Father Christmas trains for the next Olympics. (Or, is he making his escape before Christmas Eve?)

Father Christmas rowing on the Thames (as seen by Hugh Mills).

Women on Downton at Cheltenham Literature Festival

The panel of six did a good job of revealing behind-the-scenes secrets.  Mrs Patmore - I mean, Lesley Nicol, who plays the cook - spoke of a rancid lobster, which production insisted on putting in the freezer and getting out for the next day's filming. 

Mrs Hughes the housekeeper was revolutionary compared to the actress who plays her, Phyllis Logan.  Phyllis can't understand this social media stuff - Twitter, Facebook, etc. - but her counterpart happily embraces new technology.  A toaster duly turned up in last night's episode, with a frantic Mr Carson the butler rushing to put out the smoke wafting down the servants' corridor.

What is amazing is how these two talented actresses, who one has seen in person at the Festival, play their roles so seamlessly on TV.  How could dour Mrs Hughes possibly be anything like the woman I've just seen discussing her role two hours earlier?  And Mrs Patmore: Lesley Nicol was as blunt as her cook counterpart but on screen she blended into her servants' team as though she'd been Cook for life!

Of course, all the production's success is down to the hard work and dedication of Downton Abbey's producer, Liz Trubridge.  She's the impassioned one who welds the talented actors, Julian Fellowes' dramatic story lines, and the film and production crew's expertise into an amazingly watchable and enjoyable show.  There was a hint - just a hint - that Julian Fellowes' ideas for characters and plot are still flowing freely, Liz having spoken to him on the phone only yesterday.  Series 4?

Jessica Fellowes IS related to Julian Fellowes (they share a grandfather).  She has written these marvellous books to accompany the series.  Period detail and social history are very important to the show.  With the other panellists, hosted by BBC broadcaster Kirsty Lang, she discussed how Lady Edith has yet to find a niche between her powerful but traditional sister Lady Mary and her powerful but modern sister Lady Sybil.  Many women of that era were in the same predicament, war having both killed off all their potential husbands and allowed them to do a man's work.  Jessica told us there were 2 million more women than men in the 1921 census.  Surely it was time to give women under thirty and non-freeholders the full vote?

Downton Abbey wouldn't be complete without its exquisite costumes.  Caroline McCall, the costume designer, told us how sourcing vintage 1920s is more difficult than sourcing Edwardian clothing.  She couldn't reveal her sources, in case we all rushed there, but we learnt that the clothes for each scene must be harmoniously blended to avoid clashing colours.  Jessica Fellowes said this was true even during the 1920s, when no two people could wear the same green dress.

So, why was Cheltenham Festival hosting a TV event and not a literary one?  I think the answer can be found in Julian Fellowes' amazing story-telling.  Literature on screen, I say!  Secondly, period detail.  The audience loves to be taken back to another age and enjoys the authenticity that period detail brings to Downton.   Finally, social history.  Who has not had an ancestor or two who has worked in service?    Downton Abbey brings this past alive for us.  Mrs Hughes and Mrs Patmore worked the corridors of Downton just as my maternal grandmother, Mary Shipway, worked those of Longhurst in Northumbria.

FCFL visit to Jane Austen's House at Chawton

Earlier this month I visited Jane Austen's house with the Friends of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.  Most FCFL members are retired, but they are a cultured and, therefore, civilised lot to spend an idyllic day traversing in the footsteps of literary greats.

Jane Austen's house is a charming place, with plenty of atmosphere and objects to peruse.  Set amongst the timber-framed and red-brick estate of her brother Edward Knight (he was adopted by rich relatives), Chawton Cottage's Georgian facade belies its cosy cottage interior.  I can imagine the Austen sisters and their mother moving about the house, Mrs Austen reclining on the chaise longue in their small drawing room, Cassandra discussing household matters in the kitchen, and Jane sitting at her tiny table by the front dining-room window, scribbling her famous novels and wishing that their house wasn't situated quite so close to the road.   I was heartened to hear that Jane was the tea and coffee keeper for the household and kept a surreptitious eye on these expensive commodities, keeping them in a locked cupboard by the dining-room fireplace.

Upstairs, in Jane and Cassandra's bedroom, I saw the replica 'tent' bed that they would have shared during their time at Chawton.  How two adults would have fitted into this bed, I don't know, but it certainly shows that the sisters were close.  Most moving is the framed copy of the letter that Cassandra wrote to Jane's favourite niece, Fanny Knight, upon Jane's death in July 1817.  It's most heartening to know that writers are well-loved and missed by their closest, who have nothing but good words to say about them.  Although, Jane's (fairly) young age might have something to do with this (she was 41 when she died)!

What else do I like about Jane's Hampshire home?  The fact that Jane played the piano every morning before breakfast, which was held late at 10.00 a.m.  I love the idea that Jane the writer needed to release her emotions before settling down to quiet to write in the dining-room after breakfast.  I also loved seeing Jane's fine cream shawl, given to her by her brother Edward's mother-in-law, and the cords she used to hang her muffs around her neck.

Chawton Cottage was Jane's last home.  She moved there in 1809 after several peripatetic years when her father, the Reverend George Austen, decided to retire from his rectorship at nearby Steventon.  Jane was a Hampshire girl born and bred, and must have found some release and comfort in being back in her home county, for she started to revise Sense and Sensibility and to work on her other manuscripts.  I was greatly struck by the sale of the Austen family possessions from Steventon, which included almost every household item, including Jane's dearly beloved pianoforte.  No wonder Jane wept - and, earlier, had fainted - upon hearing the news!

But, if it wasn't for these developments and disappointments in Jane's life, the writer who we still take great pleasure in reading, would not have started out on her successful mission and produced her great works of literature.

Find out more about Jane Austen's House Museum at: http://www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk.

The Friends of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature are supporting ten events at this year's Festival (5th - 14th October): http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com.  There's even a Jane Austen's Ladies of a Certain Age event!

'Family Ghosts' is now available as an e-book

For those of you who like using a Kindle, or want to transport your holiday reading by lightweight means, Family Ghosts is available to download from Amazon and Smashwords.

The Smashwords link:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/179038

The Amazon link:

http://www.sarahjquick.co.uk/page6a.html  (use the Amazon link on that page)

I have to admit I'm an e-book ingenue, so this is like taking a small step on the moon for me.

'For Genealogists and Book Lovers'

Discerning readers should try this reading list I've compiled on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/lm/RP6LPANBI4MVD/ref=cm_pdp_lm_all_itms

Any suggestions for further titles?

Sarah's Genealogy Snippets: 'My Granny's a Diamond Jubilee Baby'

This week, our Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her sixty years on the throne.  In June 1897, my ancestors were celebrating the birth of the family's first Diamond Jubilee baby.  Maud Mary Shipway was born two days after Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Commemoration Day.  The weather must have been a lot better then, because E. H. Shepard, the artist, records the 22nd of June as being "one of the hottest days of the year" (Drawn from Life, 1961).

My grandmother was born at 3 Gladstone Terrace, Amberley, Gloucestershire.  The villagers commemorated their Queen's Diamond Jubilee by erecting a drinking fountain by the Parochial School and Amberley Inn.  Their memorial inscription reads: Amberley hereby commemorates the light and purity of the long and glorious reign of Queen Victoria, June 1897.  The memorial was nicknamed 'Light and Purity'.

Here is a photograph of my grandmother, Maud Mary Shipway, taken circa 1918.  She had spent some of the First World War working as a government examiner, inspecting fuses at a local munitions firm, Woodchester, Gloucestershire.  In her memoirs, Maudie 1897-1977, she writes:
I quite enjoyed this period in spite of the seriousness of the work.  We were paid £2 a week.

Win a copy of 'Family Ghosts'

To celebrate the first anniversary of my novel's publication, I am offering readers the chance to win a copy of Family Ghosts.

To enter my competition, answer the following question:

Genealogy is the study of what?

Answers can be emailed to me (at sarah@quick31.fsnet.co.uk), tweeted (to www.twitter.com/Sarah_Quick) or, even, facebooked to me (www.facebook.com/SarahQuickAuthor)!

I will send the winner's copy to anywhere in the world.

Closing date: 30 April 2012

For further information about Family Ghosts visit http://www.sarahjquick.co.uk/.

A happy reader from Dundee

My Mum's friend wrote to her:

It [Family Ghosts] certainly was a page-turner I found, & she [the author] keeps us on tenterhooks 'til the end . . . I thought her descriptions were excellent too.

Do you feel the same way about Family Ghosts?

My uncle, a former Oxford dean, wrote:

I have just finished reading Family Ghosts and I'm enormounsly impressed.  It's exciting, moving in places . . . I read it straight through in two days.

Read Kath Garner's Family History Monthly review at www.sarahjquick.co.uk/fhm.pdf

Follow me on Facebook

www.facebook.com/SarahQuickAuthor  Like my author's fan page and/or leave a comment.  I'll be happy to like in return!

One of the best recent genealogical novels

If you missed the Family fictions feature in the December issue of Family History Monthly, here's another chance to read what they said about Family Ghosts and me! 
(With thanks to Hollie Bond for permission to reproduce it here.)

Sarah Quick is a self-confessed genealogy addict, whose love of family history research led her to write Family Ghosts.

And Sarah's passion is reflected in the characters of her novel, who become more involved in genealogy than they could ever have imagined.

Sarah's own genealogical journey began in 2001, when she saw some of her maternal grandmother's family possessions on display in a museum.  She drew on her grandmother's and mother's memories of living and growing up in Amberley while writing the novel: "From their recollections and local history research, I wrote a story that, I hoped, would show how genealogy could unexpectedly take us on a journey and change our outlook."

The opening scene, where the protagonist Zennor Anderson is 'looking at her accidental death from afar,', was "inspired by the family myth that my great-grandmother and her husband had been killed in a horse and carriage accident."

Sarah believes family historians can learn lessons from Family Ghosts.  "No matter how you first approach genealogy, your point of view will be changed", she says.

"Genealogy brings not only the family closer together, but past and present too!"

http://www.sarahjquick.co.uk/
Hollie Bond

PS. I'm secretly thrilled to be sharing the reviews page with such notable writers as Edmund de Waal (The Hare with Amber Eyes) and Flora Thompson, author of that all-time classic, Lark Rise to Candleford.