It's finished.

When you finish a book it's like saying goodbye to an old friend. Having worked on it and researched it and lived it for a year or so, suddenly it's gone.

It's like taking your child to Uni for the first time, please like him, please don't hurt him, please let him be a big success. You watch as they go through the doors not even looking back!

So now what do I do? I told myself I would give myself a break from writing for a week or so and do some of the other things I love. Painting, drawing, making 17thC clothes.

Feel a bit lost. 

Why doesn't he write? Has he got his new jacket on yet?

What I normally do when I fell like this is clean. My house is always clean, since I had a TIA two years ago it has never been cleaner.  OCD was one of the lasting side effects. I can live with that. I have to live with that!

The TV remotes are lined up in size order.
The cup coasters are exactly the same way round and half an inch from the edge of the coffee table.
Cushions have to be in the correct order and in a straight line.
My clothes in the wardrobe are in colour order ranging from purples,burgundy,reds, oranges, yellows, creams, whites, greys, blacks.
Pillow cases have to be the right way round.

I try to leave mess, I know OCD is not normal. At the moment I have books all over the place, as I've been working, and they will go back into my library, in size, colour, author,century order. I have been looking at them neatly stacked on the desk for days, my fingers itching to organise them.

Sometimes I crumble and put them away, only to get them out again as I need them!

I have gold and white coffee cups for coffee at 11.am
I have cat mugs while I'm working for a cup of tea.
I have a blue and white Viking cup which marks the end of my working day.

Routines which if they're messed with throw me a curve ball. 
No-one understands, I don't understand. Hubby tries!

Recently adopted a kitten, none of this makes any sense to him. Nor should it. I quite often type with him draped across my neck like a necklace. He wrecks the place during his crazy time, racing round the place like a bike on the wall of death!

Good for me. Makes me laugh!

 My other cat is like me, prissy neat and tidy

Can't take my eyes off those books, must get on.

 

The Sealed Knot and Me

A long time ago in a land far away.  No not really. 

Nothing much changes.

I was working for the Beeb, there was a Thatcher government, bird flu, aids, in the process of divorcing my husband, in the Union trying to prevent redundancies or at least get decent payments for those who had been told to go. Working long shifts because if I went home on time I was called a "part timer". Producer choice was thrown into the mix. 

I wanted to hit something. Anything. Hard.

I went to a Sealed Knot re-enactment in a little town called Stony Stratford. It was huge it was colourful, there was fighting, muskets, marching, the participants off the field drank and laughed a lot.

I was walking past a big white tent when the friend I was with shoved me through the flaps  for a joke! Straight into see a large gentleman in colourful striped breeches, who grabbed my hand shoved a pen into it, and helped me write my name on a list.

"My name's John, you have just joined The King's Army." he grinned twisting his impressive white moustache. "See you at the Cock Inn seven thirty Friday."
"But but..." I stuttered as he pushed me out of the next to grab the next recruit. 
"Well," she said as we walked away, "You were looking for something to do, go for it, this might be it."

It was. 

They say if you stay in The Sealed Knot for two years you're in for life. 
So twenty years later here I am.  

Promoted to Goodwyfe of Leven's Regiment of the Kings Guard.

During the early days I was a musketeer. I lay on the earth that had been soaked with the blood of the actual dead and wounded of the Civil Wars. I dressed as a man on the field and off it a woman, wearing some beautiful 17thC dresses to the beer tent in the evening.

At Stratton in Cornwall, my new friend Sue who was pretty much going through the same as me were watching the 17thC rope dance. 
"Wonder how we get into this?" I asked. Didn't have wait to find out, we were grabbed by the hands and pulled into the swirling group of laughing dancers. Dizzy and happy we laughed our way back to our drinks.

My son joined with me and went into the apprentices, he loved the cameraderie of it all. So did I. I felt I had a family again, as my BBC family fell apart so The Sealed Knot stepped up to fill the gap. So many adventures, travels up and down the country, romances, beer tents.
I loved waking up in the morning to open the tent and see a Castle or Historic House right outside, and it was mine to play in!

I have always loved history, and researched every place we went, learnt as much as I could about the part I re-enacted, wrote little articles for history magazines. The rest as they say is....

History. Each medal represents a Sealed Knot event that I attended. I have over 200 of them now. this is a small selection.

The Living History encampment at Claydon House.

 

And as if dressing up for re-enactment wasn't enough, every Bank Holiday, there is a fancy dress theme, where all the regiments try to out do each other. Last years was quite tame - the 1960s.

In the past I have been witness to an iceberg complete with Seals and explorers, followed by the Titanic.  (Disaster Movies theme!)   We had the Disney theme, Little Mermaid sitting on a giant shell followed by an octopus. Hercules leaping round the beer tent back in the day.  We've had Scooby doo and gang, we've had Gladiator,part of the favourite films theme. But I guess we're all getting older and taming down a weeny bit!

 

 

The BBC and me

The BBC has always been controversial. 

On my induction course when I first stepped over the doorstep of Broadcasting House, one of the first things I was told was never, ever, try to sue the BBC. We have bigger and better lawyers than you could possibly afford.

The BBC has always been in the firing line from the Government of the day. They were so worried about it's impartiality that some Governments did all they could to try and scupper it.

When Cameron was in power, he placed many of his friends in the BBC in influencial positions, so we have today a BBC fighting for it's life because it's lost it's impartiality. 

Where do I come into all this?  You may ask. Well to a certain extent the BBC made me what I am today. It was the start of my career. 

I was lucky enough to work with intelligent well informed people, go into Engineering and find that I liked it, became a family with the people I worked with, married one of them. Stood up for them by becoming a Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union rep, or BECTU as it's commonly known.

I have done many film shots that have stuck in my head for years. Filming foetus' for the Open University, to show a baby's growth from start to finish. Arriving in glass jars to be laid out showing how the child grows. Real dead babies, that had to be sprayed with water to stop them burning under the lights. That could not be left alone in the studio, in a closed set with just me the camerawoman, the producer and a member of staff from the hospital museum.

Then there was the executions. Men and women tied to posts and shot. Brains stuck to the wood. Being told that some of the firers had blanks loaded into their guns so that no-one knew who actually committed the executions.

The thing is that you can swing from the macabre to the entertaining in a couple of days.

I loved watching Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews sing together at the 2000 Jules Holland  Hootenanny.  Thought Dale Winton was incredibly funny when he asked us to spread a rumour that he was actually straight and married. Was absolutely so priviledged to work with many wonderful people, to meet and greet stars and take them to the green room or to their meetings.

The BBC was home and family and all encompassing work to me from the age of 22.
Suddenly it was gone. Redundancy.

I worked freelance for a few years, then as I got older, I found my experience was no longer needed, so I decided to employ myself.  We moved to Cornwall with my husbands job bringing money from the EU into a poor area. I let a little holiday cottage I bought with my redundancy. I ran Coppernob Design with my son, making websites and promotional material, and I wrote. 

Been an incredible life, and I have been so lucky in some respects, and it's not over yet. I still think I'm in my thirties.  

Now I write full time, using the wealth of my experiences, stealing personalities and characters from people I have met, to fill my books with real men and women.

Just finished my Legend of The Rollright Stones. In proofreading stage at the moment, needs cover design, and off I go again on another adventure.


 

Elizabeth Cromwell

I wrote this article for the Sealed Knot Magazine, I don't knw if it will be used. It's abbreviated from my book The Women of the English Civil War, I always try to find little known facts about the women I write about as I don't think they should be forgotten.

Elizabeth Cromwell

1598 – 1665

Elizabeth Cromwell is almost forgotten in history. In the films made about Cromwell's life she is a figure in the background, hardly there. Invisible. She was eclipsed by her husband and finding out anything about her was a difficult task.

She was born into the wealthy merchant classes to Frances Crane and Sir James Bouchier of Felstead in Essex. She was not particularly a beauty, and had a defect in her eye. Samuel Cooper's portraits of her do not show this and he describes her as “neither uncomely or undignified in person”.

What we do know about Elizabeth was that she was a good cook, and one of her recipe books still exists in the Cromwell Museum in Ely.

Elizabeth bore Oliver his “two families” of nine children, seven of whom lived to maturity. The first family consisted of Robert born 1621,Oliver 1622, Bridget 1624, Richard 1626, (his successor), Henry 1628, Elizabeth 1629 (his favourite daughter).There was a five year gap in her child bearing while Oliver was MP for Huntingdon. Then followed James,1632, died in infancy. Then Mary in 1637, and Frances in 1638. So Elizabeth always had her hands full with her children. In letters to Elizabeth, Oliver always refers to her children!

For a woman whose life revolved around hearth and home, it must have been hard for this ordinary housewife and mother to be thrown into the turbulent politics of the day.

She was accused of influencing her husband by Col. Lilburne who said she was : “steering the helm as well as turning the spit.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth, Oliver was his own man.

She was also called “Joan” by the Cavaliers, an insulting name given to a common or rough woman, and accused her of drunkenness.

When she moved from her farm in Ely to the Cockpit in London while the palace of Westminster was being made ready for the Lord Protector. She found herself very unhappy there.

Elizabeth and her daughter actually met King Charles when he was imprisoned at Hampton Court, it is said they had lunch with the King's gaoler Mr. Ashburnum, afterwards.

There are some moments in Elizabeth's life that stand out. It is known that she employed six daughters of clergymen to do needlework for her in her own apartments. It was her way of protecting these young women when there were not enough young men left to marry and keep them.

Another was when she asked Oliver to recall Charles II back to the throne. Influenced no doubt by Elizabeth Dysart of the original Sealed Knot.

When Oliver died in 1658, and after his son's abortive attempt to take his place, in 1660, Elizabeth tried to take some of the King's possessions with her when she left Whitehall. Hiding them in a fruiterer's warehouse in Thames Street, but they were discovered and returned to Whitehall.

So scared of the Cavalier reprisals, Elizabeth faked her own death and eusscaped to Wales to live while the excitement of the Restoration was at it's peak.

Elizabeth wrote to Charles II pleading to go to the country and lead a quiet life. The Cavalier's were as cavalier in their forgiveness of the former Protectress Joan as they were about everything else. Except the Regicides.

She was given a pension and allowed to live out her days with her daughter Elizabeth and son in law John Claypole at Norborough in Northamptionshire.

She is buried in Norborough church.


Copyright Margaret Cooper Evans, all rights reserved. Any use of this material for any purpose without permission of the copyright owner will be prosecuted,

That foot in the mouth moment.

I've got used to the taste of foot in my mouth, the saying means that you:

1) Say something without brain engaged.

2) Tell a truth as you see it, that no-one really wants to hear.

3) Upset someone by saying something they shouldn't hear but overhear by accident

I'm great at all the above. 

I'm a fairly kind person and I really don't mean to hurt anybody, and if I do I regret it and it is by accident, and I spend the rest of the day beating myself up about it.

Working at the BBC gave me plenty of opportunity to do this, and could I stop it happening?
Apparently not.

Here's a sample of non brain engaged speaking.

On seeing a yummy mummy I knew from my son's public school, shopping in a posh supermarket with her skin looking the colour of burnt toast.
"Oh my God - what the hell happened to you?" Loud enough for whole supermarket to hear. 
"I tried a new thing," she whispered, well lets face it, there was no point whispering, everyone within earshot, was listening thanks to me. "I bought melamine tanning injections over the internet to top up my tan, I used a bit too much."
"You think?" I gasped looking at her tanning before my very eyes, already a shade darker from when I started talking to her.
"You're the only one who's noticed it." She smiled blinding me with her newly whitened teeth,

I wandered away thinking Melamine? Surely that's kitchen worktop stuff, but bit my tongue,
thinking she's had enough trauma for one day.

Here's an example of the truth no-one really wants to hear.

I ws Pouring tea and coffee in the green room for actors waiting to go on set in the 1990s. I as always chatted to them. One of them, a really handsome chap called Richard Morant was talking about how old he was.  I had worked with him before and knew how old he was, and when he told his age to the younger actors. I immediately spurted out jokingly, "Oh you're such a liar! I worked with you on Poldark in the 70s."
Silence, then laughter. I was told in no uncertain terms that all actors lie about their age and that was how they got their jobs. He's dead now, so very sad, and I hope he forgave me, a silly young woman.

Finally,
Upset someone by saying something they shouldn't hear but overhear by accident.

Walking to the canteen with my current husband, who is 15 years younger than me, we were discussing the shoot.
"Who's the woman actor?" He asked "I don't think I've seen her before."
"She was a Liver Bird," I replied
He looked blank at me and shrugged his Goth shoulders, "Would I recognise her?"
"I doubt it, it was a long time ago, she changed a lot, bit of a Deader Bird now."
Suddenly hearing the clip clop of Nerys' Hughes heels in the corridor behind us we turned to see her with a face like thunder. I should have apologised, yes I should, but I laughed out of shock.
  Apologies to all those famous people over the years I have hurt by accident, trying to impress others with my "knowledge". What this has done though, is help with my writing. Every character good or bad that I have ever met, appear in my books. The nice and the nasty. They say write about what you know, so I do.
 

The Knight the Witch and the Djinn

My new book, in the proof reading, checking timeline, checking continuity stage.
 Need to get it out as soon as possible. The Rollright Stones where my book is based is under threat. 

Why?  Roads. A road through the most beautiful and peaceful part of the Cotswolds. 
As a bypass for Chipping Norton.

Instigated by Chipping Norton council who seem to think that the site that has thousands of visitors a year, is a spiritual refuge for pagans and wiccans, and a prehistoric meeting area and saxon graveyard is as nothing compared to smelly horrible tarmac that cars can drive at 60mph over.

We must not lose our history, we must not lose our spiritual places, we must not tread roughshod over those who thought they found peace on that hillside.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/protect-the-ancient-rollright-stones-from-road-expansion-1

 Here's the link pass it along to anyone who has an interest in ancient sites, history.

We must save the past for the future.

Please.

What's in a name?

Shakespeare said in his play Romeo and Juliet that 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'

Would it really?  What's in a name?

I have met a Shakespeare, a Knollys (descendant of Lettice Knollys), Lord Rotheshild, there is even a Cromwell and a Darwin relative on my Twitter. Historical names, travelling down through history. My first husband was a Buxton from theTruman Hanbury & Buxton family.

No woman in history has her own surname, she has her fathers, then her husbands, even unmarried she has no name of her own. 

Then there are the acting dynasties, the Redgraves, The Foxes, The Beckinsales, The Attenboroughs,The Snows. I once worked with Lady Jane Wellesley, a descendant of he Duke of Wellington, we both did the same job at the BBC. We were both frustrated by not moving up, she had refused to use her real name wanting to get promotions on her own merit. One lunchtime I told her she should use her real name & within weeks she was a producer.

One of Jane Austen's characters  Ann Eliot's father said "oh a curate, a curate at Winthrop,  he has no name, he is a no-body"

My name, born a Cooper - a trade name - a barrel maker, a working class name, go to work get married, put food on the table, what else is there?

Actually, my Grandfather Sidney Cooper was a bookbinder, his son, my Father Sidney Cooper was a design Engineer, after being a chief aircraft engineer in the Navy. He was too young to fight in the war.

Evans, Welsh, Husband's father was on The Long Walk, a member of the Black Watch, a Scots regiment. Worked in the salt mines when captured by the enemy. If there was Welsh in that family, they moved to Scotland for some reason in the dim and distant past.

Me. Who am I?  what name is mine?  Cooper I suppose, Evans, for my husband, left Buxton for my son. My mum was a Clifford, her mum was a Burke, her cousin the Bishop of Derry, she was also a relative of the sea captain who helped discover longditude.

Your name helps you move through life, helps you earn your keep or not, leads you to interesting places, holds you steady? not sure about that.

I'm certainly jealous of those with aristocratic names, who put up miniatures of their ancestors on twitter. Here's why. They don't have to be good at what they do. Their name and connections are enough to carry them through. I have to try harder as I have no money behind me. 

Stupidly I what little money I earn I give away to charities and people in need.
Years ago  bank manager called me in to tell me I had an overdraft.(those were the days!) I told him I gave my money to Oxfam famine relief. 
He told me charity begins at home. 

A friend of mine gave me a lovely birthday present last year which sums it all up.

 

 

Fame at last!

So nice to be mentioned in the Cheshire Press and thanks to the King (Daniel) for posting this on!

Been a long January! Welcome February.

Can you believe it? This time last year it was snowing, deep enough in the Cotswolds to prevent travel down the winding potholed lanes to work in Oxford. We fed the birds in the garden to keep them alive.

Chaffinch on the snow covered bird table.

Little did we know that this would be our beloved Ted's last winter. We thought we had many years left in him.

The first cuckoo in the garden, in a frosty mist, a herald, hoping for the Spring to come.

At the end of the month, blue skies and cold sunshine, and a visit to Hilary Long's place of residence to remind myself that there was still life in Overdown. A new book followed, but did it finish Hilary's adventures or start them anew?