Category: Uncategorized
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Update
Hello, I’ve had very little to say recently, but here comes an update. I’ve nearly finished my WW1 play, just the final draft to edit. I abandoned my Sassoon biography because I do not have the brain capacity for it right now, and I have somewhat impetuously hopped back on the train: destination PhD. The…
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I Suppose I Have Something to Say…
Hi all, The other day I concluded that I am a hamster on a wheel and at some point, either the wheel is going to break, or I am going to fly off it. I don’t know what either of these outcomes would literally involve, I just know I’m tired and frustrated because I don’t…
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I Don’t Really have Anything to Say… #2
I said I would tell you about the novel. It’s about a WW1 nurse who loses her fiancé in the conflict, and the consequences of this for the rest of her life, particularly WW2. Then it becomes a ghost story. It’s set on the Isle of Wight, of course. Well, that’s a bare summary. But…
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Oops It’s Already March… #1
By that I mean it was my intention to publish 365 blog posts this year, and here we are several weeks into the year with only the first one. To summarise the year so far: I completed a nonfiction proposal for the Edith book and am now querying it again; I intend to apply for…
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23rd December 1922
Letter by Edith to her aunt. (Meant to post this on the day). [Saturday] December 23, 1922 Dear Auntie – It was good of you to send me in the book; it will help to pass a good many weary hours away, when my mind is more settled. At present I can’t think – I can’t even feel.…
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Attempts in Adulting
Okay. My original plan was to have a daily blog about writing my dissertation over the summer. But, as you can see, that did not happen. I have now finished my MLitt (I passed!), and am job-hunting (it’s anxiety-inducing). I might do a PhD (again in Creative Writing), in which case I would try to…
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9th January 2025: The Continued Fight for Edith Thompson
I’m almost a month late with this, but it feels important. 9th January. For the third year in a row I travelled to London for a couple of days to attend the annual memorial ceremony for Edith. (Photo taken after the ceremony on 9th January 2023, the 100th anniversary of Edith’s execution). Last year we…
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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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Leveret
This is a poem I wrote about 8 years ago when Dad found a baby hare in our garden. Fawny-furred and tawny-eyed, As soft as heather is your silky hide. And such a precious little thing are you And delicate in the same way as glass I am afraid the world in which you bide…
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Danvers
Sometimes when scandalous or tragic things happen, they find their way into local folklore, and sometimes that includes being recorded in song. It’s that type of thing that inspired this poem. It tells the story of Daphne du Maurier’s (13th May 1907 – 19th April 1989) Rebecca (1938), Mrs Danvers being the de Winter’s sinister…
