Tag Archives: Inspiration to write a novel

April 12, 2023 · 9:57 am

Harriet and Thomas Jackson ~1870’s to 1890’s

Renier ~ Quesnel ~ Hopkins ~ Jackson

Harriet Hopkins born 1871

Harriet, my great grandmother was brought up by her grandparents having been orphaned at the age of eight. When she was about fifteen she became too much to handle (Elizabeth ((Renier/Quesnel)) and John Taylor) and was sent to an aunt’s on the island of Guernsey. Her story fascinated me.

Through her love of dancing she met Thomas Jackson:

Born in 1865

Thomas and Harriet were married in Trinity Church, St Peter Port, Guernsey, on 20th November 1970

Harriet and Thomas lived with Thomas’s parents in 1891:

They started a family on Guernsey:

Thomas & James Jackson

Also note here that Harriet is now listed as Jane, which she was known by for the remainder of her life.

Hilda and Arthur Jackson

Jane (Harriet) and Thomas Jackson had four children before they relocated from Guernsey to Woolston Southampton on mainland Britain in search of work, taking the children with them. Yet again my imagination was stirred and inspired in Riduna (although the dates in fiction were not true to the family by this time.)

2 Comments

Filed under Channel Islands, Family History, Inspiration, Woolston

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 26, 2012 · 1:28 pm

Inspiration for my novel writing ~ The five elements influencing my blog

There are now five major influences on my creative writing although these are ever evolving:

  1. My Family History ~ My quest to find out that my great-grandmother who was born on the island of Alderney and, not out of choice, relocated to Woolston Southampton.
  2. The island of Alderney itself. It is wild, beautiful and like no other and each time I visit I come to love it more.
  3. Woolston, Southampton, which holds many happy memories of visits to grandparents and holidays as a child.
  4. Social History ~ learning, and to a certain amount predicting, how events in history had an impact on everyday lives.
  5. Early Flight ~ With my uncle and grandpa working at Supermarine before the war, until it was bombed and they were relocated. Once I started my research I became fascinated by those early pilots; their daring in venturing into the unknown.

I have written a great deal about one, two and three above and so my next two blogs will focus on four and five. You can see these influences in the cloud of topics to the right hand side of this blog and, for those of you who like things neat and structured, I apologise. I can only follow where my heart leads me and I am glad many of you have enjoyed and shared my thoughts.

My ideas for future writing are beyond these five elements, but all seem to share a common thread.

What are the influences in your writing?

Leave a comment

Filed under Blogs, Writing a novel

Tagged as , , , ,