Poisonous Writing

Last time I looked at the rather unsavoury ingredients once used in everyday trades. A visit to the British Library in London gave me the opportunity to see some of the illuminated manuscripts of yesteryear. Despite the age of these documents the colours remain quite wonderfully preserved and got me wondering about the recipes to produce the different colours.

It must be said the recipe very much depended upon what was available at the time and thus changed depending upon where the monks and their quill pens were based. I admit I have chosen the worst possible blend in each case, although even the least harmful could never be described as palatable.

RED
In nature red is a warning colour, used by animals to suggest toxicity. When it comes to red ink the same could be said regarding some of the ingredients. Lac is derived from the excretions of certain insects, gathered from the bark of the tree and treated to produce the red colour. It is the same substance which produces shellac. In Britain we were more likely to have used red lead, not exactly the safest of products, or vermilion, found in nature as cinnabar and known to chemists as mercury sulphide.

YELLOW
Saffron will produce a delightful yellow pigment but, pound for pound, the most expensive foodstuff on the planet would be unlikely to be wasted making yellow. Again a mineral solution proved more cost-effective, with limonite being the optimum choice but could not be guaranteed to produce the same shade of yellow every time. This was not the case with orpiment, which was used until the nineteenth century but did have a downside in being incompatible with other pigment bases and, worse still, being toxic in the extreme – a clue found in the chemical name of arsenic sulphide.

GREEN
At last based on something most of us will have heard of. Verdigris is the coating which forms on the surface of copper over time. It will occur naturally, although boiling copper plates in vinegar accelerates the process. Verdigris is not always the same compound, there are several which are known as such, but all have one thing in common, the element copper making them extremely toxic.

BLUE
Of course the classic is woad, the plant which Britons once used to paint themselves blue. At last a plant which may actually have beneficial properties, one thought to offer some prevention against cancer. On the minus side the root is used in Chinese herbal medicine and long-term use can do damage to the kidneys. Perhaps this explains why blue pens have always been the most popular?

WHITE
Not exactly a common colour in illuminated manuscripts but certainly a necessary one. Chalk was the obvious ingredient but that did only sit in suspension and will only prove a temporary solution. Most often the ominously-sounding white lead was used. Correctly lead carbonate was created by popping lead sheets in vinegar to corrode them, then covering the result in dung to lock in the carbon dioxide and complete the process. Such white lead paint was used on the wooden hulls of Royal Navy vessels to prevent infestations of marine worms. While the use of the colour is not directly toxic, the process required to achieve this is undoubtedly so.

BLACK
Usually carbon as a result of burning, such as lampblack, charcoal, bone, etc would prove difficult to use. Most often the black pigment was created by boiling iron in vinegar, the result then mixed with an extract from oak apples or galls.

GOLD
Here the monks used powdered gold which was mixed with egg .

SILVER
Exactly the same as gold, the precious metal was reduced to a powder and mixed with egg. Sometimes tin replaced silver for the same result.

As I researched and wrote this I was reminded of those irritants at school who would lick the (pointed) end of their pencil before writing. They would not have lasted long as medieval monks.

Imagery in Writing

When it comes to fiction images are provided by the author in the text. However I don’t write fiction and thus need to find images to illustrate the subject in question.

Sometimes the subject hardly lends itself well to imagery, such as my books on place names. Whilst views of the villages and hamlets seems obvious, as the photographs are reproduced in black and white the subject has to be a simple one and a general view of the place simply does not work. In some counties I have been lucky enough to find an attractive village sign, usually showing something of what can be found locally. At other times I have to resort to snapping the local signposts – at least these reproduce well in black and white.

When it comes to my books on the paranormal the same problem arises. I can photograph the location or even the venue of the story but images of the event are impossible – at least I’ve never told a story where an accompanying image exists. Other subjects proved equally problematical, albeit for different reasons. Those on ancient tracks would have benefited from an aerial view, but this will obviously increase the expense dramatically.

When I started writing twenty years ago my camera contained a film, indeed I must have been one of the last to switch to digital photography. The advantages of digital photography are twofold. Firstly it is very much cheaper, there being no film to buy or development costs which means we can take as many images as we desire to ensure the best result. I now habitually take as many as half a dozen well-nigh identical shots to ensure I have a choice. Digital cameras also have the screen to enable us to see the finished result there and then, thus any awful images can be discarded immediately.

Generally speaking my books feature historical subjects. Clearly I can’t take an image of the Saxons in the place whose name I’m defining and images don’t exist prior to the invention of the camera. When it came to more recent history, such as when looking for old images for my five Through Time books and in particular the railways as they were before the closures in the 1960s in my look at the heritage railways in the post-Beeching era. Not having any material myself I had to resort to looking elsewhere for images. Of course these are subject to copyright and I am extremely grateful to those who freely offered the use of photographs from their personal collections.

I do feel my photographic skills have improved over the years. I particularly enjoyed the challenge of taking a modern view of an image first pictured 50, 75 and even over a century ago in the Through Time books. The question is, is all this worth the effort. Just how useful a tool is a photograph? Do images really do anything but break up the text? I sincerely hope so as I have recently spent many hours and endless miles driving around Cornwall, Northumberland, and the Home Counties just to capture enough images for five or six forthcoming books.

As always I would welcome any suggestions for themes or subjects, or even specific words to examine the origins, meanings and etymologies. I’d be delighted to hear from you.

A Writer's Distractions

Writing takes up a great deal of my time. Indeed when I’m not writing it seems I’m invariably researching, taking photographs, or driving between one place and another. Now we have longer days, note I refrain from referring to the British weather as ‘summer’ (despite the current warm spell), I aim to take one day out every week to walk. Many of the walks are along canal tow paths, or circular routes around open country, and the occasional circuit which takes in an old railway line, including those featured in my book Beeching 50 Years On.

In recent months the tow paths of Britain have provided me with an all-weather surface. One of the plus points in walking canals is how often their routes closely follow the railway lines. The reason is obvious, both forms of transport follow a predominantly level route between two places, which will inevitably be similar. One journey I recently completed was along the Birmingham and Worcester Canal, a route which can be found here with additional information on the Droitwich Canal. I walked both, albeit in two stages, first from Birmingham to Alvechurch and second from Alvechurch to Worcester along with a loop around to Droitwich. Anyone thinking of following this route should certainly start in Birmingham as there is a drop of some 220 feet over the 30 locks of the Tardebigge Flight, the longest flight of locks anywhere in the land.

The two stages of the Worcester Canal are very different. Firstly the leg to Alvechurch, which is as level as it can possibly be for there is not a lock on this stretch. However one warning, there is a tunnel beneath Wast Hills. At almost two miles in length and without a tow path, the walker has no choice but to detour over the top. This route should be worked out beforehand as there is no marked way to follow.

Below Alvechurch, where the canal and railway station are separated by less than a hundred yards, there is a second tunnel to negotiate. This is much shorter and the detour well signposted, unlike the third tunnel on the outskirts of Droitwich which again should be planned beforehand. However the most obvious feature is the Tardebigge Flight. The amount of water needed to feed this drop is colossal. If you have any doubt as to the size of this feature simply pause to take a look at the size of Tardebigge Reservoir, built solely to feed the flight. It is impossible to envisage this engineering feat when walking it, the only really good view is from the air which ironically could not have been seen until around a hundred years after it was first in use.

For me walking is a way to rid the mind of clutter. It is when I’m thinking of nothing that I have the best ideas when it comes to my writing, very little of which has anything to do with walking, canals, or even railways. This is particularly true when walking along canals as it requires very little concentration, not even having to follow or work out a route on a map. Not that I particularly enjoy walking canals from a physical viewpoint as, for the most part, they are flat and thus using the same muscles for mile after mile. Something we notice when it comes time to turn off!

One day soon I intend to hire a canal boat and navigate the canals during the day, leaving the writing for the evening. Perhaps it will inspire different words to appear on the paper. Always assuming I can keep myself away from the many pubs, serving not only a hearty meal but a most tempting array of real ales.

As usual I would welcome any suggestions for themes or subjects, or even specific words to examine the origins, meanings and etymologies. I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Recommended Blogs for Writers.

The following links take you to blogs well worth a regular read. Plenty of information and good advice which I have found invaluable.

Dave Robinson is always willing to share his considerable experience
Heed the words of freelance writer and editor Maureen Vincent-Northam
Very few know more about the world of publishing than Nicola Morgan
Well worth following Nick Daws thoughts and signing up for his monthly newsletter too
Join the thousand who enjoy the words of Talli Roland
John Baker's offerings are always worth a read.
Helen Hunt has a wealth of experience to share
Julie Phillips shares the highs and lows of writing
Sue Moorcroft tells 'how to'

An Advent Calendar of the Written Word (18th to 24th)

The final week featuring a note for each day of advent. No chocolates or pictures in this calendar but perhaps something of interest to the wordsmith.

18th - it seems many studies have been conducted into spelling errors. While it impossible to believe any examination can have taken a large enough sample in order to make the study particularly accurate, it seems the 18th most common wrongly spelled word is ASSOCIATION. Amazingly it was not the 's' or the 'c' which proved the stumbling blocks, the most common wrong spelling was "assocation".

19th - it probably won't come as a surprise to discover there are no 19-letter English words beginning with J, K, V, X, Y, or Z. However the most exhaustive of searches also drew a blank for 19-letter words beginning with W.

20th - to list the most common languages we can only use those spoken as a first language. Mandarin comes first, followed by Spanish and English. Twentieth on this list is either Korean or Tamil, both had 66 million speakers at the last respective census but those were taken some years apart.

21st - the 21st novel written by Terry Pratchett was Jingo, one of his Discworld series.

22nd - based on the list of best-selling magazines in the UK during the first half of 2011, 22nd on the list (with 413,311 copies) is Hello! magazine.

23rd - as it's Christmas a look at the all-time best-selling books for children reveals the paperback at number 23 is Judy Blume's Superfudge; while the classic The Tale of Benjamin Bunny by Beatrix Potter is ranked 23rd.

24th - in the Old Testament the 24th word is 'the'; the New Testament 'and'; in the Quran 'is', the Torah 'upon', and in the Book of Mormon 'many'.

An Advent Calendar of the Written Word (11th to 17th)

The second of three weeks featuring a note for each day of advent. No chocolates or pictures in this calendar but perhaps something of interest to the wordsmith.

11th - the 11th December is the anniversary of the birth (1918) of the Russian writer, Nobel winner and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who died in 2008.

12th - has to be Twelfth Night for this was my one and only appearance as a thespian (although to be accurate there were two performances) when I had the role of Malvolio forced upon me by a teacher. Should 'Happy' Richmond still be around to recall those (for me) endless weeks of torture, my loathing for you is undiminished.

13th - the 13th this month fell on a Tuesday, yet had it fallen on a Friday all manner of woes and ill fortune may have been blamed on something which can only happen a maximum of three times each year in the Gregorian calendar. However spare a thought for Spanish-speaking countries where Friday the 13th passes unnoticed as it is Tuesday the 13th, or Martres trece, which is feared. Incidentally, statistics show these unlucky 13ths (be they Fridays or Tuesdays) are likely to see a significant drop in accidents.

14th - the 14th letter in the alphabet is 'n', the sixth most common letter used in the English language but as a consonant second only to 't'. The development of the letter 'n' seems to have been from the adaptation of the Egyptian snake heiroglyph by Semitic people, their word for a snake beginning with the 'n' sound.

15th - the 15th best-selling daily newspaper in the world, with an average daily circulation of some 2,204,000 is Japan's Sankei Shimbun. However it ranks only 7th among Japan's dailies, indeed the five best-sellers in the world are all Japanese. Incidentally 15th on the United Kingdom list is the Manchester Evening News.

16th - Barbara Cartland has the longest entry in Who's Who, mostly a list of her books, the 16th of which appeared in 1937, a contemporary romance novel entitled But Never Free (aka The Adventurer). Incidentally at the time of her death there were some 160 unpublished works

17th - the 17th book of the Bible is Esther. As an English name Esther became popular in the 17th century, when it was the 17th most common name given to a baby girl.

An Advent Calendar of the Written Word (1st to 10th)

Over the next three weeks a note for each day of advent. No chocolates or pictures in this calendar but perhaps a snippet of interest to the wordsmith, writer or reader.

1st - the most valuable first edition is the Gutenberg Bible, currently valued at over £30 million but you probably haven't got one of the 21 copies thought to exist. My oldest first edition is a book by Thornton W. Burgess entitled Little Joe Otter. The copy I was given as a child disappeared and I was delighted to receive a 1925 edition for Christmas a few years ago.

2nd - few will be unaware the Bible is the best selling book of all time and outsells the second best seller six or seven times over. Yet few will know that next on the list is Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, most often referred to as his 'little red book'.

3rd - the third most commonly used letter in English writings is 'a', accounting for 8.167% of the total.

4th - the fourth longest English novel ever published is Poor Fellow My Country, a tale set in Australia and written by Xavier Herbert. It is said to contain 850,000 words.

5th - the fifth best-selling fiction author ever has amassed some 600 million copies of an impressive 800 books, and including 3,400 translations. Most of those books appeared under her own name and, although she did sometimes use the pseudonym Mary Pollock, very few can have missed Enid Blyton's work as a child or later as a parent.

6th - the complete works of Shakespeare did not see the light of day until seven years after his death and the publication of his plays certainly does not reflect the order in which they were first performed. As the latter is a better indication of the chronology his 6th play can be said to be Titus Andronicus, first performed in 1593 and appearing in print the following year.

7th - the Guardian newspaper poll to find the Seven Wonders of the Literary World placed Homer's The Odyssey at number seven - Don Quixote topped the list.

8th - in June 2011 John Locke became the 8th person to sell a million copies of an ebook and the first to self-publish and reach this milestone

9th - once it was considered a worthwhile achievement to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica - Richard Byrd taking a copy to the South Pole to help the time pass during his five-months stay - none other than literary giant George Bernard Shaw himself said he had read the 9th edition, although he admitted to skipping the scientific articles (a rather significant chunk to leave out).

10th - I suppose one of the golden rules when editing is to remove 'that' as superfluous. Thus it is interesting to note it is the tenth most commonly used English word and therefore should certainly appear in 'that' dialogue.

20th November

Not a date which would ever be considered of earth-shattering importance. Yet in its own way marks the anniversaries of three events which could be considered landmarks of the written word.

Just 191 years have passed since that day in 1820 when the Essex, a whaling ship out of Nantucket, Massachusetts, was in the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles off the west coast of South America. Nothing unusual about such in the early nineteenth century, that was until the Essex was attacked by a sperm whale with an estimated mass of some eighty tons. The vessel sank with just eight survivors, one of whom was first mate Owen Chase. Following the publication of his record of the events in 1821, under the snappy title Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, Herman Melville had he germ of an idea which would become one of the first great American novels - Moby Dick. The success of this novel from its publication in 1851 when the literate were in a very small minority (and no radio, television, or cinema to bring the narrative to a wider audience) makes it a landmark piece of literature.

Winding forward 127 years and a young Princess Elizabeth (she was just 21) married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London. Within six years she was crowned Queen Elizabeth as the nation sat glued to their new television sets, purchased specially for the purpose of watching the pomp and ceremony live and in glorious black and white. Since that time the media has grown to the state-of-the-art broadcasting we take for granted today. Almost sixty years on the throne and surely no other living individual can have been written about, filmed, taped, broadcast, snapped (or waved at) over this time.

Finally another 38 years on and on this day in 1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released. This brought the computer to the masses which, with the internet readily available within a few years, enabled billions to add their words to the mix, irrespective of ability, education, interest, or common sense. It could be argued this tremendous input serves only to dilute that worthy of reading, which would have stood alone in the days of Herman Melville. However from the opposite point of view, does it naturally bring the quality to the surface, highlighting the well-written word in a vast ocean of dross?

More Walks

Much walking this week, a delight in the pleasant early spring sunshine. Not only will this benefit the waistline (ok substitute 'create' for 'benefit'), it also blows away the cobwebs and gets the creative juices flowing.
Most of my recent strolls have included the tow path of the Coventry Canal. Monday I strolled around the Kingsbury Water Park and Middleton Hall. On Friday the walk began on Hartshill south of Atherstone and descended through woodland to that same canal. It was a little early for the bluebells to be in bloom, however in two weeks I can guarantee the blue carpet will be a sight to behold.
I found the walk at the AA site and was glad I chose such a lovely day. The lingering mist in the vale did nothing to spoil the view, as this picture shows. The gradient quoted of almost 300 feet (90 metres) may sound a little daunting, however the ascent is not as steep as the descent through the woodland and even then it is quite manageable. However I did find the quoted minimum time of 90 mins rather ambitious. True, I did turn and explore the canal to the southeast before retracing my steps along the suggested route and did linger in conversation with a very charming lady exercising her dogs, yet I still reckon two hours would be more reasonable. Furthermore all three stiles have been replaced by kissing gates.
Walking again tomorrow, taking advantage of the reasonable weather before the rains descend later in the week. This time exploring the National Forest, the former Leicestershire coalfields and the Ashby Canal.

Healthy Body, Creative Mind

Over the last couple of weeks the first real signs of spring have allowed me to get back out on the road. We hear more than enough about the woes of being locked inside during the shorter days of winter - lack of sunshine means a deficiency of some vitamin or other while SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is held responsible for poor output.
Never having suffered from SAD (nor man flu either), I will admit the winter months have been detrimental to my writing. Hence I have taken advantage the sunnier days and trodden the footpaths near my home in Staffordshire. Not that I have ignored my writing while on these walks. On the contrary, it has enabled me to catch up on a number of podcasts, and also cleared my head enough to make a few notes on ideas for the future.
Just taking a few short hours away from the desk has helped immensely. Undoubtedly my writing had become a little stale while I have been locked inside and has benefitted from this breath of fresh air (and, as an added bonus, so has my fitness).
While I will undoubtedly clock up many miles behind the wheel in the coming months, I shall certainly do my utmost to continue to take time out to meander the footpaths, tow paths, and tracks of our green and pleasant land. Should you spot a figure plodding across country, holding an animated conversation when there is nobody else in sight, and going to great lengths to ensure he has the map the correctly oriented, I can guarantee that figure would by most appreciative of a cuppa (milk, no sugar).

A New Publication

My next book, South Staffordshire Street Names, hit the shelves recently. A work which I enjoyed producing as much as any for it gives an insight into parts of history which may otherwise be overlooked. For example, were it not for this book perhaps the only man in the long history of Tamworth who was legally able to carry explosives during peacetime will have been forgotten - now there's a man who merits a road named after him! Or the midwife who cycled into a village as holiday cover for just two short weeks, staying for over forty years and retired having earned the MBE for her services, that's as good a reason as any I know for a street name.

If you find see a copy feel free to comment (or if you want one shout!). To whet your appetite I have posted the cover image and there follows the so-called 'blurb' from the back cover:

Around the towns of Cannock Chase, Tamworth and Lichfield and the villages around South Staffordshire are over a thousand roads, streets, lanes, avenues, drives, crofts, boulevards, ways, courts and walks. But where do these names come from? How 'new' is New Street? What is the origin of Quonian's Lane? Who was Sister Dora? Which lane remembers the trainer of a Grand National winner? Where in landlocked Staffordshire is there a theme of North Sea oil and gas fields?

Within this book every street from the ancient trunk road of Watling Street to the most recent cul-de-sac are examined. Names with histories dating from before the Roman occupation, those marking the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the conquest by the Normans and every royal house since, right up to the modern era and the countless themes for new estates - all the explanations are to be found here.

National figures, local personalities, trades, landowners, pastimes, the landscape, public houses, religion and folklore have all contributed to the names of the routes we travel every day. A must for every historian, an invaluable guide to every tourist and a lasting reminder of the county for any who live and work here, or who have their roots within South Staffordshire. Not just a dictionary but a guide with histories, anecdotal material, pointers to people and events of the past, and an interesting read sure to get us all taking more notice of the name on the sign at the end of every street.

Second Review

As with last week a review but a different book and a very different style. Again I have left out the name of the reviewer and the name of the publication in which it appeared:

Spooky tales of paranormal goings on in the Cotswolds have been brought to life in a new book. Paranormal Cotswolds - True Ghost Stories by Anthony Poulton-Smith documents some of the best known as previously untold tales of pesky poltergeists and ghostly apparitions from across the district. Author Anthony Poulton-Smith said there was a history about the Cotswolds which made it different from other regions of the country. "I'm fascinated by paranormal activity," he said. "I'm yet to experience anything to convince me because I can't think of a rational explanation that fits all scenarios."

Mr Poulton-Smith added his favourite story was the tale of a man who sought shelter from the snow at a pub on the outskirts of Dursley. He was fed, given clean clothes and a warm bed but when he went to leave in the morning he could find no staff, so he left two golden guineas on a table as payment. When he was united with his friends, he brought them to the spot where the pub had been but there was nothing in the snow except for the two golden guineas.

Other spooky sightings in the north of the district including the tragic story of the White Lady of Dover's Hill who was torn from her lover, the hugging spirit at The Bell Inn in Moreton-in-Marsh, monks heard chanting in the dead of night at Hailes Abbey near Winchcombe.

Paranormal Cotswolds - True Ghost Stories by Anthony Poulton-Smith is published by Amberley Publishing and is available for £12.99 in all good book shops.