Tiding

by Siân Collins

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"Terrific and one of the best books I have read this year." Mark Ellis

The Great Freeze of 1963. A brutal reckoning for the residents of Glanmorfa, caught in the grip of an ancient curse. Or so it appears to Daphne Morgan and her friends who, attempting to navigate the confusing currents of the adult world, find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they expected.

An enthralling thriller about memory and the power of imagination…

"This coming-of-age murder mystery, set in an estuary town in south-west Wales, is a must-read for anyone who relishes a compelling page turner." Jane Frase

"

243 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 12, 2023

About the author

Born in Pembrokeshire and raised in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, former home of the poet Dylan Thomas, I have lived much of my life outside Wales. After graduating in English Literature from Edinburgh University I taught at universities in South Africa, worked as an assistant editor on The Lancet, and ran English and Drama departments in several well-known London secondary schools. I returned to Wales ten years ago to teach and write in the beautiful Towy valley.. Unleaving is my first published novel.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story:
It is December 1962, and the “Big Freeze” is about to hit the UK. But first the residents of the small fishing town of Glanmorfa are rocked by other events — Miss Eleanor O’Dowd, prim and particular piano teacher, has been found brutally killed. The police have their suspect — local man, the child-like John Parry who is deaf and dumb, and unable to defend himself.

But to 10-year-old Daphne Morgan and her friends there is a bigger worry — have they brought a curse on the town by their actions? Because why else would someone kill such an unlikely person?

My thoughts:
I was keen to read “Tiding” by Siân Collins after reading the description — literary fiction, mystery, historical fiction… all my favourites! And I’m pleased to say that it didn’t disappoint. The author’s writing was thoughtful and detailed, and I really felt a sense of the time and place of the story. If you’re a fan of authors such as Joanna Cannon or Rachel Joyce, I think you would enjoy this.

The main character is Daphne, and we see a lot of the story through her young eyes. And while this book could be described as a murder mystery, it isn’t as rigid as that, and although the murder of Miss O’Dowd occurs early in the story, it’s really just a backdrop to the bigger story of the town, it’s inhabitants, and in particular Daphne and her friends’ interpretation of events. Their actions — taking (and then losing) a skull from the “Bone House” (a vault in the vicarage graveyard) — weigh on Daphne’s mind, and are a great illustration of the illogical but powerful beliefs we have in childhood.

Daphne is a very likeable character, and seeing things mostly from her perspective means that we focus on what she is most concerned with — giving equal weight to murder, the upcoming 11-plus exam and the increasingly dramatic weather.

I would highly recommend this book to lovers of literary fiction that is rooted in place and character, and I look forward to reading more work by this author.

[Sarah Farmer-Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is set during the Great Freeze of 1963 in Wales. Eleanor O’Dowd is found brutally murdered beside her beloved piano and local man Johnny Parry, deaf and mute, is accused of her murder.
10 year old Daphne Morgan, the local vicar’s daughter was a pupil of Eleanor’s, but on this particular day she missed her piano lesson in favour of exploring the bone house with her friends, where they discover a mysteriously chilling box containing a skull.
The plot and characterisation in this book felt strong - I especially liked the character of Daphne and the hustle and bustle of her family life; and I felt a strong sense of sympathy for Johnny “Nebo” Parry, unable to understand or respond to the accusations levelled at him.
Although it is a murder mystery there is a definite quietness to the drama, a kind of placidity to the way it unfolds which I really liked. There’s a gentleness to the plot that belies the premise of the story and yet it enhanced my experience of reading it. The murder is just one small part of this wonderful book - there are deeper themes of childhood, growing up and the power of the imagination.
I loved the author’s style of writing - the way the story was constructed flowed beautifully and her skill at evoking imagery with such clarity almost made me forget about the dark thread she had seamlessly woven through the pages of this book, and the ending - well, that gave me little chills! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
It’s a beautifully descriptive read and one I have no hesitation in recommending

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Tiding, by Siân Collins, we mostly follow ten-year-old vicar’s daughter Daphne Morgan over the winter/spring of 1962-3 in the small town of Glanmorfa, west Wales. After Daphne and some classmates take - and she promptly loses - an old skull from a vault in the graveyard, a string of misfortunes occur.

Daphne’s piano teacher Miss O’Dowd is murdered and a local deaf mute, Johnny Nebo, is charged by visiting London DI Ronald Blight, who just wants to wrap the case up and get back to civilisation as soon as possible; the town gets snowed in, then flooded; Daphne’s friend Martin gets very sick; and more besides.

Daphne becomes wracked by guilt and worry as time goes on, believing that by removing the skull from its resting place and being unable to put it back, she’s unleashed a curse she can’t undo.

I really enjoyed Tiding. With its rich descriptions of places, traditions, and people in the town, and homely settings (particularly the sprawling, cluttered vicarage), it’s evocative and often witty, but there’s plenty of bite and realism too.

I especially loved the interactions between the various members of the Morgan family, which are by turns funny and tender. As well as her constantly-harassed vicar father and classics-loving teacher mother, Daphne lives with her waspish grandmother and melodramatic adolescent sister Sylvia.

I found the relationship between the two sisters particularly heartwarming; while they no longer share a bedroom or go to the same school, they are usually kind to one another, and can turn to each other when they need to.

Collins does an excellent job of conveying the tensions of being ten (something I’ve recently attempted to do in a short story myself!): you’re aware of the serious things going on in the world around you, but you’re not quite there with your interpretation of them yet; you’re starting to see your parents as human beings with flaws, but being in trouble with them continues to be the scariest thing imaginable; you’re still quite impressionable and enjoy childish pursuits, but schoolwork and exams are suddenly more consequential than they used to be.

Having also been a quiet bookworm who was good at spelling but less enamoured with maths, and blessed/cursed with a wild imagination, I could relate to Daphne a lot.

Quite aside from the violent murder of Miss O’Dowd, Collins distances the story from any notion that these were the “good old days” in several ways. She furnishes Johnny with a tragic past that demonstrates both the ongoing impact of WWII losses and the lack of understanding of mental health issues in this period. His treatment at the hands of the police - particularly Blight - as a disabled person shows how far we’ve come since the 1960s.

We also see how the poorest families in the town are disproportionately affected by the extreme weather conditions, while a friend of Miss O’Dowd who turns up in the village came to Britain on the Kindertransport, and lost her family in the Holocaust.

Tiding is evocative and witty, yet gritty, with a relateable young main character.

[3Goats · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great freeze of '63; an isolated west Wales village; a brutal murder. Much of what unfolds is seen through the eyes of eleven year old Daphne Morgan, the vicar's daughter. It is her piano teacher who is murdered that day, when Daphne should have been at her lesson - a lesson skipped it in order to transgress further (I am trying to avoid spoilers!). The author brilliantly evokes a sense - Daphne's sense - of something sinister and inevitable rolling out from this point, with desperate consequences for some.

I gave this book five stars for a number of reasons. It is well structured and manages to be both enigmatic yet plausible; intense but contained; the children are convincing, and the ending unexpected and emotive. I particularly liked the potentially controlling and sinister relationship one of the adults tries to build with Daphne and how the girl deals with it. The main reason, however, for the five stars was that Siân Collins had a deceptively simple, vivid way of conjuring places. I was ill and perhaps a little bit feverish when I read Tiding but I was startled to find the most intense sensory memories evoked in me, almost as if I was back there (the rural Wales I knew in the 1960s).
I recently read an interview with the author - she partly based the story on a 1950s unsolved murder in Laugharne where she lived as a child.

Tiding is published by the fantastic Welsh press, Honno.
This is the second really special book I have read in the last eight months, both published by a women's independent press. If you love Tiding and want to follow on with a book on somewhat similar themes, with a dazzling sense of place, and a very special invocation of childhood imagination, I recommend Whistling Jack by Josephine Gardiner, published in 2022 by an independent press in Penzance: Hypatia.

[Karen Huxtable · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is set in 1963, Daphne is a young 10 year old girl who lives in a Welsh town of Glanmorfa, with her father who is the local vicar, her mother who is a teacher, sister Sylvia and Gran.
A terrible crime is committed in the town, and Daphne and her friends feel that they are responsible as they found a skull on the same day and believe it is cursed. The locals however believe it was a robbery as Elizabeth O’Dowd, the woman who was murdered kept a large sum of money in her house.
Daphne is a really interesting character although young, the author portrays her as very sensitive to her surroundings. Also the effect that the murder has on the community and the aftermath. A local man Johnny Nebo, who is deaf and mute is arrested of the murder, it appears on the surface that he is just an easy target. We are introduced to Inspector Blight who is brought in from London to investigate the death.
Daphne was supposed to have a piano lessson on the day that Miss O’Dowd was killed but because she found the skull with her friends she didn’t go. As she starts to remember events that happened that day she could save Johnny but it would mean her getting in trouble. When a blizzard arrives the village is cut off and this adds to the tension and atmosphere of the book.
This is really engaging read, and although it is a book about a murder, it is gently paced and full of detail about the characters which really pulls you into the story. The further into the book you read the more you need to read on I was hooked!
5 stars *****

[Peter Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 4 years since publishing her first novel ‘Unleaving’ (2019) Siän Collins has matured as a writer and given readers a convincing portrait of the 10 going on 11 year old Daphne Morgan. I particularly liked the studies of isolation, of a community not just rural but also cut off by the weather during early 1963 (I remember it well), the shut-in of a deaf and non-speaking person - being ‘shut-in’ is also a theme throughout as is ’shut out’, excluded by a community and by national politics underpinned by racial and religious prejudices. Her portrayals of the various characters is nuanced with finely honed gradations according to the lens being used which gives a sense of mystery though one is never in doubt that Daphne is the central consciousness. I found it particularly compelling that just as Daphne is not quite sure how much she does and does not know the narrator seemingly doesn’t intrude - the reader is left, as in life, to work it out - or not - another reading will be necessary.

‘Tiding’ is an excellent title with its multiple meanings, the ebb and flow of events that happen to befall the individuals and the community over the dreadful winter, and the incipient ‘blight’ accompanying the London detective who’s desire to fix the ebb and flow regardless changes patterns in complex ways. The evocative landscape descriptions so underwritten by the dead reminded me of Alan Garner. A haunting book.

Further thoughts:
-By happy coincidence I’m also reading Henry James’s ’What Maisie knew’ with another 10 year old girl and I’m struck by the aptness of Adrian Poole’s first sentence in his introduction and a later comment: “…readers have been known to finish the novel still wondering, what did Maisie know?” Indeed what did Daphne know? And again as in James so with Collins: “The child travels towards the adult but does not cross the frontier.”

Excerpt From: Henry James, ‘What Maisie Knew’ (1897, 1996) edited and introduced by Adrian Poole.

-‘It was to be the fate of this patient little girl to see much more than she at first understood, but also even at first to understand much more than any little girl, however patient, had perhaps ever understood before.’

Henry James, ‘What Maisie knew’, Chapter 1.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiding is an absolute dream of a novel, it ticked all of my boxes. Set in the 1960s, with a hint of murder mystery and a beguiling coming-of-age theme and beautifully written, it is a joy to read and discover these characters.

It's 1963 in a small Welsh town and ten-year-old Daphne and her gang of friends have been up to mischief. Daphne is the youngest daughter of the local Vicar and knows, deep down, that taking an old skull from its resting place was a bad thing to do. Despite her efforts to return the skull, she is unable to and as more bad and strange things happen in the town, she and her friends become convinced that they've cursed the whole place.

Meanwhile, Daphne's piano teacher; Eleanor O'Dowd - an incomer to the area, is found dead. Brutally stabbed. A high profile police officer arrives from London, to try to solve the crime, and it's not long before his questioning and suspicions begin to worry the local people.

Siân Collins' writing is pitch perfect. Her descriptions of the Welsh landscape, the rain, the snow, the frozen ground and the isolation of the townsfolk are sublime. Whilst her characterisation is wonderful, it is the surrounding countryside, and the effects of nature that really capture the imagination.

This is a novel that contains so much, despite its relatively short length. The way that this small community comes together, protecting each other, yet not averse to a little gossip of their own. The freedom enjoyed by the children in the 1960s, combined with the harshness of one of the school teachers. The relationships between the Vicar's wife and the woman who cleans for her; the kindness of the Vicar and the love of two elderly men for a nephew who often feels tortured.

There are some heart wrenching scenes, there are paragraphs of great joy, there are smiles to be had. It's a novel that I savoured so much and I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Veronika Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my era, my childhood though not one I particularly recognise. Set in the Great Freeze of 1963 (which I don’t actually remember though I know I should), Daphne Morgan aged 10 and her elder sister Sylvia are the daughters of the local vicar. They spend most of their time outdoors with their friends, getting up to mischief.

When Daphne and her chums break into the bone house and steal a skull (is it that of the Beaker woman?) it sets off a chain of events that they believe is their fault. Obsessed with the curse of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the mysterious deaths of the explorers that followed, they think that their friend Martin’s sudden illness is the result of a ‘curse’, as is every other bad event that follows. Daphne must put the skull back, but it doesn’t go to plan and she is too scared to tell anyone.

While she is bunking off her piano lesson to go to the bone house, her middle-aged piano teacher Eleanor O’Dowd, is brutally murdered. Deaf mute Johnny Parry is the obvious suspect, but what motive could he possibly have?

This is one of those wonderful books that is made up of quirky characters, perfectly drawn settings and a feeling of warmth (despite the snow), wrapped around a murder mystery. Reminiscent of novels like When God Was A Rabbit or The Trouble With Goats And Sheep, it sees the world from the children’s point of view.

Tiding is about childhood, growing up in rural Wales, family, mystery, superstition and coming-of-age. The suspicion around Johnny shows the darker side of living in the sixties, where his disability makes him the obvious suspect just because he’s the ‘village idiot’ like the John Mills character in Ryan’s Daughter. Fifty years later and not much had changed.

I loved this book. It’s both gentle and dramatic, dark and mystical and it will transport you back to simpler times, when children could roam freely and not worry about today’s social pressures.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set during the winter of 1962/63, Tiding is an exquisitely written murder mystery, and a book of contrasts. Told from the dual perspective of the Scotland Yard Inspector sent from London to a small village in Wales, and from that of Daphne Morgan, the 10-year-old daughter of the local vicar, Tiding weaves together local knowledge with the prejudices of the time to reveal the complexity of human nature and the role imagination plays in colouring our perceptions.
The style is gentle and every word delicately chosen to paint the quiet routine of a village disturbed by a violent act, against the backdrop of the Great Freeze of 1963, and the isolation it brought.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure about this one. I became impatient switching in and out of an adolescent brain, as well as across time, and abandoned the read. Eventually I returned, jumped around a bit, then filled in the gaps. There is strength in the understanding of human motivation, of adolescent fears and pressures, and likewise village fears and pressures. There is also strong evocation of place and it’s influence on behaviour and belief.

I am still deterred by the shifts in perspective but there is an atmospheric, brooding, story of human folly, missed opportunity and tragedy here that would stimulate book club discussion.

[Louise Mullins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to this historical mystery. It's filled with beautifully descriptive prose, the cover is elegant, and the blurb sounded intriguing. Unfortunately I couldn't connect to the characters. I felt too distanced from them. And the plot was boring. I just couldn't get into it.

[CJ Mason The Fallen Librarian Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absorbing, atmospheric & astute read, my review of this great book is on my blog https://thefallenlibrarian.wordpress.... 📚♥️

[Dee Groocock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winter 1962 in Glanmorfa, west Wales, Daphne Morgan has taken a skull from a vault in the graveyard and loses it!

When Daphne’s piano teacher is murdered and one of her friends is poorly, Daphne thinks the skull has left a curse!

Daphne lives with her dad, the local vicar, her mum, sister and grandmother. I loved the dynamics of the family.

The story focuses on the tiny village but the main character is Daphne, who is about to take her 11 plus.

A good story, which was also a little dark at times. I liked the characters on the whole but Daphne was my favourite.

I would enjoy reading more from this author.