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Ospringe: A Visit with Grandad
Ospringe - a novel
On a Saturday morning in May 1920, two of the Davies children – eight year-old Gertrude Violet Davies and her thirteen year-old brother, Claude Laverne Davies – leave their home at the Mill House, on Water Lane in Ospringe, Kent, and walk to 2 Middle Row, in the nearby market town of Faversham, where their grandad, Henry Kennett, lives. After polishing the firemen’s buttons, the three of them go for a walk, during which they share their cheerful chatter and think their private thoughts.
The Kennett / Davies Family
Henry Kennett – the children’s grandad
Melina Clothilda Ellen Kennett – grandmother, deceased in 1920
Lina Kennett - the children’s aunt
Eltrida (Triss) Kennett Davies - the children’s mother
Walter Davies – the children’s father
Eltrida (Triss) Kennett Davies – the children’s mother
Claude Davies
Gertrude Davies (later Passfield) – the author’s mother
Sydney Davies
Harry Davies
Edna Davies – born after the date of the story, in 1921.
Family History
This novel is based on interviews which I made with my mother, Gertrude Violet Davies Passfield, in 1983, when she was seventy-two years-old, and with my uncle, Claude Laverne Davies, in 2000, when he was ninety-three years-old. The Davies home of 1920 – The Mill House – is now a private residence which faces Water Lane, in Ospringe. The home of Henry Kennett and his daughter, Lina Kennett, of 1920 – 2 Middle Row, in Faversham – was originally a police station and is now known as The Age Concern. Henry Kennett lived there, as a widower, from 1915 until his death in 1935. It was a very emotional experience to visit both buildings while I was exploring my ancestral roots in Ospringe and Faversham in 2000, 2002 and 2004. The Davies family left England for Canada in 1923. The Passfield family left Poplar, Middlesex, for Canada, in 1908. My mother and father met and married in Canada.
The Making of Ospringe – a reflective journal
This journal records my reflections on the process of the crafting of the novel as it evolved through the stages of planning, writing, editing and polishing. It constitutes an effort to be as conscious as possible of the process whereby the single idea that suggested the topic of the novel was expanded into a complex work of art. Topics range from the nuts and bolts of novel-building to the nature of the novel as an art-form.
Planning Ospringe – a planning notebook
During the writing of the novel, I kept a hand-written notebook which records the day-by-day development of the novel as it found its shape and style. The notebook – now in print form – reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished into novel-form.
The Project
Together, this novel, journal and notebook comprise the fourteenth installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which I am exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st Century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download at www.johnpassfield.ca.
John Passfield
Cayuga, Ontario, Canada.
On a Saturday morning in May 1920, two of the Davies children – eight year-old Gertrude Violet Davies and her thirteen year-old brother, Claude Laverne Davies – leave their home at the Mill House, on Water Lane in Ospringe, Kent, and walk to 2 Middle Row, in the nearby market town of Faversham, where their grandad, Henry Kennett, lives. After polishing the firemen’s buttons, the three of them go for a walk, during which they share their cheerful chatter and think their private thoughts.
The Kennett / Davies Family
Henry Kennett – the children’s grandad
Melina Clothilda Ellen Kennett – grandmother, deceased in 1920
Lina Kennett - the children’s aunt
Eltrida (Triss) Kennett Davies - the children’s mother
Walter Davies – the children’s father
Eltrida (Triss) Kennett Davies – the children’s mother
Claude Davies
Gertrude Davies (later Passfield) – the author’s mother
Sydney Davies
Harry Davies
Edna Davies – born after the date of the story, in 1921.
Family History
This novel is based on interviews which I made with my mother, Gertrude Violet Davies Passfield, in 1983, when she was seventy-two years-old, and with my uncle, Claude Laverne Davies, in 2000, when he was ninety-three years-old. The Davies home of 1920 – The Mill House – is now a private residence which faces Water Lane, in Ospringe. The home of Henry Kennett and his daughter, Lina Kennett, of 1920 – 2 Middle Row, in Faversham – was originally a police station and is now known as The Age Concern. Henry Kennett lived there, as a widower, from 1915 until his death in 1935. It was a very emotional experience to visit both buildings while I was exploring my ancestral roots in Ospringe and Faversham in 2000, 2002 and 2004. The Davies family left England for Canada in 1923. The Passfield family left Poplar, Middlesex, for Canada, in 1908. My mother and father met and married in Canada.
The Making of Ospringe – a reflective journal
This journal records my reflections on the process of the crafting of the novel as it evolved through the stages of planning, writing, editing and polishing. It constitutes an effort to be as conscious as possible of the process whereby the single idea that suggested the topic of the novel was expanded into a complex work of art. Topics range from the nuts and bolts of novel-building to the nature of the novel as an art-form.
Planning Ospringe – a planning notebook
During the writing of the novel, I kept a hand-written notebook which records the day-by-day development of the novel as it found its shape and style. The notebook – now in print form – reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished into novel-form.
The Project
Together, this novel, journal and notebook comprise the fourteenth installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which I am exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st Century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download at www.johnpassfield.ca.
John Passfield
Cayuga, Ontario, Canada.
182 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 18, 2015
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December 2, 2016
Passfield weaves the voices of three family members into a tapestry of early twentieth-century life in the English village of Ospringe. The images inspired by the thoughts and words of his characters linger well after the book is closed.
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