Category: History
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The Holborn
Yesterday (22nd November) was the 4 year anniversary of my fruitless attempt to visit The Holborn Restaurant in London. It was opposite what is now Holborn tube station, and I didn’t even consider that it could have been lost to modernity. It’s now an office block, a supermarket, and a Boots. I’m still sad about…
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A Ramble About Writing
I feel like I’m failing at the one thing I want to do. I wrote the Edith book. I did that. I worked on it for nearly 3 years and I got there. I even submitted it to some agencies. And got rejections. Rejection sucks. However, once I had exhausted the agencies that aren’t specific…
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Crawleys on the Big Screen: The Downton Abbey Film
(MAJOR SPOILERS!) The first time I watched this film I described it as ‘the most endearing pile of chaos I’ve ever watched’. In a sense, I still feel that way. It has an implausibility to it that I can’t shake. Perhaps it’s only endearing if you are a fan of the series and come to…
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An Edith Poem
An Edith poem I wrote that doesn’t fit into the book. Peidi was Freddy’s nickname for Edith, I think because it rhymes with Edie, but we’ll never know. The ‘poem about death’ is from Khalil Gibran’s The Phrophet (1923), a minor anachronism But I’m taking poetic liberties. I wrote this after reading a friend’s poetry…
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Li’l’ Tolkien Post
Not the best photo but, a very beautiful Lily Collins as Edith Tolkien (nee Bratt) in Tolkien (2019). Edith Mary Bratt (b. 21st January 1889) married John Ronald Reuel Tolkien on March 22nd 1916. They had four children together: John, Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla. Edith was a talented pianist, which is something I wish I…
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The WW1 Novel
I realise I’ve talked about ‘the WW1 novel’ on here but never gone into detail about it. Now that Dancing with Edith (my ‘book’) is at the final stages, I’ve been working on the WW1 novel (my ‘novel’) in more depth. Particularly over the last few months as I decided to work on it as…
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‘Doomed Youth’: Another Look at The Passing Bells
Just going to enthusiastically ramble about this series again, since I’ve been revisiting it a lot recently (I have it playing in the background while I work on my WW1 novel). Here is my previous post on it. This post will contain spoilers. (All images are taken from the online gallaries for The Passing Bells‘…
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Memoir Musings
I wrote over 1000 words today (Friday, I need to stop writing this after midnight). I’m currently writing up the trial and I’ve reached day two of six. It is painstakingly detailed but I am trying to only include the most relevant bits. I’ve decided that every other day I’m going to share extracts from…
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Memoir Musings and Writerly Worries: Trying to Finish a Book in 8 Weeks
(As in, finish in 8 weeks, not write the whole thing). Today (yesterday, it’s 3am) I wrote zero words. I also did zero reading. This is how most of my days have been going recently. However, I did have a conversation with my local writing buddy about just how hard you need to work when…
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100 Years of Edith’s Letters: 11th July 1922
From now, I’m going to be posting about Edith’s letters on their centenary. All letters are written by Edith to Freddy unless otherwise noted. [Date: Tuesday 11th July 1922] Darlint Pal, I dont think Ive got anything to tell you just the ordinary things that happen every day & I somehow dont think you want me…
The Hopeful Edwardian 