Category Archives: Southampton

November 22, 2012 · 4:59 pm

The Yacht Tavern ~ Woolston, Southampton

UPDATE UPDATE! I WILL BE POPPING INTO THE YACHT TAVERN WOOLSTON

AT 2.15PM

ON SATURDAY 16TH MARCH 2013

to have chat to Woolston folk as promised! (before the match)

UPDATE: APOLOGIES THAT, DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND MY CONTROL, MY BOOK SIGNING THIS SUNDAY AT THE YACHT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO TAKE PLACE IN MARCH NEXT YEAR. IF ANY WOOLSTON PEOPLE WOULD LIKE SIGNED COPIES OF ANCASTA FOR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS THEN THEY WILL BE FOR SALE IN ‘THE FUN SHACK’ ON VICTORIA STREET AND ‘CRAFT DEVIL’ ON THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD, WOOLSTON, IN A FEW DAYS TIME.

On Sunday 2nd December 2012 I am happy to be returning to The Yacht Tavern Woolston, where the friendly landlady Jacqui was so interested in my novel that she suggested I return to do a book signing at the pub! An unusual venue but it should be fun meeting and talking to local people. It is a tavern where you would more often be there to see a football match, cheering on the Saints as they play at home just over the River Itchen, or away.

Having said that, Jacqui has built up quite a library of books to enable the single visitor to feel content to enjoy a drink and perhaps a home cooked meal whilst reading. These books include those of local interest as well as a varied selection of novels. An excellent idea, I thought, on my first visit there a month ago. Some of the pictures on the walls have a local flavour too. Well worth a look!

The Yacht Tavern is in fact in the old village which was called ‘Itchen Ferry,’ and not Woolston, which was on the other side of the Floating Bridge hard. There had been a ferry across the River Itchen for hundreds of years, hence the name, but many locals still think back to the days of the Floating Bridge with nostalgia, and even fondness. Whilst rummaging though a cupboard recently I found the ‘Woolston Ferry Song‘ brought out when its service came to a halt back in June 1977, when the new bridge was opened. Click on the link for a bit of fun!

Mind you, it was a sad day for Woolston, as the little town was effectively bypassed and people are still heard to say,

“It’s just not been the same since they built the bridge!’

The whole area was bombed during the Second World War, to destroy the Supermarine Works, famous for designing and building the first Spitfires. In fact, The Yacht Tavern was the only one of three pubs in Itchen Ferry to be rebuilt after the bombing in 1940 and it still offers a warm welcome for food and drink and a place for locals to enjoy watching Saints play, even though, if they step outside, they can hear the roar of the crowds at the stadium just over the water.

The original Yacht Inn featured in my novel Ancasta Guide me Swiftly Home, and so it is apt that I should be there just before Christmas gossiping to local people, just as my menfolk did in 1912, when rumours abound as to why such famous people as Pemberton Billing were visiting the boatyards, where many of the locals worked.

So, if you are in the Southampton are on 25th November, or even better living in Woolston, then drop in at lunch time and say hello! I will be there to have a chat and sign copies of my new novel, which is set in the area. If you can’t make it then it is available in Waterstones, West Quay or you can click on the book cover to find Ancasta on Amazon:

Ancasta available on Amazon

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Filed under Ancasta, Events, Southampton, Supermarine

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October 23, 2012 · 7:58 am

BBC Radio Solent. Diana and Colin have a chat with Katie Martin

Diana, Colin and Katie

I met Colin van Geffen, (the local artist who designed my covers and historian who checked some of my facts) outside the Bitterne Heritage Centre. Both Ancasta ~ Guide me Swiftly Home and Riduna are for sale there. It seemed a fitting place to meet since that’s where my research in the area began several years ago.

Colin suggested The Yacht Tavern for our lunch, down in Itchen Ferry. For those of you who have not been locals to Woolston for very long, Itchen Ferry is the area to the north of the Woolston Bridge, the south side being Woolston, and the villagers have been very protective of their patch for a couple of hundred years or more.

The Yacht Tavern, Itchen Ferry, Woolston

The welcoming landlady Jacqui was really interested in Ancasta, and that we were going to be on Radio Solent in the afternoon. She confirmed that, although the current buildings had probably been there since that area of Woolston was regenerated in the years after WW2, (The Supermarine Works was bombed out during a severe air raid over Southampton) she believed that there was an original public house called the Yacht Inn, on the same site before the war. This confirmed the truth of some of my research and so I was able to say that The Yacht Inn is featured in Ancasta Guide me Swiftly Home. (watch this space)

We had very pleasant,freshly made baguettes before thanking Jacqui and heading over the bridge for Southampton.

Once through the security of the BBC we waited in the foyer, sipping tea and chatting. I was trying not to be too nervous, especially when it was 2.25 and we had not been called, but Colin took it all in his stride and reassured me that it was normal and any minute now we would be collected.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, the friendly face of Rebecca the producer popped her head around the door and lead us up to the studio. I had no time to worry at that point, since Katie greeted us cheerfully before we were positioned in front of two large black microphones and within moments the introductions were made, the questions came and we were on air, with no time to think.

Katie, is a natural. The conversation flowed quite naturally between the three of us, my nerves dissipated and within moments it was all over.

We took photos are were soon ushered out, with Rebecca putting us both on the spot to ask us to share any special memories on Southampton, before we left through the revolving doors.

As I tried to get to sleep last night I was buzzing with all the things I could have said to the people of Southampton.

  • Why Ancasta ~Guide me Swiftly Home is such an appropriate name for the novel and why it is part of Southampton’s important heritage.
  • Yes Ancasta tells the story of the birth of Supermarine through the eyes of the family who lived in Woolston between 1910 and 1920 but it is about far more than that – The change in women’s roles during WW1, life at Gillkicker Foft and The Queen Victoria Hospital-Netley and the role of the Hampshire 9th Cyclist Regiment in the war………… in fact the history of the area during that time, including the Titanic

On reflection though, in the light of this morning, it all went extremely well and I would like to thank Jacqui, Rebecca and Katie for making me feel so welcome.It was not only an enjoyable experience but a truly memorable day out in Southampton.

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Filed under Ancasta, Early Flight, Flying Boats and Sea Planes, Historical Fiction, Marketing your novel, Research, Riduna, Southampton, Supermarine, Woolston

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October 1, 2012 · 5:39 pm

Spike Island by Philip Hoare ~ a personal book review

The Royal Victoria Hospital Netley

Thanks to ‘Spike Island’ by Philip Hoare, The Royal Victoria Hospital came alive for me and I could easily imagine some of my characters going there. I will not say in what fashion though.

The Royal Victoria Military Hospital in Netley must have been an astonishing sight to behold on entering Southampton Water from the Solent, with its corridors so long that ‘American GI’s drove Jeeps along them in WW2.’ Philip Hoare writes about the hospital, the largest in the world at that time, in a novel like prose, rather than in text book style. He describes the unexpected and somewhat off-putting main entrance, with its skeletons in endless display; the almost self contained life of the huge community who worked there, far more than just the nurses and patients; the nissan huts stretching as far the the back as the vast quarter of a mile long facade, seen impressively from the front.

I imagine an extremely proud queen, visiting the hospital on her return from holidays in her residence on the Isle of Wight, feeling satisfied as she alighted at the hospital’s own small wooden pier, gratified that a place had been created in her name to serve her Empire well.

Like with any research, only a fraction of Spike Island was relevant for Ancasta Guide me Swiftly Home, up to 1920 but, because it was written as a personal journey of discovery, it was fascinating throughout.

I had often seen the lonely building of the chapel, in the centre of the grounds of what is now known as The Royal Victoria Park, but in all my years of visiting family in Woolston as a child I do not ever remember visiting it and certainly had not realise that this chapel, standing in isolation, was once part of a truly magnificent monument to our greatness as a nation.

Today you can still enjoy visiting the chapel and visitors centre, or go one of the many planned walks in the area, which are steeped in interesting history, but without Philip Hoare’s insight, it would be impossible to imagine a fraction of what it might have been like to have been there.

Florence Nightingale was said to not have been very impressed with the building because, leading off those long corridors bathed in light with fantastic views across Southampton Water, were row upon row of wards. Since these wards were at the back of the building, they never saw the light of day and were dark and dreary places, not so welcoming to the thousands of patients who were treated there, returning wounded in body and soul from the Crimean War, WW1 and later WW2.

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