Author: Becky Kjelstrom

History- Love It, Hate It

French troops at Talavera by Hippolyte Belange

I’ve always wanted to be an author but I never dreamed of writing historical fiction. High school and college history teachers focused on memorizing dates. Having a good memory, I aced the tests and promptly forgot all the meaningless data. Then I discovered Regency romance and mystery and social history. I was hooked. Seeing how people lived and why things happened tickled my brain like amorphous dates and events never did.

The General's hat, Talavera

The excerpt from my wip, Mayhem and Mudlarks, is an example of how I used a story about a general’s hat from the Peninsular Wars.

“Lord Major Kenyon Randall Jamieson ushered Sherry into his small office at Whitehall, pointing out a chair in front a well-worn desk of indeterminate wood, before seating himself.

            “I thought you had no friends alive here?” Sherry pulled his chair closer to the lamp on the desk and sat.

            “I did not, until John Beckett, the undersecretary, read a recounting of my exploits in Talavera with the 29th Regiment.” Major pulled a bottle and two glasses out of a drawer.

            Sherry nodded a yes. “The battle that solidified your role and started mine as an exploring officer’”

            Major poured a substantial quaff of amber liquid in each glass and handed one to Sherry. “Or made my superiors afraid of ever sending me into battle again, especially after I told the story of the two officers who had their hats blown away by a cannon ball flying overhead.”

            “Lieutenant Duguid wasn’t too happy to return the only hat recovered to its rightful owner.”

            “I’m not sure that hat belonged to General Stewart. But rank has its privileges.” Major raised his glass in salute. “Now he war is over but the fears of rebellion on the home front have all the politicians and career civil servants yanking out their hair. They have no knowledge of real intrigue. Hence men such as ourselves have increased in value.”    

            “But I refuse to spy on my fellow Englishmen.” Sherry sipped on his whiskey to drown the sour taste in his mouth. He had been approached to do so on his return to London after Napoleon was safely ensconced at Elba…

        check out britishbattles.com

Old Clothes for Sale

When researching or collecting clothing from by-gone days, it is easier to find apparel of the upper classes. This is simply because the poor and working class wore their garments out, seldom leaving more than rags behind.

Cities in Europe had markets for second hand clothing from at least the 16th century on. London had markets in Petticoat and Rosemary Lanes that carried gently used items, especially frock coats and great coats, as well as extremely worn clothing. Houndsditch market specialized in threadbare attire for the poor. These markets were characterized by writers of the time as boisterous at best and crime ridden at worst. Some claimed most of the clothing for sale was stolen.

By mid-century, the journalist and reformer, Henry Mayhew described London street markets:

Some of the wares are spread on the ground, on wrappers, or pieces of matting or carpet; and some, as the pots, are occasionally placed on straw. The cotton prints are often heaped on the ground, where are also ranges or heaps of boots and shoes, and piles of old clothes, or hats or umbrellas. Other trades place their goods on stalls or barrows, or over an old chair or clothes-horse. And amidst all this motley display the buyers and sellers smoke, and shout, and doze, and bargain, and wrangle, and eat, and drink tea and coffee, and sometimes beer”.

Campfield Market Manchester

The featured drawing is by Rowlandson of the Rag Fair at Rosemary Lane.

Mudlarking

Clay Pipes

Modern day mudlarks who shift through the mucky shores of the Thames recover a lot of pieces of clay pipes. When tobacco smoking first came to  London it was a costly endeavor. Consumers loved the stuff but used it in small amounts in the tiny bowls of clay pipes. These pipes had long stems to cool the smoke before it reached the mouth. They were easy to lose and dispose of and extremely breakable.  The tide of the Thames was rough on the objects in it’s grasp but it’s mud acted as an anaerobic preservative. The pipes might break but they stuck around for centuries.

Photo- Nicola White

I Love Maps

The internet has changed the way we find things in remarkable ways. I’m still a little leery of following Google’s directions without looking at the full map myself before I get into my car, but if I need to find places that existed 200 or more years ago good tools are available. Two of my favorite interactive maps are clear to read zoomed in and easy to find specific places. 

Agas map 1561 (above) not only has clear close-ups but finds places by category and gives you a list of related sites to further your research. https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/agas.htm

Darton’s 1814 Stranger’s guide lets you zoom into sections to show specific streets, squares and landmarks https://mapco.net/darton1814/darton.htm

Tom

Once there was a man on a commune in the Canadian wilds. His name was Tom.

One misty moisty morning, we jumped in my Volkswagen bus and hightailed it for the California desert. He was running—I was in love.

A year we spent squatting on that mining claim in the Chocolate Mountains, living a whiskey fantasy, surviving on beans, rattlesnake, and the kindness of others.  I sang for tips in the small-town bar. He got by on charm.

 Finally Tom tired of me-it was inevitable. I returned to my Canadian island. He kept running.

Don’t tell my husband, but sometimes I think of him still.

By Mollie Hunt

photo by Ajay-Karpur on unsplash

Gift

 

“Take the plaque—the one with the cats on it. I know you love cats.”

She paused. I expected her to punctuate the statement with a swig from the vodka jar she kept by her side, but she didn’t.

“And those birds, the origami ones—take those too. My friend made them specially for me. My son will just throw them away…

…when I’m gone.

The unspoken words echoed through the silent room.

“They’re coming tomorrow at ten o’clock,” she whispered. “The Right to Die people.”

All I could find to say was, “Thank you.”

Story by Mollie Hunt

Photo by Soroush Zagar at Unsplash