning to read more of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s travel writing for a long time, and spotting a beautiful hardback Folio Society edition in a National Trust secondhand bookshop prompted me to do so at last.

This book is the first in a trilogy of memoirs about his walking tour of Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul, in the mid 1930s, based on a journal he kept at the time, but with much more material added decades later to enhance the historical, geographical and cultural aspects of the narrative.

His elegant, precise prose makes for a dense but rewarding read, and it’s not a book you can rush through. Instead, I savoured it over several months, reading so slowly that at times I felt it was taking me almost as long as it did him to do the original journey.

Written in the run-up to the Second World War, it is peppered with references to the rise of fascism, and that’s chilling to read, knowing how that particular story will end. But the historical aspect goes back sometimes as far as the Roman Empire, so it’s far more than a reflection on Europe between the two World Wars.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in how European society evolved. Even though I studied European history for A Level, I learned so much from this book, and am looking forward to embarking on the onward journey in the second and third volumes.

It’s worth also reading his earlier “Empireland”

Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe
Sathnam Sanghera

Having enjoyed Sathnam Sanghera’s earlier “Empireland“, about how British Imperialism shaped Britain, I was keen to read this too for the other side of the story.

“Empireworld” was another dense but fascinating and worthwhile read, looking at imperialism through different lenses, eg botany – my favourite section, focusing on how the search for useful and valuable plants was a major incentive for explorers. I’m following up on that section by reading one of the books he recommends about the history of the palmhouse at Kew Gardens, Palace of Palms by Kate Teltscher, and a historical novel, The Orchid Hunter’s Daughter by Jane Anderson. (Reviews of those books to follow soon.)

Highly recommended – and if you want to read more on any of the topics, there’s a huge bibliography and also extensive footnotes at the end.

 

Meet Susan Grossey, historical novelist

At the end of every month, I like to invite an author friend onto my blog for a fun conversation about their writing life. This month, I’m pleased to welcome Susan Grossey, author of historical crime fiction, whose career I’ve followed since her debut novel, Fatal Forgery, back in 2013. 

Susan specialises in historical cases of financial crime, inspired by her own career. No, she’s not a forger herself! Over to Susan to explain…

Susan Grossey: I am proud to boast that I have made my living from crime! After running an anti-money laundering consultancy for twenty-five years, I became a full-time author of historical crime fiction novels – the common theme is money, and just how far people will go to acquire and keep it…

Debbie Young: So y ou side-stepped into writing historical fiction from a very different but related kind of writing in your previous career – please explain!

Susan Grossey: In my previous career I ran an anti-money laundering consultancy – advising banks, accountancy firms, casinos and the like on how to spot and report criminal proceeds moving through their organisations.

I will confess that this ignited in me a rather unhealthy obsession with dodgy money – and with exploring quite how naughty people are prepared to be in order to get hold of it.

During my consultancy years I wrote dozens of non-fiction books on money laundering, which served only to convince me that dirty money is perhaps the most fascinating subject in the world.

Debbie Young: When you first thought of writing historical fiction about financial crime, to what extent did it feel like following the old adage of “write what you know” and how much research did you have to do? How different were the historical crimes from those you were writing about in your previous day job? 

Susan Grossey: My first foray into historical financial crime fiction came about when a client asked me, as a favour, to do some research into a colourful character in their bank’s history.

In 1824 a man called Henry Fauntleroy stole a huge amount of money from the bank after inheriting it from his father, and the mystery was why he would do such a thing – particularly in an era that still imposed the death penalty for such crimes. I wrote a small piece for the bank’s annual report and that was that.

But a few years later I was thinking about trying my hand at fiction, and Henry popped back into my mind. My first attempt was a lightly fictionalised biography of him, but I realised that I didn’t like him enough to make him my central character. And so I rewrote the whole book from the point of view of the man who had arrested him – a magistrates’ constable whom I called Sam Plank.

Sam Plank was a much more rounded and sympathetic individual, and so Fatal Forgery was born. What I hadn’t foreseen was that I would fall so deeply in love with Sam that I couldn’t bear to say goodbye – and I ended up writing seven books about him!

Sam Plank – now in a satisfying series of seven historical novels

And as for the difference between financial crimes in the 1820s and today – well, there is very little difference! And that’s what I find fascinating. The techniques may change, but really it’s all a cycle.

In the 1820s, people were very suspicious of the new-fangled paper money replacing their beloved coins – and now we are equally suspicious of the cybercurrencies replacing our beloved paper money!

The other salutary revelation is that, when it comes to money, human nature does not change one bit. There are still the greedy ones, the adventurous ones, the cautious ones, the contented ones – if we were to travel back two centuries to London in the 1820s, we would recognise our own friends and neighbours in everyone we met.

Debbie Young: You have two series about two very different kinds of what might be described as early policing. Can you please explain the kinds of ‘police’ that Sam Plank and Gregory Hardiman are. 

Susan Grossey: Oh, I am so pleased you asked – I just love talking about early policing!

In London, everyone has heard of the Bow Street Runners and of the Metropolitan Police – but between them, when London’s population was growing at a furious rate, the capital experimented with various methods of policing. And the most successful of these was the system of magistrates’ constables, which operated from about 1810 to 1829. In short, magistrates worked out of seven court offices in London, and attached to each court office was a group of four to ten constables. If a crime was committed, the victim would report it to his local magistrate, and if the magistrate agreed that someone needed to be brought in for questioning, he would send out a magistrate with a warrant to arrest him.

Sam Plank is one of these magistrates, working out of the Great Marlborough Street office (near the Liberty department store now).

Life was very different in the backwater of Cambridge. It was a small town of mainly religious scholars, and although there were a few town constables, they had no jurisdiction over the university undergraduates. In 1825 a piece of legislation called the Universities Act was passed, giving the two universities – Cambridge and Oxford – the right to appoint their own constables. And my narrator, Gregory Hardiman, is a university constable. But it was only a part-time job (patrolling the town from 6pm to 10pm, to get the undergraduates back into college before curfew) and so he also works as an ostler (looking after the horses in a coaching inn) in order to make a living wage.

Neither the magistrates’ constables in London nor the university constables in Cambridge had any responsibility to detect or investigate (detectives weren’t invented until 1832 in London), but Sam and Gregory are both curious men and tend to go beyond their job descriptions!

Three down, two to go, in the Gregory Hardiman series – And “Whipster” launches on 1st November

Debbie Young: How different does it feel to be writing about your home city of Cambridge rather than London? Obv iously you’re writing about the university community, but how else does Cambridge of that era differ from London, and how is it similar?

Susan Grossey: I was encouraged to consider setting a series in Cambridge by a local bookseller, Richard Reynolds. He was always extremely supportive of my books when he worked at the university bookshop Heffers, and continues to be so now that he has his own crime fiction bookshop called Bodies in the Bookshop (where I volunteer about once a fortnight, ostensibly to help customers but really so that I can spend ALL DAY surrounded by books).

I thought a Cambridge setting would be a doddle: I studied at the university and have lived here for nearly forty years. How wrong I was!

The issue is that there are two histories of the place – town and gown – and both are much more complicated and involved than I had realised.

On the other hand, I can walk to every location and look at it for myself, and the local librarians – town and gown – are outstandingly helpful.

And Cambridge in the 1820s was extremely different to London. The capital was the centre of the world, at the vanguard of every invention (particularly to do with trade and finance), cosmopolitan, fast-moving… Cambridge was a swampy backwater full of religious scholars. The university was entirely male, and banned concerts and gambling in case the young men were led astray.

It was not a fun place – so travelling from London to Cambridge in the 1820s would have been akin to going back fifty years in time.

Debbie Young: I love the characters in your books – both the protagonists and the supporting roles. To what extent are your books driven by character? 

Susan Grossey: Actually, I think my books are driven more by character than by plot! I enjoy finding suitable plots, by plundering newspapers and court records of the time, but as soon as I start writing, my attention is drawn to character development.

In fact, I am such a character fiend that the narrator of my Cambridge audiobooks recently complained that I had put nearly eighty people into the first Gregory book – that’s probably a few too many!

Debbie Young: That’s hilarious! I hadn’t noticed how many there were when I read it, so don’t let that put you off, folks! 

Susan Grossey: Because my Cambridge series was planned from the outset as a set of five books, I created my characters before I wrote a single word of the first book. I devised characters arcs for the main individuals – so I already know where they will be at the end of book five. And in each book I can drip-feed a little more information about them.

The London series was what I call an accidental series – I thought I was writing one book, then one more, and so on, and didn’t admit that it was a proper series until book four! By then, it was too late to think of cleverly holding back information.

Debbie Young: I’m so pleased to see the development of your own brand as a kind of “Ms Cambridge”, what with your sidelines of working in the Bodies in the Bookshop and writing a monthly column about the history of places in Cambridge for your local magazine. Those must be great ways for reaching new readers for your books. How do these two sidelines help or hinder your writing?

Cambridge’s specialist crime fiction bookshop, where Susan Grossey  volunteers

Susan Grossey: You already know why I work in Bodies in the Bookshop – pure bookish indulgence! And I agreed to write the monthly column in Velvet magazine (it’s called “Stories of a City” – see two sample articles below) because the editor agreed that one of the columns could feature the bookshop, which I thought would help them. But the common theme is my love of Cambridge. It has its faults – the number of tourists in high summer is astonishing, and we have yet to crack the traffic problem – but it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the sense of history is matchless. All of this draws readers to Cambridge-set books – I have many readers in the US, for example, who love the ultra-Englishness of the setting.

Follow that author! Susan Grossey leads her new walking tour around Cambridge

And in a new venture I have devised a walking tour of Gregory Hardiman’s Cambridge, visiting the locations in the books – I’m running it for the first time in early December, to mark the launch of the third Gregory book, Whipster.

Debbie Young: As I’ve told you from when I saw your very first published novel, I think your covers are gorgegous! Although I read a lot of ebooks, I’ve collected the sets in print over the years, because they look so beautiful on my bookshelves! How did you go about developing such distinctive covers and brands for your two series?

Susan Grossey: Thank you – I also think my covers are gorgeous, and I can say this because I had very little to do with them! For my very first book (a non-fiction title about money laundering), I was lucky enough to find a cover designer called Andrew Brown at Design for Writers. When I turned to fiction, I asked if he was interested – and thank goodness he was! He has devised a clever and searching questionnaire for authors in order to truffle out their ideas for their cover, and then he patiently and tactfully turns those ramshackle thoughts into a marketable cover.

I knew instantly that his cover for my first London book was a winner, and so for the rest in the series we kept to the same formula: colour from the period, a bespoke font, a blurry background document, and a line drawing of a figure. It held the series together and – most importantly – told people immediately what genre of book it was, even in a tiny thumbnail cover image.

With the Cambridge series, I didn’t even think about it for a nanosecond: I just told Andrew what I was planning and let him run free – and back came another masterful cover. So I deserve no credit at all, except for my great cleverness in finding Andrew.

Debbie Young: You recently retired from your day job, and planned to have more time to write. How is that working out?

Susan Grossey: Debbie, I am loving it! I worked in my own consultancy for twenty-five years, and decided that I had given long enough to it. Money laundering techniques have gone very cyber, which interests me less – another reason why I am drawn to the past!

But I do not write full-time – far from it. I do various volunteering roles: I am a magistrate, I write letters to prisoners, I teach adults to read, and there’s the bookshop as well. I still do a very small amount of consultancy for local clients, just to keep my hand in. And I like cycling (on a tandem – I’m the one at the back) and walking.

But the true joy of being retired is being able to organise my time as I wish: if I have planned a writing day but the sun is shining, I can go cycling instead and write the next day.

After all those years of being ruled by the Filofax, the flexibility is wonderful.

Debbie Young: Do you plan to focus on Cambridge in all future fiction, or are there other geographical areas that you’d like to write about?

Susan Grossey: Hmmm, I have been thinking about this myself.

My problem is that I am deeply in love with the 1820s, which is a decade neglected in most fiction – everyone loves the Jane Austen era and then the Victorian decades, but the bit in the middle is ignored.

And so I need to find locations where the 1820s were significant. I’m quite drawn to King’s Lynn in Norfolk – they certainly have an interesting history, but sadly their heyday was in the late mediaeval period. I could widen out into Suffolk and Norfolk generally – two very different counties, so that would be interesting. And my husband asked whether there was any way I could engineer a meeting between Sam Plank and Gregory Hardiman – and I think there might be… Another option is to do a Colin Dexter and write prequels for both men.

Debbie Young: Ooh, yes please to prequels and a meeting between Sam and Gregory! There’s also a commercial reason for doing that: if people have only experienced one or other of your series, this book would be their gateway into the other series. Also, avid readers of both would get such a kick out of it. In my second and third series (St Bride’s and Cotswold Curiosity Shop), I’ve had fun making them visit people and places mentioned in my first series (Sophie Sayers), and readers seem to love that. 

Next question: fun with wordplay! Gregory Hardiman is fascinated by words and language, noting down new words he learns in a little notebook he carries always with him. You’re having fun with words too, choosing possibly slightly obscure one-word titles for his books, starting with Ostler, then Sizar. You also make a point of having single-word chapter headings, eg Ostler begins with “Tempest”, “Horsemen”, “Inquest”. I love having fun chapter titles too – I think writers who just use numbers are missing out!  Where do these words appear in your writing process – are they a starting point, or something you add in afterwards at editing stage? 

Susan Grossey: Gregory’s love of words comes from my own fascination with them. I’m not quite in the Susie Dent league, but I am forever checking etymologies and looking for unusual words.

In the second London book I included a small glossary, and readers liked it so much that I have expanded it and included one from the beginning in the Cambridge series (as Gregory’s vocabulary would have included terms from his Norfolk childhood and his time in the army, as well as general Regency slang).

I knew I wanted Gregory to be an early pioneer of self-improvement, and the vocabulary book seemed like a good way to signal his intellectual curiosity and ambition.

As for the chapter titles, they are my reward: once I have spent those long, long, loooooong hours formatting my book, I allow myself to go back and turn all the chapter numbers into one-word titles. It’s a good exercise as it makes me condense each chapter into one idea in my head. The first book title in the Cambridge series – Ostler – was not hard to find, as it’s Gregory’s day job, but readers said they liked the obscurity of it, and so I decided to continue with Sizar, and now with Whipster. I hope the unusual word catches people’s eyes and makes them pick up the book to find out just what a whipster might be! (It’s a young man of considerable energy and some mischief.)

Debbie Young: Susan, thank you so much for joining me on my blog today. I hope our conversation inspires more readers to try your books. I can guarantee them they’ll be hooked if they do! And best of luck with the launch of Whipsteron 1st November – I can’t wait to get stuck into it!

More About Susan Grossey

To find out more about Susan Grossey and her books, visit her website: www.susangrossey.com.

A Free Ebook for You by Susan Grossey

If you sign up for her free mailing list at www.susangrossey.com, Susan will very kindly send you a free ebook of Fatal Forgery to get you started. Now there’s an offer you can’t refuse!

 

In Other News

I’ve been unusually inactive over the last ten days due to being unwell (on the mend now, thankfully), but my spirits have been buoyed up by two pieces of news about my books:

my lovely agent Ethan Ellenberg has just secured a Russian translation deal for Death at the Old Curiosity Shop , in addition to my Italian and German dealsmy wonderful publisher, Boldwood Books, has organised a BookBub Featured Deal (if you know, you know) for this coming Sunday, 2nd November, which means nearly two million readers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada who love cosy mystery will be alerted to a 99p/99c special offer on the ebook of Death at the Village Christmas Fair. You don’t need to be a subscriber to BookBub to take advantage of this offer – if you live in those countries, the ebook should already be on offer at that price, so snap it up now, as it’ll go back to its usual RRP soon.

I’ve also just taken my first event booking for 2026 – I’ve been invited to take part in the inaugural Bath and North East Somerset Festival of Libraries.

In the meantime, I have a busy schedule of events in the run-up to Christmas – check out the right-hand sidebar on my website for more information and to book tickets.

As someone who makes their living from writing, I often visit places that will fuel the creative part of my brain, such as an art gallery or a museum. So last month I was pleased to spot road signs for the Crafts Alive craft fair at Rodmarton Manor. Run by the Gloucestershire Guild, this event offered a welcome opportunity to visit the private house reputed to be one of the finest Arts and Crafts Movement homes, and I booked a ticket to visit. 

Unfortunately, my outing seemed to coincide with monsoon season. As I parked in a muddy field, I was glad I’d had the foresight to bring my ancient polka-dot Cath Kidston raincoat and my favorite umbrella, bought in a French market a decade ago on a school trip with my daughter, and of sentimental value way beyond its 10 Euro price tag. By the time I arrived at the manor house, my feet were afloat inside my shoes, but the rest of me was relatively dry.

Stormy skies when I arrived at Rodmarton Manor…

Not wanting to drip on Grade 1 listed floors, I stashed my brolly in the designated bucket beside the admissions desk. I then spent a pleasant hour admiring not only the beautiful arts and crafts on sale, but also the fabric, fixtures and fittings of the manor house. On completing my tour, I returned to the entrance to reclaim my umbrella, only to find it gone.

In an instant, the bubble of pleasure created by my visit burst. How could anyone stoop so low as to steal an old brolly at an event selling items priced at double, triple or even quadruple figures? Surely its patrons could afford their own umbrellas?

By now the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but my mood was dark. As I slunk across to the tea room, I eyed with suspicion anyone carrying an umbrella. I planned to accost them if they were clutching mine.

…and sunshine after the storm

I knew I should be more philosophical about the incident. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. As I sidestepped puddles and mudslides, I tried to offset my loss against what I had gained from my outing: creative inspiration and, more prosaically, the start of my Christmas shopping.

I decamped to the tearoom in the stable block. Fortified by fresh coffee and a delicious peanut butter cookie, I emerged feeling more positive. At heart, I’m an optimist. So, before leaving the fair, I’d return to the scene of the crime, just in case my AWOL umbrella had turned up.

Dear reader, I’m very pleased to tell you that it had. I don’t know whether someone had mistaken it for their own and returned it on realizing their error, or whether a chancer had borrowed it during the worst of the downpour.

But I do know this: among the many other benefits of my day out was the restoration of my faith in human nature.

This post was first published as my Young By Name column in the October 2025 edition of the Tetbury Advertiser. (Click the link to read the issue for free online.)

IN OTHER NEWSAA Abbott gave a sneak preview of her latest psychological thriller at the recent Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival as part of her talk on “Writing Villains You Love to Hate”

After a very busy couple of months, and before all the Christmassy things in my diary kick in, I’m enjoying an event-free October – or rather, a month in which I’m not taking part in any public events as a speaker or organiser. So it was a particular pleasure to go along last week to an event where I could just sit in the audience and relax: an author friend’s book launch at Shirehampton Library. AA Abbott was unveiling her latest psychological thriller, Lies Between Friends (see my review below), set just a couple of miles from Shirehampton in another part of Bristol.

Eons ago in my very first job, I used to commute by bus from Bristol to Avonmouth, which took me through Shirehampton High Street, but I’d never really ventured off that beaten track. So turning down Station Road to find its neat little town library was a revelation to me. This was an evening event, starting after dark, so I can’t show you a photo of the outside of the building.

I love library events – their staff are always so keen and kind, and the audiences of local library members so engaged. Plus, they attract brilliant speakers, often for a very low admission price, or even free of charge.

AA Abbott was interviewed by local bookblogger Nicola Smith (who blogs via Instagram at @NicolaSmith1987). AA Abbott is always a lively, interesting speaker, which is why I’ve often included her in the line-up of guest speakers at the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival. She gave great answers to Nicola’s questions, plus some intriguing readers, followed by a fun Q&A session that included insights into the helicopter scenes in the book, thanks to a helicopter pilot’s wife in the audience!

Find out more about AA Abbot at her website here: https://aaabbott.co.uk/

PS I’m hoping to see Shirehampton Library in daylight soon, as I’ve since been invited to take part in a cosy crime event there one afternoon in November or December (date tba). In the meantime, my own next library event is on Saturday 13th December at Yate Library.

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK

Lies Between Friends by A.A. Abbott

I’ve really enjoyed the first three of A A Abbott’s psychological thrillers with “Lies” in their titles, all set at least partly around Clifton, the affluent suburb of Bristol, so I was keen to read this one as soon as it came out.

As ever, in the familiar setting of Clifton, Abbott creates an engaging set of flawed characters and a complex web of intrigue – including, as you might guess from the title, betrayal by longstanding friends and acquaintances.

Through fast-paced, short chapters, she propels the reader through the endless twists, turns and surprises that regular readers expect from her books. Her polished, succinct style is peppered with witty turns of phrase that make me smile without detracting from the seriousness of the plot issues.

I particularly like the way that she always finds a positive way to wrap up the story, with heartwarming redemption for the most deserving, without ever being sentimental. Highly recommended.

I’ve always dreaded the onset of autumn.

As an optimist, I prefer the anticipation of what’s to come, rather than harvest.

Spring is my favorite season, with its bright buds and brilliant blossom. Second best is summer, with long daylight hours always a source of pleasure.

I can even reconcile myself to September for its often bright, crisp days and occasional spell of Indian summer weather. But the arrival of October, with shortening days and falling leaves, has until this year made my spirits sink.

 

Rodmarton Manor was sunny when I arrived, after a torrential shower of rain

Fresh hope appeared on my trip to Rodmarton Manor last month for the Gloucestershire Guild’s Craft Alive fair on the theme of “Flowers and the Maker”. This clever title referred not only to a huge variety of flower-themed products on sale and the skilled craftspeople who had produced them, but also to the idea of Nature’s Creator: God, if you like (and I do), or any other force or energy you believe drives the season’s changes.

While I was inside, the weather transformed from bright sunshine to deep gloom

Part of the event was Bex Partridge’s stunning installation of dried flowers and foliage in the chapel called ‘The Beauty is in the Decay”.

(Unfortunately, photography was not permitted inside Rodmarton Manor, so I can’t share any of Bex Partridge’s installation with you. The photo of the dried flower arrangement at the top of this post is of an arrangement at our Harvest Festival service at St Mary’s Hawkesbury last Sunday.)

Her description of autumn as ‘a time of tidying up and letting go’ resonated with me, both literally, as I embark on a post-summer declutter of my house and garden, and figuratively, as I ponder on changing the way I spend my time.

(Long story short: I’m always over-committing myself, and I need to cut down and prioritise for the sake of my sanity, my health, and my sleep schedule.)

The installation urged visitors to slow down in order to appreciate the intricate beauty of nature at this time of year. Bex pointed out that only in autumn and winter can we see the architecture of trees and plants, unadorned by flowers and foliage. This observation also struck home with me. One of my favorite local views is of wintry skies behind the row of leafless trees that tops the escarpment beside the A4, just this side of the Roman Camp petrol station.

Bex also observed that once flowers die, that’s not the end for them: they keep changing. I’d never thought of that before. Now I want to fill my house with dried flowers, and to watch and wait as they continue to evolve.

Autumn colour at Westonbirt Arboretum, just down the road from me (photo by me)

On my drive back from Rodmarton Manor, a new calm fell upon me. Instead of being saddened at the sight of browning leaves on the trees that lined the road, I began to look forward to their winter transformation.

In any case, I reasoned, it wouldn’t be long until we were gearing up to go the year round again, whether we measure the rebirth of the year as Advent Sunday (sneaking pleasingly into November this year, falling on the 30th), the winter solstice of 21st December, or New Year’s Day, 1st January. While at Christmas we’ll be embracing evergreens, deciduous plants will enjoy a well-deserved rest, storing up the energy they’ll need to delight us again in the spring.

So now I’m entering autumn feeling more upbeat. This might even be the year that I learn to love October.

Ever the optimist.

(This post first appeared in my column for the October 2025 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News)

IN OTHER NEWS

Two new events are looming up on my calendar:

SOUTH DEVON BOOK FESTIVAL
(Saturday 22nd November)

At this event, I’ll be interviewed about my books and my writing life, and I’ll also have a stall for selling and signing my books. Admission is free, leaving you more money to spend on books. Book your free ticket here.

University of Gloucestershire Creative Writing Festival in Cheltenham
(Saturday 29th November)

At this Festival, I’ll be a member of two different panels, one on Community Publishing, when I’l be speaking about the work I do to nurture writing and publishing within my local community, and  the other on Paths to Publication, when I’ll talk about the different viable routes, including self-publishing, digital-first publishing, and traditional publishing. Book your free ticket here.

 

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK

A Christmas Murder in Merrywell

I was asked by Jane Bettany’s publisher prior to this book’s publication to read and review it as part of their marketing campaign. I’m always slightly wary of these requests, as I only want to offer endorsement quotes on books that I genuinely enjoy and heartily recommend. And hurrah, this was one such book!

It’s a gentle, absorbing mystery that combines the timeless appeal of a quaint English village in Derbyshire with relatable realities of modern life and relationships, set around a Christmas market.

This is far more than just a satisfying mystery well told – it also includes lots of pleasing human touches, such as Violet’s mother’s concern about her daughter’s placing herself in danger. I also enjoyed the realistic and respectful interaction between Violet and the local police, making this a plausible and pleasing case.

Although this is Violet Brewster’s fifth mystery, it also works well as a standalone story – which I enjoyed so much that I’m now going to go back to the beginning of her adventures and acquaint myself with books 1-4 via Kindle Unlimited.

Like to read it yourself? Click here to order your copy. 

I spent part of the weekend before last observing other people’s reactions to country churches they weren’t familiar with:

On the Saturday, many visitors from beyond our parish attended the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival ‘s autumn event at St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury – my local parish church.Photo of the interior of St Mary’s Hawkesbury during the Lit Fest by Peter SalenieksOn Sunday, at St Andrew’s Leighterton, I attended the last of five concerts in the inaugural Badminton Benefice Festival of Music. Each concert in the series was held at a different church within the Benefice, of which my home church is a part. (A benefice is a group of parishes under the charge of one vicar.)Guest singer Andrew Hopwood’s outfit was the perfect match for the gorgeous pastel shades of the fresco behind the altar and the fresh flowers on display (Photo by Debbie Young)

Each of the churches in our benefice are very different, but all are unique and beautiful and special in their own way. Strangers stepping into them for the first time are often bowled over at what they find there. I was particularly pleased when guest speaker Lorna Fergusson, an author based in Oxford – famous for its dreaming spires and so on – was effusive on Facebook next day about how gorgeous St Mary’s Hawkesbury is.

Lorna Fergusson was, appropriately, speaking about the power of place in fiction, with reference to her latest book, ‘One Morning in Provence’ (Photo by Peter Salenieks)

It’s easy for those of us who live in Badminton Benefice to become a little blasé about our remarkable ancient churches and their settings. We know they’re gorgeous – but we see them in a different way. When we come here for services, we’re on our home turf, we’re not tourists.

To regular churchgoers, it’s our home from home.

And, as in our own home, we stake our territory. Just as we have our favourite armchairs in our houses, or our preferred side of the bed, in church we usually sit in the same pew each week, once we’ve chosen it, for whatever reason. (I confess, I tend to sit behind Sally and Ian because they know all the hymns, so I can follow a microsecond behind when I don’t.)

Even parishioners who seldom or never attend services still feel proprietorial and proud about their home churches – and so they should.

These churches form a rich part of our nation’s history and our cultural heritage, and although technically they are owned by the Church of England, they also belong to us all.

That’s one reason I’m so pleased to see our local churches used for secular purposes, such as the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival and the Badminton Benefice Festival of Music. These events encourage people to visit for other reasons than worship.

How differently others see our churches when they come for different purposes. Here are a few perspectives of speakers at the Lit Fest.

Artist Philip Ringland took great care to position his sculptures to best advantage, moving them several times until he arrived at the best artistic effect.

One of Phil’s sculptures (photo by Peter Salenieks)

Former English teacher Gerard Boyce, addressing the audience about Shakespeare, preferred to step away from the microphone and stand in the aisle, trying to emulate the intimacy of the classroom.

Gerard Boyce steps out among the audience to deliver his talk “Two Shakespearean Characters for the Price of One” (Photo by Peter Salenieks)

Author Mark Rutterford, performing a very funny story he’d written for the occasion, paid special attention to the hymn numbers on the board, because he’d written them into his story.

Thanks to Mark, I shall never view the hymn numbers display board again – he had included it in his story, but giving it quite a different purpose!

Even my perspective changed for the day from churchgoer to event organiser. I paid more attention to the practical needs of our audience, whether they were sitting comfortably and could hear what was being said. (One delightful lady who was having trouble hearing from the back was thrilled when I moved her to the bride’s seat at the front of the church, with its extra cushioning.)

In the run-up to the Festvial, I couldn’t rest until I knew the portaloo had been delivered. Tardis-like, it had materialised in the car park the previous day.

The portaloo has landed – phew!
(Photo by Debbie Young)

At this point, I should add a huge thanks to local photographer Peter Salenieks, whose brilliant photos of the event gave a whole new perspective on the proceedings. Pete gamely appeared unasked at the start of the Festival and offered to take photos for no charge, and also very generously allowed the speakers to use the pictures for their own marketing purposes, provided they credit him for them. Pete’s also offered to give a talk at a future Festival about the difference in how photographers and authors frame their narrative. Bring it on, I say!

Anyway, the above thoughts were my jumping-off point for a talk I gave at the service in St Mary’s Hawkesbury last weekend. I’m a licensed lay service leader, which means I occasionally take services in the absence of our vicar.

Lay service leaders can’t give sermons. Instead, we give secular talks on a topic of interest or read something we think will appeal to the congregation. I chose to read a poem by Sir John Betjeman – a renowned supporter of English country churches – giving another observer’s perspective: a church mouse. Although the copyright belongs to the poet’s estate, they kindly allow it to be shared for educational purposes, so here it is below – with perfect timing for Harvest Festival season!

My tiny knitted mouse is the brilliant handiwork of a local craftswoman who goes by the name of A Cotswold Mouse – find out more at https://www.facebook.com/ACotswoldMouse (Photo by Debbie Young)

 

DIARY OF A CHURCH MOUSE

by Sir John Betjeman

Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn’s Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle’s brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes… it’s rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher’s seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar’s sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn’t think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God’s own house,
But all the same it’s strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don’t see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.

© The estate of Sir John Betjeman

St Mary’s Hawkesbury decorated for Harvest Festival – photo by Sir Ian Macfadyen, church wardenIN OTHER NEWS

UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE FESTIVAL OF CREATIVE WRITING
(Saturday 29th November)

In the last few days, I was pleased to have received an invitation to be on not one but two panels at the inaugural University of Gloucestershire Festival of Creative Writing in November. The programme is still being finalised, but they’re taking bookings already, and tickets are free, so here’s the link if you’d like to book yours now:

https://www.glos.ac.uk/event/creative-writing-festival-2025/

 

HAWKESBURY UPTON LITERATURE FESTIVAL CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
(Saturday 6th December)

I’ve now confirmed the venue for our next HULF event, a Christmas Special, which will be at Hawkesbury’s Bethesda Chapel (a bit warmer than St Mary’s in winter, and just as charming in its own way). The programme will include Caroline Sanderson talking about her fabulous new memoir, Listen with Father: How I Learned to Love Classical Music, and much more. To book your ticket now, follow this link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hawkesbury-upton-literature-festival-christmas-special-2025-tickets-1769120810969?aff=oddtdtcreator

YATE LIBRARY TALK
(Saturday 13th December)

I’ve been kindly invited to give a talk about my books with a Christmas theme at Yate Library on Saturday 13th December. Tickets include tea and cake, and bookings are open now on Eventbrite here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cosy-christmas-crime-with-debbie-young-yate-library-tickets-1757546913129

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer

Knowing how many novels with celebrities’ names on the cover are ghostwritten, I was a little wary of starting this one, fearing disappointment, even though national treasure Bob Mortimer is one of my favourite comedians, and I really enjoyed reading his memoir. I need not have worried: only THE Bob Mortimer could have written this hugely original, hilarious, poignant and ultimately life-affirming comedy cosy mystery. I loved it so much I didn’t want it to finish, and immediately ordered the sequel. May there be many more.

The Cornish Christmas Pantomime Murder by Fiona Leitch

This book isn’t actually out yet, but I was sent an advance review copy by the publisher. This slick seasonal mystery is replete with entertaining details of behind the scenes at a Cornish amateur dramatic company’s pantomime. With the murder taking place mid-performance, the vast range of suspects includes the entire cast, crew, and audience. Former detective Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker has her work cut in finding the killer, with a little help from the rest of her multi-generational household – elderly mother Shirley, fast-maturing teenage daughter Daisy, and kindly new husband DCI Nathan Withers – and members of the local community. This festive mystery comes with a generous side order of sweet romance, not just for Jodie and Nathan, still in honeymoon mood, but also Daisy, navigating her first serious relationship, and Jodie’s wily mother Shirley. Whether or not you’re a fan of panto, this is a fun read to curl up with by the fireside this Christmas. The ninth in the series, it also works as a standalone.

Abroad in Japan: Ten Years in the Land of the Rising Sun by Chris Broad

Honest, good-natured memoir by a young man embarking on what he didn’t know was about to be more than a decade getting to grips with the extraordinary geography, society and culture of Japan, now logged in a vast archive of YouTube videos as well as in this book. A good book for any Brit planning to travel to Japan – and his YouTube channel is packed with useful travel tips. I guess the key message is if you have a dream, go for it – and don’t let minor mishaps along the way deter you. Broad is certainly now reaping the rewards of his remarkable courage, while also paying it forward to the nation that has become his second home and which has been good to him. A great role model of the value of being an opportunist.

This week, another post about an aspect of my writing life, as featured in the September issue of the Tetbury Advertiser.

Tidying my study after the summer holidays, I declutter my desk, taking it down to bare essentials. There’s a pen tray and bottle of ink, a pencil pot, a shelf of project notebooks, and a stack of four in-trays, one tray for each area of my working-from-home life. This orderly setup makes me feel in control when other evidence points to the contrary.

More important, though, are four tiny talismans. Not otherwise superstitious, I regard these talismans as essential tools of my trade.

A small piece of the Berlin Wall reminds me that no problem is insurmountable. And yes, the concrete fragment is genuine. I bought it from an official Berlin Wall merchandise shop in the heart of the reunified city.

Guaranteed genuine fragment

A multifaceted plastic diamond, a gift from my daughter, helps me focus on what matters. One Christmas, as a small child, in Marks and Spencer she spotted a pack of a dozen of them, sold for a few quid as tree decorations. A keen bargain-hunter from an early age, she was delighted to realise she could afford to give everyone in the family a diamond for Christmas. I’d rather have this plastic diamond given with her love than the real thing without it.

It’s the thought that counts

A more recent gift from her is a small wooden cube she’d painted with the words “writer’s block”. This quip helps me worry less about my workload. Last time I was stressing about meeting a writing deadline, she said to me, “But you always DO get it done, Mum”, and she’s right.

As featured in last week’s post, which was actually about writer’s block

The fourth desktop mascot is a small wooden bear who fits perfectly into the palm of my hand. It’s a reproduction of a piece of netsuke, the name given to the carved ornamental fasteners used in Edo-era Japan to attach a pouch to a kimono. (Men’s kimonos, unlike the women’s, had no pockets – my pet hate in a garment.)

If you look at his tail end, you’ll see a hole that allows him to be sewn onto the scarf.

What’s a wooden bear done to earn a place on my minimalist desk? Well, each mystery in my Cotswold Curiosity Shop series revolves around an object for sale in Alice Carroll’s bric-a-brac emporium. In my new novel, Death at the Village Christmas Fair, a little netsuke bear in her shop is a vital clue to solving a murder at the local Santa Run. With every suspect in the race dressed as Father Christmas, finding the killer is never going to be easy – and Alice needs all the help she can get. Holding the bear in my left palm spurred me on to finish the book while I was puzzling over tricky plot points.

Death at the Village Christmas Fair was published on 16th August, and I’m already halfway through my next novel. But I’ve grown so fond of little Ursa Minor, as I like to call him, that I’m letting him stay on my desk – at least until he’s ready to hibernate.

Available from all good book shops, as a paperback, hardback, ebook, and audiobook. (Quote ISBN 978-1835185827 to order the paperback from your favourite local bookshop.)

IN OTHER NEWS

I’m working flat out on editing the manuscript of my next novel, The Importance of Being Murdered, to be published by Boldwood Books early 2026. This is the novelisation of the murder mystery event that I wrote for my village’s amateur dramatics group earlier this year. 

I’m also preparing for my next public event, which is the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival‘s tenth birthday event, a day of talks and readings on the theme of Strength of Character. This will take place in the gorgeous setting of our Grade-I listed parish church, St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury. Tickets are still available here. If you’re in striking distance of Haweksbury, do come along – it’s going to be great fun! This time it even includes paintings and sculpture, all of which tell stories that match the event’s theme.

Book your tickets now!WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK

The only book I read last week hasn’t been published yet, as it’s an advance copy of a novel sent to me by the author’s publisher asking for a pre-launch review. I’ll share my review of it when it’s launched.

Meanwhile I’m nearing the end of part one of Patrick Leigh Fermor‘s travelogue about walking from London to Constantinople in the 1930s, A Time of Gifts. It seems to be taking me almost as long to read as he did to do the walk! But that’s only because he writes dense, rich prose, so I’m reading it in very small chunks and savouring it along the way. Another factor is that I’m reading a huge and beautiful Folio edition hardback, which adds extra pleasure, but is tiring to hold open for very long. I have a feeling that if I were reading a paperback or ebook, I’d be travelling rather faster.

Writer’s block: it’s a term lots of people bandy around as if it’s some kind of medical or psychological condition that blocks creative flow.

I have strong views about writer’s block, which I shared in my talk the Troubador Publishing‘s annual Self Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday. While the talk is still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share my reasoning in this week’s blog post.

Whether or not you are a writer, I hope you’ll find it interesting, because the same principles apply to other forms of activity.

In short, I don’t believe in writer’s block.

Writing isn’t a skill that flows like water from a tap, turned on and off by some secret force, whether the writer likes it or not.

If you are committed to writing anything – whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism or journals – you will always be able to write, unless you are unfortunate enough to develop a medical crisis that damages the relevant part of the brain.

This happened to journalist Robert McCrum, who had a devastating stroke at the age of 42 radically affecting his wordpower.  McCrum’s moving memoir, My Year Off, tells the story of his remarkable recovery.

Of course, not all stroke victims are as lucky as Robert McCrum. But my point is, blaming writer’s block for stopping you writing is a self-inflicted construct, not a medical condition.

What Really Causes Writers to Stop Writing?

In my view, there are three main reasons:

trying to write a story before it’s readystarting a story in the wrong placeattempting to write the wrong thing

By story, I mean any piece of creative writing, from a school essay to a company report, from a poem to a novel.

There are simple solutions to each one:

Allow your story more time to brew. Maybe you need to allow the elements that inspired and informed your planned piece to stew for a little longer in your subconscious first. You might also try conscious planning, whether or not you usually plan what you write – and plenty of successful authors are self-professed “discovery writers” or “pantsers” who literally make up the story as they go along. (Lee Child is the most famous of these, starting each book on 1st September each year with a single sentence, and no idea of where the story would take him.) Personally, I plan each novel in outline form, form before I start writing – but only when my story has percolated enough to be planned.

Write yourself into the story – then edit out the surplus. It’s quite common for the first chapter or two of a draft novel to be cut in the editing process, because it’s not necessary to the finished work – the writer just used it to warm up. Don’t assume your first draft must be perfect – just get the basic story down, and polish it afterwards. You can’t polish a blank piece of paper. “The cat sat on the mat” is the writing prompt suggested by Cassandra Mortmain to her father, a famous author paralysed by writer’s block, in Dodie Smith’s captivating debut novel, I Capture the Castle (one of my favourite books of all time, and a must-read for aspiring writers) – with astounding results.

“Write anything—write ‘The cat sat on the mat‘ if you like. Anything, as long as you write!”  –  Dodie Smith in ‘I Capture the Castle’: Part 3, Chapter 15

The beautiful hardback Folio edition of “I Capture the Castle”, a recent treat to self as my much-read paperback edition is too fragile to reread

Ditch the project that you’re having trouble with – or at least set it to one side for later – and ask yourself what you would prefer to be writing. Does your heart lie elsewhere? Should the memoir you’re struggling flow better if you treated it as a novel? Is what you thought was going to be a cosy mystery really meant to be a psychological thriller? Remain open-minded about what sort of writer you are. It was my pleasure to meet at Saturday’s conference a Professor of International Business and Corporate Governance used to writing academic papers who had realised he needed to write a novel. The Land Remembers, by Amon Chizema, will be launched in November. (More about Professor Chizema here.)

The flyer for his book that Professor Chizema gave me on Saturday – to be published by Troubador on 28th November, and now available to pre-order

Alternatively, if your project has been flowing well until you ground to a halt, leave a blank and go on to write the next passage after the tricky one. When you come back to fill in the blank, you’ll  most likely find it flows effortlessly.

I reckon the same thinking applies to other fields of life, eg I might like to think I have housework block, but that doesn’t make me any less able to pick up a duster.

I have plenty of other ideas for re-igniting stuck writing, but I’ll save those for another post.

In the meantime, do you have any views on writer’s block? I’d love to hear them – please leave a comment below. As the late lamented Mrs Merton (aka Caroline Aherne) used to say on her TV show, “Let’s have a heated debate!”

In Other News

While preparing to submit my next novel manuscript to my publisher, I’m also gearing up for the next event of the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival, which I founded ten years ago in my home village. The theme this time is “Strength of Character“, and there’s a cracking line-up for day of author talks, readings and discussions, on Saturday 27th September. If you’re within striking distance of St Mary’s, Hawkebury (GL9 1BN), I’d love to welcome you to the event! Find out more and book your tickets at the HULF website, www.hulitfest.com, or via Eventbrite at HULF10.eventbrite.co.uk.

 

What I Read Last Week

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

I’ve read the paperback of this hilarious dark comedy of mistaken identity of a hapless nature notes journalist many times, so it was a natural choice for my next audiobook listen after enjoying Waught’s Brideshead Revisited” on Audible.

Simon Cadell’s narration is wonderful, effortlessly switching between characters, social strata, and nationalities as the story flits from London high society to rural Somerset to a fictitious, warring country in Africa. I enjoyed his acting so much that I searched in vain for more audiobooks he’d recorded – sadly he died long before audiobooks in their modern form became a thing.

Although some of the language and attitudes wouldn’t pass muster in 21st-century publishing, if you’re able to allow for the book being the product of its era, you can pass those by without it spoiling the story. Very much of the satirical humour still applies to modern society, including to journalism and publishing.

A fun read that helped pass the time agreeably as I prepared mountains of apples from our garden, ready for the freezer.

The Durrells of Corfu by Michael Haag

Spotting this book in a charity shop, I couldn’t resist it, as I’ve been a fan of Gerald Durrell since reading “The Bafut Beagles” in my English class in my first year of secondary school.

I’ve read many of his books, and also one by his sister Margo, and his brother Lawrence’s memoir of Corfu, so was interested to come across one by a third party profiling the whole family.

Haag’s biography starts with the family’s early days in India and ends with the success of Gerald’s conservation-led zoo in Jersey, and it addresses some of the unanswered questions sidestepped by the various family members, eg more details of his parents relationship and his mother’s issues following widowhood. It’s respectful and informative, so should not upset Durrell fans, including those who have only discovered him lately due to the enormously popular TV series set on Corfu.

Definitely worth a read for any fans of any of the Durrells, with the bonus of plenty of old family photographs, which have never to my knowledge been shared in any of the family’s books.

(All book links are Amazon Affiliate links, which means I earn a tiny amount for any copies sold when you click through to them)

 

Living in a small Cotswold village with a lively community provides ideas and inspiration for writing my cosy mystery novels. I’ve served on many committees, belonged to different organisations, and taken part in lots of activities since I moved here over thirty years ago.

One of my favourite activities here is ringing the church bells, which were installed in our parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury in 2021. As I soon discovered, in the English tradition of circle-mounted church bells, there’s much more to church bell-ringing than one might think.  Full-circle ringing is not just a question of pulling the end of a rope at random.

I soon became hooked, and I’m now evangelical about this ancient craft. In my column for the September issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, written during a month with a busy ringing schedule, I wrote the following piece to encourage others.

Writing this column in between two weddings and VJ80 Day, all three of which events involved bell ringing at our parish church, I’d like to share some of the surprising benefits of being a bell ringer. You never know, my revelations might persuade you to give it a try yourself.

1.       Exercise
The slow, steady pulling of the bell rope (sally) against the resistance of a bell’s weight provides a gentle but significant workout in manageable bursts. Time and again, ringers arrive at the tower saying, ‘Not sure I can ring tonight, I’ve put my back out’ – only to skip down the tower stairs afterwards, fully restored.

The complex framework that holds bells for full-circle ringing, pictured in Matthew Higby’s workshop before installation at St Mary’s  (Photo by Sir Ian Macfadyen)

2.       Teamwork
While each person is responsible for only one bell, we work as a band led by a conductor, just like any other group of musicians – only our instruments are bigger than everyone else’s.

Learning the basics of bell ringing on the dumb bell, under the guidance of St Mary’s Tower Master Colin Dixon

 

3.       Belonging

The mental health benefits of feeling part of a community are well known. Bell ringing creates a great sense of camaraderie, not only in one’s home tower, but at other churches. Travelling beyond the parish, bell ringers are assured of a warm welcome in any other tower.

Photo by Anne Bishop, a Canadian visitor who tried her hand at ringing

4.       The Best View
Because we ring in an open-sided chamber rather than on an enclosed platform, we have the best view in the house. It’s especially enjoyable at weddings, watching from above as the bridal party processes.

The ringing chamber viewed from the nave of St Mary the Virgin Hawkesbury

 

… and the view of a wedding from the bell ringing platform

5.       Historical Role

We play a part in history, not only on a local level at parishioners’ christenings, weddings and funerals, although that’s also an honour. It has been a memorable privilege to ring to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth, the proclamation of the King, his coronation, VE80 and VJ80. It’s especially exciting when we know we’re ringing simultaneously with ringers nationwide, even though we can neither hear nor see them.

It was an honour to be part of the national programme of rinigng for the coronation of Charles III

6.       Tradition

We’re keeping an ancient craft alive. I learned to ring to honour the memory of my great-grandfather, a distinguished ringer of complex peals of 12 bells long before I was born. I may never be able to ring to his standard, but that feeling of following in his footsteps and passing ringing on to future generations is priceless.

My great grandfather, an accomplished bell ringer

New bell ringers are always welcome at St Mary’s. No experience is necessary, and free training will be given. Most ringers aren’t religious, and you won’t be expected to stay for church services or to commit to specific ringing events.  So if you fancy trying your hand at bell ringing this autumn, contact Colin Dixon, St Mary’s Tower Captain, or join us at St Mary’s at practice nights, 6.30-8pm every Wednesday. All ages welcome – you just need to be tall enough to reach the ropes.

PS Just thought of bonus point 7 – as the nights draw in and temperatures dip, it’s worth knowing that ringing church bells will warm you up in winter!

…in which the mystery is resolved in the bell tower of the parish church in Little Pride

If you’d rather read about bell ringing than ring in real life, try my cosy mystery novel, Death at the Village Chess Club, where the denouement takes place at the bell tower!

PPS Our parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury, will be the setting for the next Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival event on Saturday 27th September, with a fabulous day of talks, readings and panel discussions on the theme of “Strength of Character“. For more information and to book your tickets now, visit hulitfest.com. I’d love to see you there!

Book your tickets now!What I Read This Week

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh

Usually, I prefer to read the original book before watching a film or TV series of it, but in the case of Evelyn Waugh’s heartrending Brideshead Revisited, I first experienced it as the very faithful BBC TV dramatisation in the 1980s, starring Jeremy Irons as the narrator, Charles Flyte. Waugh has since become one of my favourite authors, and I’ve read many of his books many times.

Needing something soothing to listen to in the car on long journeys, I downloaded the Audible edition of Brideshead Revisited, narrated by Jeremy irons. It’s a flawless rendition, with Irons rendering the voices of the many characters, male and female, with a multitude of accents.

I was instantly transported into the heady world of the book, and long drives flew by – even though I’m not usually very good at listening to fiction on audio, able to concentrate better on non-fiction.

This audiobook was a hard act to follow, but I’m now revisiting another Waugh favourite, the darkly comic novel Scoop,  narrated equally brilliantly by Simon Cadell.

When, as a child, I used to play with my grandma’s button box, I admired each button like a tiny work of art.

Born in 1900, Grandma grew up fastening her button-boots with buttonhooks. As a young woman, she embraced flapper styles. The contents of her tin gave a miniature history of twentieth-century fashion.

My mum (91) still has her own button box from when she used to make clothes for her children. Her 21st birthday present was a hand-cranked Singer sewing machine, on which I later learned to sew.

My mum’s button box

My grandma and my mum used old toffee and biscuit tins as button boxes. But my buttons live in a smart Cath Kidston tin, labelled The Book of Buttons.

My daughter uses a tartan shortbread tin to house hers.

The contents of every button box are unique. Plunging your hand in is like a lucky dip. You never know which tiny treasure you’ll pull out, nor its provenance.

Whose duffle coat did this toggle once fasten?Which child fiddled with this little blue one on their school cardigan during a tedious lesson?What kind of party dress did this diamante disc once adorn?

Last century, every home had a button box. These days, with fewer people making their own clothes, it’s an endangered species. Yet it’s easy to keep the tradition alive. You can buy interesting vintage buttons in any charity shop or thrift store. If you’re lucky, you’ll find something similar to the fancy fastener at the heart of the mystery in my new novel, Death at the Village Christmas Fair.

When Wendy chooses a bear-shaped button from her daughter Alice’s Cotswold Curiosity Shop and sews it onto a hand-knitted scarf, it soon becomes a vital clue in the hunt for a ruthless killer.

If you look at his tail end, you’ll see a hole that allows him to be sewn onto the scarf.

The unusual scene of the crime is a Santa Run, in which hundreds of fun-runners race dressed as Father Christmas. What’s so special about Wendy’s little wooden bear? You’ll have to read my novel to find out!

Do you have a button box in your home? What’s your most unusual button? Which is your favourite, and why?

Death at the Village Christmas Fair is now available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. The third in the Cotswold Curiosity Shop cosy mystery series, it may also be read as a standalone novel. 

All three books in the series so far can be read as stand-alone novels, but it’s best to read them in order

(This post first appeared on the blog of Boldwood Books, my publisher.)

In Other NewsThanks to Sarah Chave for the photo. We didn’t let rain stop play!

I’m just recovering after a very wet and windy Hawkesbury Show, where our Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival tent nearly blew away. I’m sure we had the most windswept spot on the showground – the wind seemed to be coming from all directions at once! However, I had great fun with fellow authors Lucienne Boyce, Sarah Siân Chave, Frances Evesham and Jack (Jackie) Chandler. All except Jackie will be speaking at the next Festival event on Saturday 27th September – and the only reason Jackie’s not coming is that she lives in Germany, otherwise she’d be there like a shot! Thanks to Sarah for the attached photo of us on the stand, dressed for the weather!

I’d just about dried out and warmed up in time to give a short talk at the traditional annual Songs of Praise service held in the Show Marquee next morning (thankfully in sunshine by Sunday morning!) At our Songs of Praise service, six local residents are invited to choose their favourite hymns and tell us why they’ve chosen them. It’s always fascinating to learn more about well-known hymns and heartwarming to learn about the personal connections for the speakers. For this service, I spoke about the power of music to unite communities and bring people to faith.

As a Lay Worship Leader, I occasionally give short talks at services. Lay Worship Leaders aren’t licensed to preach – instead we just talk about something timely or relevant for each service. I thinking of saving them up to turn them into a small book, similar to my collected columns for the Tetbury Advertiser and Hawkesbury Parish News.  Let me know if that’s something you’d like to read.

Now that the Show is over, I can concentrate on preparing for the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on Saturday 27th September, which will take “Strength of Character” as its theme. The programme is going to be fascinating. Find out more and book your tickets here.

And with my other hand, I’m still writing my novelisation of The Importance of Being Murdered, due to launch early 2026.

But somehow, I still find time to curl up with a book….

What I Read Last Week

Hafren: The Wisdom of the River Severn by Sarah Siân Chave

A fascinating personal response to the Hafren, aka the River Severn, with something for everyone.

Following the course of the river from its source just outside Aberystwyth, Sarah Chave’s narrative Includes Welsh mythology and Welsh and English social history, as well as geography and natural history, environmentalism, and family history.

Overall it is a thoughtful, philosophical work, acknowledging and mourning the impact of industrialization and climate change, but also an effective cry for positive action going forward. While nostalgic for what we have lost, it is ultimately constructive, as evidenced by the following quote:

Pastoralism can provoke feelings of nostalgia, a yearning for an unchanging utopian idyll, but it can, instead, be a approached in a different way – as a challenge to care for and protect the wider natural world.

The author cites and embraces Rupert Reed’s argument in favour of “thrutopias” to “encourage us to live our dreams in the present where we can, change things where we cannot, and strive together towards building a more caring world for all”.

Illustrated with a route map of the river to give the reader their bearings, and gentle black and white drawings by Rachel Elinor Collis, the book also boasts an evocative, slightly dream-like cover illustration by Andy Ward. All in all it’s a slick and beautiful package, published by the University of Wales’ imprint, Calon Books, which gives it the stamp of authority.

A great gift for anyone who loves any part of the Hafren/Severn, whether Welsh or English – there’s something in there to satisfy all kinds of readers.

All At Sea by Flora McGowan

I downloaded this short story onto my Kindle after having a fun conversationon my Facebook author page about who we name our characters after. She named her central character Carrie after her grandmother. I’ve never yet named one of mine after my beloved grandmothers, Lily and Peggy, but I’m going to think about doing that now.

All at Sea is a gentle tale of a very English day out at the seaside – an outing that sounds as if it should be simple and fun, but in Flora McGowan’s hands, turns into a thoughtful, poignant, memorable and melancholy tale of love, loss and responsibility. I won’t say more for fear of spoiling the plot.

 

Meet Clare Flynn, award-winning historical novelist

I love reading books set in distant countries that I’m unlikely to visit – whether the action takes place in the present day or back in time. Even better when those books have been written by authors who have spent time in those countries for added authenticity and a stronger sense of place. So I was eager to read my avid traveller friend Clare Flynn’s latest historical novel, The Star of Ceylon – which, as you’ll guess from its name, is set in the past, as are all 19 of her historical novels. (Ceylon is the old name for modern Sri Lanka.)

Debbie: Clare, welcome back to my blog, and thank you for answering all my questions about your latest historical novel. 

Set in colonial Ceylon when the British empire was at its height and women’s rights and options were limited, The Star of Ceylon spells out clearly the social injustices in both Britain and Ceylon under patriarchal rule. The central characters, Stella Polegate and Norton Baxter, are repelled by these societies’ attitudes, despite having been raised in a system that glorified patriarchy and colonial suppression. How typical is this disdain among their contemporaries? Would what seems to us their more modern attitudes to empire and women have made them outliers?

Clare: Great question!

To deal with Stella first, she was living at the height of the women’s suffrage movement, so her battle against the patriarchy was not unusual at the time – although by no means universal. Some women were among the fiercest critics of the movement – establishing The Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League.

Indeed, it has always seemed to me a great irony that one of its founders was Gertrude Bell – who studied at Oxford, explored the Middle East on a camel, was instrumental in the creation of what became Iraq, was the only woman invited by Churchill to attend the 1921 Cairo Conference, and was the founder of the Baghdad Museum (heavily looted in the Iraq War when US troops failed to protect it).

Gertrude Bell

I suspect her opposition to women getting the vote was based more on a belief that emancipation wasn’t necessary as women like her proved. There were many other distinguished women academics in the Edwardian era – all high achievers but all, like Stella and Bell, denied degrees. I wrote this guest post on this subject for Lorna Fergusson – and since then keep discovering other brilliant, gifted women, denied a platform by the patriarchy.

As for Norton, yes, I believe he was unusual for his time. Most Britons – and certainly most colonial civil servants – would have taken the hegemony of the British Empire for granted. There were exceptions, and one notable one was my inspiration for Norton – Leonard Woolf. His career was in Ceylon – based first in Jaffna, then in Kandy and finally down in the Southern Province in Hambantota. His autobiography, Growing, covers the seven years he spent there. Like Norton, he loved the job but questioned what was behind it. On his first long home leave, he couldn’t face returning and devoting the rest of his life to supporting the empire. He’d fallen in love with Virginia and went into publishing instead, and the couple founded The Hogarth Press.

The sequel to “Sowing”, his childhood memoir

 

Debbie: I really enjoyed Woolf’s memoir of his earlier years, Sowing. I’ll have to add Growing to me to-read list!

You spell out dramatically many of what to 21st-century readers must seem shameful features of colonial rule. But what, if any, positive improvements and advantages did imperial powers bring to Sri Lanka?

Clare: It was the British who introduced the tea trade – after a first failed attempt with coffee.

Ceylon rapidly became a byword for the best tea in the world, and it was, and still is, a major source of export revenue – today worth $1.3 billion in foreign exchange to Sri Lanka.

As is often the case in former British colonies, the British built railways – or, more accurately, designed and funded them – while the actual construction was done by local workers. The port of Colombo grew dramatically under British rule and became the gateway to Southeast Asia for Europe, Africa and others. Since then, it has expanded further and remains a significant strategic shipping hub and container port. They also brought the English language with them – still used in administrative matters and as a bridge language between the two official languages, Sinhala and Tamil.

It’s also worth noting that prior to British rule, Ceylon was occupied by the Portuguese and then the Dutch. Neither did much to develop the country. The Portuguese stuck to the coast, focussing on the spice trade and the conversion of the population to Catholicism. The Dutch also concentrated on the coastline but built up the administration and increased trade through the Dutch East Indies Company.

Debbie: You conducted extensive research to enable you to create a vivid and convincing portrait of colonial life. What kind of research did you do? I think you made a special trip there?

Clare: Yes, I visited the country last year – having been before in the 1990s. I visited tea plantations and places that were relics of the empire, staying in colonial-era hotels and absorbing the atmosphere. I did extensive reading too – this post on my blog details all the methods I used.

Debbie: I really appreciated Sathnam Sanghera’s detailed study of the impact of Empire on Britain, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, and I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the World. Which books on British Imperial rule did you find the most enlightening and why? Please feel free to include fiction as well as non-fiction. 

Compelling reading with a 21st-century perspective on the British Empire

 

Clare: I highly recommend Leonard Woolf’s Growing. As well as being a mine of information, it’s a terrific read.

Rather than basing my research on current studies, I prefer to read contemporary accounts so I can see it from the perspective of the kinds of people I’m writing about. I read a dreadful book by Sir Richard Burton – the chap who (wrongly) claimed to have discovered the source of the Nile. He was typical of his times and unshakeable belief in the empire: a blustering, game-hunting, indefatigable imperialist, secure in his conviction of the superiority of the white man.

Another invaluable contemporary source was a gazette of Ceylon in 1906, which detailed the minutiae of the administrative structure of the colony and the people who ran it.

I’m about to do a short course with Oxford University on Britain and its Empire next month – too late for this book, but the British Empire is often the background to my books – particularly the Penang series and Kurinji Flowers. I’ll definitely follow your recommendation and get a copy of Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland.

The first three of Clare’s four-book series set in Penang

Debbie: Another important theme in the novel is the inequalities in women’s education back in the UK – while the education of men of a certain class was completely geared to providing administrators of Empire. If women had had equal rights in education, and the vote, while the British Empire was in full swing, would the Empire have turned out any differently?

Clare: What a fascinating question! Oh, Debbie, you’ve sent me down the rabbit hole again. I’ve just found a paper from the LSE entitled “Strengthening the Representation of Women in Diplomacy” which states women ambassadors are still only 20 percent of the total. So, I doubt it would have made much difference as there wouldn’t have been enough of them. Two world wars were the major factor in the end of empire – WW1 sounding the death knell then in WW2, Britain’s humiliation in the Fall of Singapore and the horrendous accumulation of war debt, as well as the rise of independence movements led by Gandhi in India and others elsewhere, making it inevitable and almost immediate.

Debbie: You’ve written many novels set in the early twentieth century. Why does this era so fascinate you, and what can we learn from it today?

Clare: Yes, while most of my books are in the twentieth Century, I’ve set six books – The Green Ribbons, The Gamekeeper’s Wife, the Hearts of Glass trilogy and The Star of Ceylon – between the turn of the century and the early 1920s. I find it such a rich period because it was the zenith of the empire. Going into WW1, the empire was at its greatest size and biggest source of wealth.

The words “the sun never sets on the British Empire” were absolutely true as around twenty percent of the earth was pink on the atlas.

It was a period of high energy and hope, with a flowering of the arts, of ideas, of confidence, reflected in architecture – a walk around central London including Whitehall and Theatreland provides ample evidence of that. The battle for women’s suffrage was at its peak and is always a great inspiration for fiction. The fusty constraints of the Victorian era were being thrown off and there was a tremendous sense of optimism. The world was shrinking because of telecommunications, railways, the internal combustion engine and the beginnings of aircraft.

Of course, as we know – and they didn’t – in the summer of 1914 they were about to be plunged into the horrors of the First World War. That long, hot, glorious summer is extremely poignant, with the images it conjures up of picnics, punting, beautiful floaty dresses, enormous hats, and most of all, of young smartly dressed men bursting with joie de vivre – many of them soon to be dead or disfigured.

What can we learn from it today? Only that we can never know what’s just around the corner. Back then, Britain was the global superpower – richer and more powerful than the United States.

Maybe there’s a message here for the USA – that nothing lasts forever.

Debbie: That’s a heartening thought. Now, as  a historical novelist, to what extent are you driven by a desire to entertain and how much are you motivated by the potential of fiction to change modern society?

Clare: My motivation is to entertain. The story always comes first. I want readers to believe in my characters and to be drawn into the story. I don’t think any single book can change society and I don’t aspire to. I try to make people think though – and introduce them to periods of history they may not have been aware of – such as the Malayan Emergency, the Ceylon pearl trade or the WW1 Shell Crisis.

Debbie: You’ve written several trilogies that started out as standalone novels – but on reaching “The End”, you were compelled to continue the story. Will the same happen with The Star of Ceylon? (I’m keen to hear more of Winnie’s story – and of how a certain person is faring in Egypt. No plot spoilers here!)

Clare: Don’t worry – no plot spoilers as I haven’t a clue what happens to them either!

I do feel compelled to finish the story, and I’m discussing a sequel with the publishers. Meanwhile, I’m having a break from Stella and Norton and have just finished writing a completely different book set in Australia during WW2 and follows on from another of my series. That’s all I’m saying!

Debbie: Many novels have been written about colonial India, but you’ve chosen to focus on Ceylon for this story. Why?

Clare: My second novel, Kurinji Flowers is set in colonial India. I chose Ceylon for this book as it’s rarely written about, and I find it a beautiful and interesting country. Sadly, it’s not in the greatest economic shape following the long and bitter civil war, the effects of the global economic crisis and government corruption, so I hope in its small way my book will encourage people to visit it.

This novel is set in colonial India

Debbie: Imperial Ceylon couldn’t be more different from twenty-first century Eastbourne where you live and write. Discuss!

Clare: You’d be surprised, Debbie! In the last century Eastbourne was an extremely popular destination for colonial civil servants to retire to – and I’m sure that included Ceylon. The town is full of big rambling Victorian and Edwardian houses. Back in the 1970s, my brother had a job at the local auction rooms and dealt with a plethora of colonial items – elephants’ feet umbrella stands, leopard and tiger skins, intricate inlaid wooden furniture and paintings of game hunts!

Debbie: Where will your travels take you next?

Clare: No book-related trips planned. I’ll probably stick to the British Isles this year. Toying with the idea of Scotland as I’ve only been to Edinburgh and would love to explore the Highlands. Who knows? There could be a book in it – but my aim is a holiday!

Debbie: What, never been to the Scottish Highlands? Clare, you are in for a treat! I’ve travelled very widely in the Highlands with my Scottish husband, so when you start planning that trip, let me know, and I’ll give you a long list of places to inspire you!

Clare: Thank you very much for having me on the blog, Debbie, and for asking such exvcellent questions!

Debbie: You’re very welcome, Clare, and best of luck with book 20 and beyond! 

To find out more about Clare Flynn, visit her webiste, www.clareflynn.co.uk, where you can also download a free ebook of short historical fiction stories, A Fine Pair of Shoes , when you join her mailing list.  

Join Clare’s mailing list to receive this free ebookIN OTHER NEWS

I’ve just returned from a lovely stay in Norfolk, where my daughter and I stayed with another author friend, Rory Marsden, who has also been a guest on my blog here. With his own passion for history, Rory was the perfect host to show us the historic city of Norwich and its environs, from its glorious Normal cathedral and castle to tiny parish churches in the middle of flat fields, each with remarkable features. We took a steam train ride from Holt to the seaside resort of Sheringham, where we watched Red Arrows practising their amazing manoeuvres over The Wash, and a boat trip along the famous Broads.

All aboard the Holt to Sheringhma steam train – with our host Rory

 

My first time driving a boat on the Norfolk Broads

Returning rested and energised (once I’d recovered from the long drive home, anyway), I’ve been trying to catch up with the launch PR for my latest cosy mystery novel, Death at the Village Christmas Fair, which wa launched a couple of days before we left for Norfolk. Strange as it may seem, publishers like to launch Christmassy books in the summer, to give stockists plenty of time to order them in for the Christmas shopping season. To my surprise, it seems that readers really like reading such books in high summer, because I’ve already gained 99 reviews on Amazon, (I’m watching like a hawk for the 100th – these psychological milestones matter!) with a 4’6* average, and it’s selling really well!

Out now! 

Meanwhile I’m gearing up for the Hawkesbury Village Show this coming Saturday – the traditional horticultural show that inspired my very first novel, Best Murder in Show, all those years ago!

My first ever novel was inspired by the Hawkesbury Show

If you happen to be within easy reach of Hawkesbury Upton, do come along to join me at Hawkesbury Show on Saturday 30th August, when I’ll be manning the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival‘s stand, promoting the next HULF event on Saturday 27th September – a fun day of talks, discussions and readings with 12 guest speakers, on the theme of “Strength of Character”. This event will mark the 10th birthday of the village literary festival that I founded ten years ago.

Just some of the many books that will be discussed at our 10th Birthday Special event on 27th September

Also on the stand will be fellow authors Lucienne Boyce, Frances Evesham, Sarah Sian Chave, Betty Salthouse, Jack Chandler and Stefania Hartley – all of whom will also be speaking at HULF in September! More details of the September event and tickets are available via Eventbrite here: https://HULF10.eventbrite.co.uk.

Then on the Sunday morning, in the Show marquee, by then empty of all its exhibits, I’ll be speaking at our traditional Songs of Praise service, in which six hymns are chosen by members of the parish – only in this case, they will be from our fellow parishes within the Badminton Benefice, as it’s the fifth Sunday of the month, when all the parishes, who share the same vicar, the Rev Richard Thomson, also share a single service.

AND FINALLY – WHAT I’VE READ THIS WEEK

A Little Learning: The First Volume of an Autobiography by Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh is one of my favourite authors, so I am keen to read everything he has written, and only discovered this recently. particularly interesting to see the influence of his own formative years over his novels Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisited, and always a joy to read his measured prose.

Having finished reading this book while I was in Norfolk, I downloaded the audiobook of Brideshead Revisited, narrated by Jeremy Irons, for the long drive home. The perfect travelling companion!

But now I must dash – I’m off to ring the bells at our parish church of St Mary’s Hawkesbury. No, I don’t know how I fit it all in either…