Category Archives: Family History

December 19, 2011 · 12:55 pm

100th Post! Diana Jackson gives an on line Interview

What are your earliest memories of writing when you were a child?

My earliest recollections of writing creatively for pleasure must have been in my mid teens when I started writing poetry and short stories. I still have some of them in my memories box!

What inspired you to write Riduna?

Well, I wrote a whole blog about this, but after several family holidays on Alderney I was fascinated to hear my Dad talk about my Great Grandmother Harriet who was born on Alderney in the mid nineteenth century. I started my research for Riduna at the same time as my parents began their family history research. Riduna is certainly fiction, but its inspiration came from thinking about what Harriet’s life must have been like. Her true story is quite a tale too!

Why Riduna? It’s not a name many people will understand.

Some people have said that the title is too obscure for people to remember and others have said that they were drawn to read the novel because the title sounded mysterious. I’ve always loved the name ‘Riduna’, the Roman name for Alderney. I can see the argument from both sides but the story has been ‘Riduna’ in my head for years. I couldn’t imagine changing it.

What have you enjoyed most about getting a book published?

Meeting people and talking to them about my writing. I’ve now done five talks, the most successful being to audiences in Bedfordshire libraries. The people have been brilliant. Book signings have been good fun too but they’ve tailed off now.

Did you receive any publicity in the press?

Yes I did as a matter of fact. I had two articles in The Luton News and three on the Channel Islands, one in The Journal (Alderney) one in The Alderney Press and another in The Guernsey Press. I never did find out if it reached The Echo in Southampton. They certainly said they’d consider doing a book review. Did anyone see it? It would be great to know.

What about reviews. Did you have any interesting ones?

I was so proud of the positive comments from The Historical Novel Society’s online reviews. This link will take you to it if you missed it back in August 2010.

You have mentioned on Twitter hoping to get the sequel out for Christmas. What happened?

I really had hoped to get my next novel out by now, but these things take time and sometimes these decisions are out of our control. I do apologise for this, but instead of feeling downhearted by the delay, I see it now that the novel will come out at the right time. (I must admit that I was less cheerful a month ago but in the end you have to be philosophical about it.) Spring 2011 is the hopeful horizon I’m looking towards at present. Many thanks for being patient.

Can you tell me something about your new novel?

In a word no. I have given a few hints along the way. You’ll just have to wait and see!

This will be my last post before the festive season and so Happy Christmas to all who celebrate Christmas and happy holidays to everyone else!

Leave a comment

Filed under Alderney, Book reading, Book reviews, Channel Islands, Family History, Marketing your novel, Riduna, Writing, Writing a novel

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 14, 2011 · 1:49 pm

Serendipity

Definition
on Marriam Webster.com:

The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for:

Serendipity is the second of my best loved words. (see post of Agapé) Serendipity is, of course better known than ‘agapé’ although it is none the less pleasing when I think of it.

A dear elderly friend of mine who passed away a couple of years ago used to call these happenings ‘God incidences.’ I like that too, as it seems to imply something which is more than just a coincidence.

My sister has been visiting my parents this week from France and we were travelling down to South West London to see another dear friend of the family. I was driving and the joined the M1 just above Luton only to see the traffic begin to build up in front of us, as the temporary restriction signs was bringing our speed steadily lower. In that snap decision between joining the
queue and taking the slip road I barely hesitated before coming off at Junction 9 heading towards St Albans.

It just so happens that we lived on the outskirts of St Albans on the other side of Verulamium Park for fifteen years as a family, until my parents moved to Kent when I was eighteen and I was on my way to college; my sister had long since left for America.

As I circled the city the car was full of happy recollections:

‘I used to walk this way from school if I finished early to meet you, mum, at St Michael’s school,’ recalled my sister.

‘We used to batman down this hill to St Micheal’s church to go bellringing. We were always late. You must remember those long capes we made one year!’ I reminded my sister.

‘Look, the path is still there, the one that went to our house,’ added mum.

‘I thought they sold the boys school playing field for houses years ago. I wonder what took them so long.’

‘We had a much better view with the field there,’ and I wasn’t talking about the boys playing rugby either!

‘Oh, there’s the King Harry. Do you remember that funny vicar who used to pop into cars at the traffic lights?’

‘Where’s the little hall where we went to Brownies and Guides?’

‘It’s hard to believe we walked all this way to Killigrew Junior school. They wouldn’t do it these days would they.’

‘Rod Argent used to buy his bread from the baker’s here at Chiswell Green.’

I know that these reminiscences mean nothing to anyone else, but with my sister living abroad and my elderly parents
living nearby me up in Bedfordshire, the few minutes we had all together in my car passing though the familiar haunts of St Albans in Hertfordshire were very precious.

Serendipity is certainly a special word for me!

Leave a comment

Filed under Family History

Tagged as , , ,

October 3, 2011 · 7:54 am

From Riduna to Ancasta – the seeds to my new novel were sown

What inspired my recent interest in the history of aviation?

I have written about the moment that my debut novel ‘Riduna’ was conceived, but for those of you who were not reading my posts back then, here’s a quick recap.

“I was standing on the Butes looking out over Alderney Harbour and Braye Beach Fort Albert on the island of Alderneytowards Fort Albert, thinking about my father’s stories about my great grandmother Harriet Jane, who was born on the island in the late nineteenth century. We had been on several family holidays on the island of Alderney in the Channel Islands when I was young, but it was only on this holiday, when all the family had reunited on the island and I was in my late 30’s, that my dad began to talk of Harriet. As I tried to imagine her life back then and could see red coated soldiers marching along the bay from the fort towards the harbour, the seed of Riduna was planted in my mind.”

Returning to my opening question, I had a similar moment of inspiration although the setting for this could not have been more different.

I was visiting the Woolston area of Southampton with my parents one weekend; a trip down memory lane for both of them since they grew up in the area and for me it also evoked happy times visiting my grandmother who lived in Newtown Road.

We walked down to where the floating bridge used to leave the shores of Woolston for Southampton over the River Itchen, now under the shadow of the new bridge. Here we read the tastefully embossed plaque which commemorates the birth of the Spitfire.  Next we ambled further north along the river’s edge to try to locate the site of Supermarine. Eventually we found the slipway in front of a higgledy piggledy assortment of buildings and from old photographs we had seen, we knew that that this was the place.

Mum and Dad standing on the Supermarine slipway

While I stood there my imagination was running overdrive thinking of the momentous events in history conceived on this very spot from ‘Supermarine
to Spitfire,’  for which we have RJ Mitchell among others to thank. Then I began to think of the effect on the local businesses, the local economy, the banter in the public houses and the lives of everyday people. My desire for a new journey of research had been granted.

This blog will be the last in my series related to the history of aviation but as soon as my new novel is published I will return; covering topics which will include:

Solent Sky – The Southampton museum in the history of local aviation

Calshot

The Shuttleworth Collection – The archives, the museum itself

Aviation in the Channel Islands

Sea planes and flying boats

Sea plane development

Book reviews I used for my research

…………………………………….

To name but a few directly to related to flight, but my reseach also took to many other places where I met an interesting variety of enthusiastic people!

Leave a comment

Filed under Blogs, Channel Islands, Early Flight, Family History, Flying Boats and Sea Planes, History of Alderney, Riduna, Southampton, Supermarine, The Shuttleworth Collection, Weston Shore, Woolston

Tagged as , , , , ,