Author Archives: Jane Cable

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: GLYN JONES – POET, AUTHOR, GENTLE MAN – A PERSONAL APPRECIATION BY JANE CABLE

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I have a confession to make. When I first signed up to write this article, the subject matter was to be twentieth century Anglo-Welsh poetry, but slowly it dawned on me I could not do justice to those wonderful writers so Tony Curtis, Gillian Clarke, and even my own father, Mercer Simpson, will have to wait. Glyn Jones must take centre stage.

In later life Glyn and his wife Doreen were great friends of my parents. Glyn and my father met through the Welsh Academy (of literature) and found a common bond in their love of words. They lived quite close to each other in Cardiff and on sunny afternoons the Jones could often be found in my parents’ garden, tucking into tea and homemade cakes. Glyn was the ultimate gentle man, always unassuming, with a quiet sparkle about him. The last time I saw him was at a party my parents held to celebrate both my qualification as a chartered accountant and my engagement. A quiet man himself, my husband-to-be adored him too.

Both in the years before, and after, Glyn’s death, my father became the go-to expert on his work. He was interviewed extensively for a BBC documentary about Glyn’s life made in 1996 and wrote the introduction to the University of Wales Press collected poems published the same year. In that he wrote:

‘Generous in his encouragement of younger writers and in his remarkable gift of friendship, Glyn Jones was so modest about his great gifts that they have still to receive the critical attention they so richly merit.’

Although a friend of Dylan Thomas’, Jones was his polar opposite, a chapel-goer all his life, a man steadfast in his beliefs (he lost his teaching job after becoming a conscientious objector in World War Two), he was indeed too modest to push himself forward. While Jones never created a masterpiece like Under Milk Wood – few people do – he was still a master of his craft as a writer, and his epic poem-play, Seven Keys to Shaderdom, which was unfinished at his death, certainly comes close:

‘Before a dazzling evening’s lemon glow all your repose,
Your writhings, were there alone in open pasture. Bareness
Assumed, in spring’s hysteria, against the soaking snow of
Clouds, green fabrics of your opening foliage, glittering
Sunlit deluges of grain-like silver’

His novels were published in the 1950s and 60s to critical acclaim. The Island of Apples is one of my all-time favourites, a coming of age story told from the viewpoint of a pre-adolescent boy, with descriptions so vivid and perfect it makes you want to stop and read them again and again. I remember becoming so completely lost in the time and place I can picture it to this day.

Glyn Jones also wrote short stories and translated poems, plays and other literary works from welsh to english, bringing them to a wider audience. But it is his poetry for which he is most remembered. Or perhaps what I most remember him for. The morning my mother died I took his Collected Poems from the shelf and read to her. Her favourite was The Meaning of Fuchsias, but in the end I decided to read Goodbye, What Were You? at her funeral:

‘At the voice of the mother on a warm hearth,
Dark and firelit, where the hobbed kettle crinkled
In the creak and shudder of the rained-on window,
This world had its beginning
And was here redeemed.’

My ultimate tribute to Glyn is taking his name in my pseudonym, Eva Glyn. I just hope I can live up to his example.

 

 

 

 

 

MY WRITING JOURNEY – PATRICIA WILSON

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At fifteen I left school and went to work as a Co-op window dresser. By the time I reached 35, I had two clothing alteration and repair shops, seven staff, a small catering business, a party-plan business selling childrenswear and toys, a husband and two children. I hardly had time to think, yet I was delighted by my own success. Then a catastrophic event caught me off guard. For the first time, I asked myself: Why am I working myself to death?

At around this time, A Place in The Sun started on TV. It seemed so appealing to retire to a warm country, so I made a plan to retire at 45. After another ten years of hard work, my goal came to fruition. We sold everything and bought a lovely place on Crete. After such a hectic life, I found it impossible to just stop, lie on a sunbed all day, and drink cocktails in the evenings. I decided to teach myself something that I wanted to do but had never made the time before. I would treat the task like a part time job for a year, and commit to it for three hours a day, five days a week.

I learned to sail single-handedly, play guitar, self-sufficiency, scuba and free dive, paint, distil raki and make wine, use a computer, plaster and do stonewalling, photography, video, until after about ten years, I ran out of things I wanted to learn. I know, I thought, I’ll write a book. Being dyslexic, it was the most difficult thing I ever attempted! My computer had Word installed, which was my greatest friend. It had a spellcheck, which I managed to confuse, and had endless patience. For the first time in my life, I found myself able to put my thoughts down on (virtual) paper. What miracle was this? I cannot describe the joy it gave me. I wrote simple poems, short stories, letters to people, a journal of my adventures in Greece. I thrilled whenever anyone said, ‘Thanks for the letter, I really enjoyed it.’

Naively, I had every confidence in my blockbuster’s success, assuming I would easily find an agent and get published. Soon enough, I faced up to my first total failure since leaving school – no one was interested in that first novel.

The following year we moved to a remote mountain village where I happened upon a machine gun buried in my garden! I showed it to the locals and with tears in their eyes, the old village women told me such moving tales from WW2. I felt a duty to record these events, so I created a character who was an amalgamation of these brave women and told their stories. That I was living in the house where such tragedy happened only hyped up my own emotion, which poured onto the pages.

That manuscript became Island of Secrets, represented by my agent, Tina Betts, then my publisher, Bonnier Books UK. The team at Bonnier guided me into producing a moving novel based on brave women and historical events surrounding the machine gun. From that moment, I decided to write about injustice, forgotten wrongs, and empowered women. All my novels link the Greece islands with Britain and are based on real, if little known, events in Greek/British history.

My fifth novel, Summer in Greece, is out on 15th April. RMS Titanic’s sister ship, HMHS Britannic, was a luxury liner that sailed out of Belfast, heading for Greece to rescue soldiers wounded at Gallipoli in WW1. My novel is a story of tragedy and triumph – tears and laughter, and a drama that continues to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

THE RAILWAY GIRLS IN LOVE AND THE CHALLENGE OF WRITING THE BOOK

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“What was the most challenging aspect of writing The Railway Girls in Love?” That’s what Jane Cable asked me. I imagine she – and you – think maybe it was difficulties with the plot. But no. The plot was sorted out eighteen months previously. The book is part of a series, you see, and I have to be on top of the plot at all times, and that includes knowing what is going to happen in future books.

Maybe, then, you’re wondering if there was a particular character I found tricky to put on the page. Again, no. Having already written two books about my Railway Girls, I feel I know them inside out.

What, then, was the most challenging thing? Was it when my editor mistakenly sent me the wrong version of the track-change document for editing? Nope. That ended up meaning that I had two track-change documents open side by side, but it couldn’t be described as a challenge.

The most challenging thing – and I can’t begin to describe how I struggled to cope – was that The Railway Girls in Love was my spring 2020 lockdown novel – and the public library was shut. If I tell you that all but a few scenes of both The Railway Girls and Secrets of the Railway Girls were written in the local library, you’ll perhaps start to understand why the library closure posed a problem. For me, writing is about discipline, and discipline is about routine – and my routine was to go to the library every morning and knuckle down to work. I was astonished by how hard I found it to work at home. It’s not as though I live in a madcap household full of noise and disruption – quite the opposite. I can’t explain it. All I can say is I found it remarkably tough to work at home instead of tucked away in my little corner of the library.

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And now, dear Frost reader, you may be asking why I asked Maisie Thomas that particular question. It was because the more I thought about The Railway Girls books, the more I realised they were about the challenges these women faced. It could be said that is the essence of a saga – the increasing obstacles heaped on the characters, who have to beat them all to find their happy ending.

That could all sound rather grim. As could living through wartime Manchester with its air raids, worries about dear ones at home and abroad, and all the suffering and privations that entails. But The Railway Girls in Love, although dramatic at times, poignant at others, is a genuinely uplifting read as these vastly different women help each other and themselves to live out their hopes and resolve their fears.

The third book in the series, this one brings the stories of Joan, Mabel and Dot to resolution with a happy ever after for one of them (as much as can be achieved in wartime, that is) and at the very least happy for nows for the others. It has recently been announced there will be more Railway Girls books (hooray!), focussing on three of the other characters, but I can’t help thinking there is still more to tell about these three too.

I am sure you can tell I am a huge fan of these books. Why? Rich in research, with period detail woven into the story rather than distracting from it, writing that carries you along without you even noticing it. Add to that characters you really care about and gripping plot lines, they really are the most accomplished and enjoyable books.

 

The Railway Girls in Love is published by Arrow on 15th April.

 

 

 

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: REINTRODUCING JANE CABLE

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I have been writing for Frost for so long I tend to assume everyone knows who I am, but common sense tells me that isn’t the case. Our readership is growing all the time, so many won’t have the first clue about why the Contributing Editor blathers on so endlessly about writing and books. And. this year, about Welsh writing in particular.

So the first thing you need to know is that I am Welsh. I was born in Cardiff and my formative years were spent in and around the city, although I left to go to college at eighteen and never lived there again. In modern parlance you would say that, despite living in England for so long, I ‘identify as’ Welsh and will do so until the day I die.

With my Dad at the launch of his first book

I was a teenager when I discovered there was a rich literary tradition on my doorstep. My father, Mercer Simpson, was a lecturer at the Polytechnic of Wales and worked with Tony Curtis, and I remember the great excitement in our household when Tony won the 1984 National Poetry Competition. By that time my father had retired and was spending his time reading for the Welsh Arts Council and editing the Welsh Academy of Literature’s magazine so the house was stuffed full of books by Welsh authors.

This may have been my literary heritage, but I eschewed literature, refusing to take english as an A-level. When I was a student Dad and I would debate whether there was such a thing as intrinsically ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the arts and could never see eye to eye, largely because I considered his views desperately old fashioned. Never an academic, my normal reading was romances, women’s fiction and historical sagas. In other words, popular fiction.

My father reviewed books endlessly and became an acknowledged expert on Anglo-Welsh literature. By the time he died in 2007 he’d had four of his own poetry collections published, the last of which he’d worked on during his final illness and his publisher brought the first copies to his funeral.

By then I had started writing too, experimenting with romantic fiction, something he barely understood, but my mother ploughed through my early stories and gave me both encouragement and useful feedback. Instead my father was really proud of the fact I freelanced as a cricket journalist. My mother’s bragging rights came a few years later when, in 2011, I reached the final of The Alan Titchmarsh Show’s People’s Novelist competition.

Mum and her Welsh flag

My mother loved reading but loathed formulaic romances, and her opinion has had more influence that anything over the way I write. I love a love story, but there has to be more. More for the reader to get their teeth into; a hint of mystery, research so good it teaches you something, a broadening of horizons. These are the stories I aim to write.

My career as a published author had a bit of a rocky start, but in 2018 I settled with Sapere Books, writing contemporary romances with a look over the shoulder at the past. The first two books were World War Two influenced, and later this year my debut dual timeline will be published by them, set in Cornwall in 1815 and 2015.

Last year I took another step forwards and signed a two book deal with One More Chapter, a division of Harper Collins. Both will be out this summer, written under the name of Eva Glyn. Eva for my paternal grandmother and Glyn for the Welsh novelist and poet Glyn Jones, a great friend to both of my parents and an emblem of my literary roots.

 

 

 

 

 

JANE CABLE INTRODUCES ANGELA PETCH AND THE IDEAS BEHIND THE TUSCAN HOUSE

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I have known Angela since we were both indie authors in Chichester, so the success of her gripping World War Two novels with Bookouture has delighted me more than most.

Every summer she moves to Tuscany for six months where she and her husband own a renovated watermill which they let out to friends and family. When not exploring their unspoilt corner of the Apennines, she disappears to her writing desk at the top of a converted stable. In her Italian handbag or hiking rucksack she always makes sure to store notebook and pen to jot down ideas.

The winter months are spent in Sussex where most of her family live. When Angela’s not helping out with grandchildren, she catches up with writer friends. Obviously we haven’t been able to do so this year, but I am still hoping.

Now, over to Angela.

It’s interesting how new ideas for novels germinate. I love that moment when I am grabbed by an event or a person and the desire to write a story is born. It can come from a newspaper article, an obituary, a photo or from somebody’s memories.

A few years ago, I cut out a magazine article with the title Swatched at birth. When babies were left at the Foundling Hospital in the 18th century, the only things identifying them were tiny scraps of fabric. The details on these swatches spoke to me: “A girl, about one day old, admitted 4 March 1759”. A piece of fabric pinned to her dress with a pattern of blue and burgundy flowers was the only link with this child’s past.

I’ve had this article for more than six years, but it gave rise to a detail in my new novel, to be published April 7th by Bookouture: The Tuscan House.

Similarly, on a shopping trip in Tuscany to our nearest town, I came across a simple exhibition of one family’s possessions. There were several outfits on mannequins and a wide-skirted 1950s dress was perfect for one of my characters. Click, click went my phone. And then I caught sight of a pair of slightly grubby booties. Click, click.  My characters come alive for me through such props and I hope to transmit the same through my words.

Maurice and I were persuaded in September 2013 to take a parish coach trip down to the Maremmana Tuscan coast. Most of the passengers were elderly and this annual Sunday had become a kind of pilgrimage to the past. Up until the 1950s, the men and boys of their families trekked down from our mountains to the sea to find better pastures for their sheep and cattle. I had never heard of the transumanza before (transhumance) and found myself scribbling down their stories. How could families bear to be separated for five long months every year? How did the women cope? What did the men get up to? My imagination went into overdrive. This led to my husband and I planning our own twenty-seven mile walk along part of the route and then another book was written. Originally, I self-published, but Bookouture acquired the rights. A Tuscan Memory  is a bit niche but a book I felt compelled to write.

We have to be in love with the stories we write and hope that our readers love them too.

 

Find out more about Angela and her writing on her blog: https://angelapetchsblogsite.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CARIADS’ CHOICE: MARCH BOOK REVIEWS

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Carmel Harrington’s My Pear Shaped Life, reviewed by Kitty Wilson

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of Greta Gale, the highs and lows of trying to learn to value yourself. The author wrote empathetically about addiction, body issues and familial relationships. As a reader I was willing Greta on and particularly loved her travels across The States. We could all do with an Uncle like Ray. The author weaves the story of The Wizard of Oz throughout which is exceptionally deftly done, beautifully illustrating the light and the dark within us all.

 

Christina Courtenay’s Echoes of the Runes, reviewed by Kitty Wilson

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, both narratives kept my attention and made me want to keep reading. It was fascinating reading the contemporary storyline and the archaeological detail. The romance kept me hooked and the little bit of jeopardy (no spoilers!) had me willing Mia and Haakon on.

However, it was Ceri and Haukr who captured my heart. I loved this storyline and could have read so much more about them. I rarely find a captive and captor romance convincing but Christina Courtenay writes these characters with such empathy it is impossible not to fall a little in love with them and their story. Am greatly looking forward to the next in the series.

 

Kate Johnson’s Death on the Aisle, reviewed by Evonne Wareham

This is the third book in the Molly Higgins amateur sleuth series from award winning author Kate Johnson, who confidently mixes romance with cosy crime. It can be read as a stand-alone but there are recurring characters and story lines so reading the series in order would be beneficial, and all are enjoyable. The first, Death Comes to Cornwall, was a recent nominee for the Jackie Collins Romantic Thriller of the Year Award. In this third book Kate takes some classic ingredients for romance – hunky hero, capable independent heroine, a Cornish fishing village and a cupcake café and mixes in a celebrity wedding, a film set, a virtual reality show, the wedding planner from hell and a couple of fairly gruesome murders. If you like romance with a hefty dash of crime and sleuthing, it’s an enjoyable read.

 

Carol Lovekin’s Ghostbird, reviewed by Jan Baynham

This is a magical tale that kept me spellbound until the end. I was able to marvel at the figurative language and poetic nature of the prose without it detracting from the pace of the story. The characters are very well drawn, displaying deep emotions, and I was particularly fond of Cadi. Secrets unravelled and the reader journeyed with all the characters to a satisfying conclusion. I loved the interaction between Cadi and the ghost. With its beautiful cover, Ghostbird is a book I thoroughly enjoyed, a book I kept returning to in my thoughts long after I’d finished reading it. Highly recommended.

 

Maisie Thomas’s Secrets of the Railway Girls, reviewed by Jane Cable

I loved the first Railways Girls saga, and the second book in the series did not disappoint. Set in World War Two in Manchester it vividly portrays the lives of women from vastly different backgrounds thrown together to help keep the country’s rail network running.

Although this book focuses on Dot, a working class forty-something grandmother, other stories are woven around hers so cleverly you just have to keep turning the pages. From the horrors of the Christmas blitz to cosy chats in the station tea room, all human nature is here and the writing is so wonderful it draws you in completely. I’m definitely having withdrawal symptoms having finished this one – luckily the next book is due out in April.

 

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: JAN BAYNHAM ON HER LOVE FOR UNDER MILK WOOD

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Those of you who know me or read my posts on Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page will realise I’m a big fan of Dylan Thomas and his writing, from his wonderful poetry to his short stories and especially his famous play for voices, Under Milk Wood. My first encounter with the play was, in fact, not on the radio but a stage performance at the tiny but grandly named theatre, the Albert Hall, in my hometown of Llandrindod Wells. As a teenager, I can remember being mesmerised by the poetic language, his use of imagery, and the wide range of eclectic and eccentric people he’d created.

The characters live in a small fictional Welsh village by the sea, named Llareggub (read it backwards!) or Llaregyb (contrary to Thomas’s wishes) in some earlier versions of the play. A long time in its making, the play tells of the ‘dreams, fantasies and realities of the inhabitants’ of Llareggub ‘as they unfold across the cycle of one spring day’. The villagers are presented in a humorous, ribald way, created and exaggerated maybe from the poet’s observations of the oddities and the pieces of gossip of a small-town community that he lapped up every morning in Brown’s Hotel in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.

The play opens at night and a narrator invites the audience to listen in on the dreams of the townspeople of Llareggub while they sleep, “from where you are”.

“To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea…”

We are taken straight there, invited to listen to the villagers’ innermost thoughts. They include Captain Cat, the blind sea captain, reliving his times at sea and his drowned ship mates and Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard, relentlessly nagging her two dead husbands. Almost all the characters in the play are introduced as the audience witnesses a moment of their dreams until “…dawn inches up.”

Through the characters, more than sixty of them, we are given a glimpse of village life albeit through their eccentricities. The Reverend Eli Jenkins delivers a morning sermon about his love for the village. I love the choice of names – Gossamer Beynon, Willy Nilly, Evans the Death, Dai Bread, Nogood Boyo. Through their actions and what they say, the characters come alive. Taking up her morning tea, Mr. Pugh imagines poisoning his nagging wife and whispers:

“Here’s your arsenic, dear.
And your weedkiller biscuit…
Here’s your…
…nice tea, dear.”

At Mrs. Organ-Morgan’s general shop, women gossip about the townspeople. Children play in the schoolyard; Polly Garter scrubs floors and sings about her illicit lovers of the past. Later, Mrs. Organ-Morgan shares some of that gossip with her husband:

“I saw you talking to a saint this morning. Saint Polly Garter. She was martyred again last night…”

As night begins, Reverend Jenkins recites another poem. Cherry Owen heads to the Sailor’s Arms, where Sinbad still longs for Gossamer Beynon. The town prepares for the evening and the inhabitants of Llareggub return to their dreams again.

Since my first introduction to Under Milk Wood as a teen, I’ve heard it played many times with a variety of casts, seen stage performances and film versions. It never fails to intrigue me, and I find new snippets of language to marvel at each time. It has been called poetry but Dylan Thomas’s own description of it is ‘prose with blood-pressure’! If you are not familiar with the play, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

 

 

 

 

WELSH WRITING WEDNESDAYS: INTRODUCING JAN BAYNHAM AND HER WRITING

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I was born and brought up in the tiny mid-Wales village of Newbridge-on-Wye and moved to nearby Llandrindod Wells when I was fourteen. Fortunate to have had a very free and happy childhood, growing up in such beautiful rural surroundings has always stayed with me. Although I have now spent more years living in the south of Wales, first in Swansea and then for the most part in Cardiff, I still call Llandrindod ‘home’. For as long as I can remember, apart from a very brief spell of wanting to be a glamourous model or an airhostess, I always wanted to become a teacher, my two main loves being English and Art. Having studied in Cardiff, I have taught in a wide range of settings – from opening and running my own nursery, teaching all year groups in primary school, secondary school English and Art and Pottery up to A level, and teaching art, crafts and pottery in adult evening classes when my three children were small. For the last six years of my career in education, I became a Teacher Adviser for English.

You will notice that I have not yet mentioned writing. I was extremely late to the party and it wasn’t until I joined a writing group at a local library when I retired that I wrote my first piece of fiction. In my job, I was passionate about children’s writing but this was for me, for my enjoyment… and I loved it. I was hooked! Soon, I went on to take a writing class at Cardiff university and began to submit short stories for publication. In October 2019, my first collection of shorts was published.  My pieces started getting longer and longer so that, following a novel writing course, I wrote my first full-length novel. My debut novel, Her Mother’s Secret was published in April 2020, followed by Her Sister’s Secret, a few months later, by Ruby Fiction. The third novel in the three-book deal is due out in the summer.

So, what do I write about? My dual-narrative novels are about families and their secrets. The strapline for my publisher is ‘Stories that Inspire Emotions!” and I hope that my books do just that. They are character driven. I have always been fascinated by long-held family secrets and skeletons lurking in cupboards and these form the germs of ideas to develop into a novel.

Fascinated by the ever-present link between past and present, I try to explore how actions and decisions made in one era have an impact on subsequent generations. In all my novels, I want to tell two stories showing a special bond between mothers and daughters. The daughters’ stories are written in first person and I’ve tried to get inside their heads, feel their emotions and show the reader why they act in the way they do.   In each novel, setting plays an important role, too. There is always a journey to a contrasting setting vastly different from the area in mid-Wales where my characters are from. I hope I manage to transport the reader not only to the heart of Wales but also to Greece, Sicily or France. I’ve also tried to capture the different times during which my characters lived.

Having a lot of catching up to do, I take every opportunity I can to learn more about the craft of writing by attending workshops, talks and conferences. Joining that small writing group in Whitchurch library was the best decision I could have made to start me on my writing journey.

 

You can link up with Jan on Twitter – @JanBaynham https://twitter.com/JanBaynham or Facebook – Jan Baynham Writer https://www.facebook.com/JanBayLit or you can follow her blog – Jan’s Journey into Writing https://janbaynham.blogspot.com/