The Sealed Knot at Claydon House

I write all kinds of stuff on this blog. The stuff of my life. My books, short stories, my failures, my victories.

Well, this weekend about 2000 Sealed Knot re-enactors will be at the home of the Verney Family for the Sealed Knot's 50th Anniversary.

It's going to be a fabulous event, over 200 living history tents, the backdrop of the house - a real Sword Divided family. Father Ralph the Royalist Standard Bearer and son Ralph a member of Parliament. In between them, the women of the family, daughters, wives, aunts, grandmas.

The famous story of Sir Ralph the Standard Bearer, holding so tight to the King's standard that the only way to get it from him, even after death, was to cut his hand off. The ring on that hand was returned to the family, but Sir Ralph's body was never found. His ghost is said to haunt Edgehill battlefield looking for his lost hand.

Then there was the son, trying to keep the estate together as a Parliamentarian, while his father fought and died for the King.

The mysterious burnt arm portrait in the upper gallery. Look what they have done to us...

Daughter Mal's desperate pleas for help when she found herself with child in London. "Mend me or end me." She wrote to her brother.

I have researched the 17th Century for so many years now that if I were to meet any of these people in the flesh I would know them as friends. I know more about that time than the century I live in now.

I will be on the living history demonstrating the cures of a Goodwyfe, taking musket balls out of the wounded, and binding them with bandages. I will show how pox marks will be covered by ladies, soap of the day, antiseptics etc.

Here are some photos to get you in the mood for the weekend:

Quiet, peaceful, but the war is coming and no-one will escape.
 

 

Life...the Universe...and anything.

Today I watched a mother murder her child on YouTube. It was a Crime programme from the USA.
On Facebook I saw an eagle being pulled from the front grill of a car and released back into the world by a couple of kind Americans.
On Twitter I saw an Orca whale grieiving for her deceased baby.
Too much.
Too much pain.
Too much information.
Not enough Kindness.

Mostly I feel nothing. I don't want to feel like this. As a writer I should be motivated by the stories I see and hear.

We are bombarded by facts, figures, politics, cute kittens and dogs, murder, mayhem, etc.
Reams and reams of it.

Trump taking war into space with his "Space Force". What a moron, every day he wakes up he does something so unspeakably evil and hypocrytical, and lies through his false teeth.
He should be impeached, the only President who is a self confessed traitor.

Meanwhile, a woman whose only crime was to go to Iran to visit her parents has now been moved into a prison for political prisoners. She is being helped to live through this terrible time by the other inmates. Nazazin Zaghary Radcliffe's life is wasting away in this hell.

Why is it when we all pull together so that we can get where we're going faster - is it that some-one always cuts the rope?

My latest book is finished. It combines the stories of several women, trying to live through a war not of their making. Where the United Kingdom is being torn apart by two rival factions.
Sound familiar?

History repeats itself and yet no-one learns from it.

I try and look for the good, but it's getting harder to find. 

We are in Sodom and Gormorrah, at the moment. Self centred narcissistic sexually profligate, non binary, WTF?  

I think it was GK Chesterton who said that if man doesn't believe in God, he'll believe in anything. Seems to be true.

I believe there is goodness in the world, kindness, sense, happiness. We just need to get it back. 

I know there is more to this life than flesh and blood. I want men to stop making their own Gods. 

Here we go then  Norman Greenbaum - enjoy - God can be fun.  No I'm not really a Jesus Freak, as I said before in these blogs. I believe in everything. From Angels to the Loch Ness monster, but I think there's room for God as well.

https://youtu.be/-cXrEPNvRO8?t=52







 
 

Romance

There doesn't seem enough of it around.  Years ago before people could phone each other, twitter, insta, or facebook, there was the chance for lovers to express themselves on pen and paper.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How do I love thee, let me count the ways."
Carol Anne Downing "Warming my lady's pearls."
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116 " the one that starts - Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when alteration finds..."

Recently I have been thinking about my husband.

In my minds' eye, I see him steadfast, tall, holding his dying brother's hand. A hand that looked exactly like his own. Looking into the far distance and keeping his brother company in his last moments.

I loved him so much at that time.

I watch him sleep. When we first got together it was because I was frightened he would hear me snore. But now I watch his chest rise and fall silently, listening to the comforting purr of his breathing. 

He is my good sense, my touchstone, my best friend and collaborator in all things.
We have our secret world.

His smile makes me smile. He is kind, clever, loving and capable.

Yet doesn't see it.

He has sat with me many hours in the Hospital holding my hand. Comforting me, making me laugh, making me brave enough to face all the tests I  had to undergo. 

We wake and look at the sunrise together, we shower together, recently this, as I have problems with balance. 

I look in his olive green eyes and I still see the young man I fell in love with, the young man who bought me lunch at work when I was living on Mars bars, so that I could pay a mortgage and bring up my son on my own.

It's been twenty two years since he walked into the BBC Studio where I worked and we were introduced to each other.

We were fast friends almost immediately. Confiding in each other, and being stupid together, going for long drives after work, so long at one time that we were reported missing to the police!

I love him more every day, even though the times have been hard these past three years for us. Illness, bereavements, estrangements from those we loved.

So many memories now, and so many more to make.  

I was lucky to find the love of my life, and as dear Jane Austen says in Pride and Prejudice, 'Reader, I married him.'
 

Short Story freebie

Copyright © Margaret Cooper-Evans

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of he copyright owners.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

CLARA ROCK

It had been a year since Danny died.

I still go over that day in my mind every morning as I squeeze onto the 7.45 train with hundreds of familiar strangers. We jolt along in the sufforcatingly hot carriage,the air conditioning never seems to work on this line. As we move towards Marylebone Station, that day starts inside my head - again, as it has done for the past twelve months.PTSD I suppose. It's not likely I can ever forget.

I changed my name to Clara Rock, the place he died, so I wouldn't.

Thinking back, it was an easy climb, we'd done it a couple of times before. He was roped, for some reason he didn't want to wear a harness like the rest of us. Not exciting enough for him, I suppose.

Clive was above him,I was below.

I see him falling, smiling, laughing - almost like he was on a ride at Alton Towers. 

He'd slipped before. Done this before. Big joke. But this time he had unscrewed his carbiners. He had done it. On purpose.

He grinned up at us as he fell.

The shock was terrible for all of us. 

Especially me. 

What should have been a stunning dream holiday in the Far West of Cornwall had suddenly turned into a nightmare.

The train shuddered to a halt, bringing me back to the moment, I thought I should have got the fast train, but it had been cancelled. As I walked out of the station towards Baker Street,

I felt choked as the memories flooded back. I made my way to work as usual, along the hot pavements.

I had to crowd fund his funeral. He had no money. None. 

He didn't own anything of value. His flat was a mess, we just put everything in the skip across the road by the demolition site. His Landlady said she wouldn't charge us back rent if we could leave it as it was when he moved in.

Immaculate.

It took three weeks; cleaning, painting the walls, taking the bottles,newspapers, girly mags, and clothes to the recycling.

How could a twenty six year old guy have so much crap in his flat? 

His parents came down to help. His father stared disbelievingly at the remnants of his son's life, trying to make sense of it. His mother cleaned and tidied as if he was coming back that day, and she had to have it ready for him. She stood, red eyed in the kitchen amongst the take away trays and burger wrappings, tears falling. The only thing he had in the fridge was a fine growth of green furry mould.

I walked into the office. Executive Travel. My job was to shovel would be tourists onto over booked planes. I got well paid for it, but it was boring. My RayBans blocked the flare from the car windows in the street, and disguised my tears from passers by.

I wanted to take today off, but Olivia had beaten me to it. So I wasn't allowed. Fucking Olivia. who had only met Danny through me, had taken a week off.

I had been his girlfriend.

 I turned my computer on and went into the back to make the coffees.

"Mawning darling." Clive drawled, dropping his manbag by his seat, and walking into the back to get his coffee."How are we on the first anniversary of Danny's death?"

"Oh you know." I handed him his black, no sugar. "Fucked up."

He smiled, "He was a bastard wasn't he?"

"The best kind." I sat at my computer and opened up the bookings screen.

Danny's face popped up as an emoji waving at me.

"I suppose you think that's funny!" I snarled at Clive turning the screen towards him.

"Not me darling, I'm surprised you think it was." He came to look over my shoulder as I turned the screen back towards me.

He fiddled with the keyboard. He was wearing expensive aftershave that filled my nostrils.

Clive was tall, handsome, well manicured. I wondered for a moment why all the really good looking guys were gay.

"Look at this, he sent this the week before we went to Cornwall."

"So he knew what he was going to do?" I asked.

"Obviously." Clive squatted beside my chair, "Perhaps there's more."

"He didn't leave a note at the flat." I said feeling weird.

Suddenly the shop door opened with the bell ringing. A fat middle aged woman with dyed purple hair, wearing an oversized orange tee shirt opened the door for her even fatter husband. She had tattoos of her grandchildren on both arms.

"Can Coon." She breathed heavily as she waddled into the shop. "Got any fing for Can Coon?"  She elongated the word as Cockneys do.

Clive stood up. Suddenly very masculine. "When are you thinking of going?" He asked.

I took the cups back to the kitchen. Danny had joined us last year as a temp, but as he could sell snow to Eskimos, he was very quickly made permanent.

So the four of us, Clive, Danny, Olivia and me became not just a sales team, but a kind of disfunctional family. That sometimes included Clive's partner Miffy.

Danny was the life and soul of our party, he dared us to go on adventures. All on staff discount. So weekends were spent caving, bungee jumping, canoeing, paragliding, you name it. Week after week with Danny and his dares. We were getting exhausted, but no one wanted to be the first to give in.

More and more excessive adventures followed until one day, in the pub after work, Clive said, "darlings, I'm suffering from adrenalin overload, and my poor Miffy hasn't spent any real time with me in weeks." He sipped his drink. "What about doing something a little safer? Miffy can watch us from a Hotel balcony by the sea as he sips his cocktails."  He smiled, "we can still go out and try and kill ourselves."

"Clara Rock." Danny spurted enthusiastically. "I've always wanted to climb Clara Rock since I was a kid."

"Where is it?" I asked sipping my Margarita, "I can't afford a long haul flight this month."

I remembered the pile of brown envelopes containing bills, mounting up on my table at home, waiting to be paid.

"Cornwall," he grinned. He was handsome when he smiled."We can drive down, a road trip. What do you think?"

"I'm in!" Oliva fluttered her eyelashes at Danny as she smiled. She'd fancied the pants off him from the moment he came into work for us.

She didn't know it, but I was the one he was sleeping with.

"Sounds lovely." Clive finished his drink. "We need to learn the ropes so to speak, what say we go to the climbing wall at CMK on Sunday? Miffy can do a bit of shopping."

"CMK?" Danny smiled puzzled, "what's that?"

"Central Milton Keynes," I answered. "It's got a ski slope, a climbing wall, a sky diving air tunnel."

Danny was immediately enthusiastic. "Lets do the lot! Come on guys, you only live once."

"Climbing." Clive pursed his lips. "We need to learn how to climb, to practice. That's all I'm doing."

So we practised, we learned the ropes, the techniques, the equipment. We climbed plastic walls, we climbed Mam Tor in the Peak district, we even climbed Clara Rock a couple of times, though not quite to the top.

What was different that day, I couldn't tell you. We were all up for it. Danny more than the rest of us.

It was now a year later and he was gone.

That evening Clive invited Olivia and me to his flat in Finchley. His Miffy made us cocktails and we toasted Danny's life, laughing about the dares he got us to do.

"Is it time to see the film I shot that day?" Miffy asked slightly worried."Are you ready?"

We all nodded in agreement.

The huge flat screen tv was switched on and the memory card inserted into it's side.

We watched ourselves climbing the huge stack of rock. Seagulls circling us screeching through the bright blue sky, thinking we were after their eggs. The scenery was stunning, the sea was a beautiful turquoise green against the white sand on the beach. 

We looked quite professional, roped together, a steady climb. Lots of easy foot and hand holds. This time we reached the top and stood taking in the view. Clive waved to Miffy on the opposite cliff top and blew him kisses. So we all did and fell about laughing.

Danny had bought our picnic from M&S, salmon in pink gin, creme caramels and a bottle of raspberry and elderberry wine. An explosion of tastes that didn't go together. Just like us.

Just like Danny.

We watched hawk eyed as we made our descent. Danny was unscrewing his caribiners as we absailed down, he freed the rope, and fell. He passed us, smiling and waving.

He said something as he fell.

Miffy stopped the shot so that we could make it out.

It wasn't goodbye. 

It was YouTube.

We stared at each other for a moment. Clive picked up his laptop and went on to YouTube. 

"What do I look for?" He asked frustrated.

"Danny Seagull." I suggested, "It's his work log in."

Miffy took the laptop and typed it in. After scrolling through films of seagulls nicking ice creams and chips, he found it. Danny Seagull adventures.

Danny's bright tanned handsome face popped up.

"Hi guys, took you long enough." He was sitting on the balcony of our hired villa in Cornwall.

The sea was bright blue against the white of the walls of the villa. "So, I'd better tell you then, hadn't I?  Clive. Stop frowning, your forehead will look like a bum crack!" He laughed.

Clive rubbed a hand over his face.

"I just wanted to say I couldn't have spent my last year with better people." He sipped a cloudy lemonade he had on the table and smiled.

"Oh, Clive and Claire, thanks for all the sex!"

Miffy frowned at Clive, who looked puzzled, and Olivia frowned at me because she thought it was true.

Danny laughed loudly. "I wish I could see you faces, what a joke!"

"Turn it off!" Olivia pouted.

"No!" Clive, Miffy and I stared at her.

"OK, time to get serious. I have a brain tumour. Cancer. Inoperable. I'm going to slowly lose my marbles, my bodily functions, and myself." He sighed, but he was still smiling. "So I spent every penny I earned, probably more, and had as many adventures as I could with you guys." His eyes softened, "but today is the day I say goodbye. Yesterday I couldn't pick up my razor, today I have a massive headache, so I know what's coming next."

We all gasped in shock.

"See this?" He picked up the cloudy lemonade."It's so full of drugs that I won't feel a thing. Just pleasure." He laughed again. "Yeah, I'm a great big shit. I hope you'll all forgive me, extenuating circumstances and all that." He stood up. "Well, time to go, you're all waiting for me by the car." He looked straight into the camera. "Really love you guys."

He switched off.

Silence.

Miffy picked up his cocktail "To that great big shit Danny Seagull."

"Danny Seagull." we echoed, laughing and crying at the same time.

   

Standing on my Shoulders

In 2014 about this time of year I fell ill with a mysterious virus. For while it was touch and go. I was told to lie in bed and not move, as I started my recovery.

I had bad days, very bad days, and days when I could just about manage.

It was at this time I wrote my first history book. The Women of the English Civil War. During my travels with the Sealed Knot re-enactment society, over the previous fifteen years, I had gathered information and researched the lives of the women of the 17th Century.  As I thought my time was coming to a close, and was told I must not get out of bed, I'd use the time to write the book I always meant to get round to doing.

Obviously I'm still here. Despite the last two years of recurring illness, I'm making headway again. This is me on the right last week. Happy, being a lady who lunches with my friend.

My book is still selling well, in fact I have written quite a few books now, some for fun, some were requested, some for competitions. 

My 'The Women of the English Civil War' has been used in research for PHD study, for dissertations, parts of it copied and sold on by people who thought I wouldn't find out.
A Guardian article a couple of days ago, The BBC History Magazine, a few months ago.

Now books are being written and sold, on various ladies, from my Women of the English Civil War using my research. Is it serendipity? Is it the Zeitgheist?  Or is it that History is the same story told again and again?

Now I might have believed any of the above, if I hadn't actually spoken to the relatives of the women in my book, from whom I got my information. If I hadn't found information hidden for years in the Ashmolean where I worked, doing research on the exhibits, as part of my job.

At the time (2014) there was hardly any recognition of the contribution that women made during the English Civil Wars, which was why I'd written my book. So,I self published on Amazon. Later I started Nuova Stella Publishing with my husband Andrew to promote my books and other rising new stars.

An agent told me recently that there was no call for women's history fictional or otherwise. The market was dropping. The following week The Witchfinders Sister, and the Apothecaries Daughter appeared and they went down a storm. One of them being a Richard and Judy's Bookclub of the week winner.

The book I have just finished is called "A Farthing for Oxford". It is about one woman's life during the English Civil War and the ensuing Protectorate. It has been written and re-written until it was perfect, and should be out on Amazon soon in book form.

This woman is not an appendage to a man. She is her own woman, as far as she is allowed to be, by the time she lives in.

Anne Farthing my central character is affected by a mixture of events in her life, that had actually happened to many of the women that I researched for Women of the English Civil War. An agent told me it was too realistic and people didn't want to know about everyday life in the 17th Century. It was too much like a history book.

So I concentrated on the story and took out the irrelevant historical facts (rewrite 3 & 4).

I stood on no-one's shoulders to give me an up with my recent book. 

I copied nothing, I researched everything. I lived it in part, as a re-enactor for the past 20 years. I used 17thC diaries of various women, waded through outrageous spellings and hundreds of pages of what women thought was important to them at that time.

Most of my books have 4 or 5 star reviews.

None of my books are zombie books, all of them sell. So I hope Farthing will not only sell,
but be the first of my books to be reviewed by a newspaper, and BBC History Magazine, with whom I have a love hate relationship. Love the fact they use my work. Hate they put another person's name on it.

Life choices

Firstly I have to apologise for the adverts that appear on my blog. It seems I have no control on what rubbish they put up and I certainly don't get paid for it. I really must try to get some control of that.

Control - interesting word.

How much control do I actually have over anything? 

When I left education I wanted to be a writer or an artist. My father pushed me towards secretarial work, as to him, money was more important than ambition. He filled in forms for me and got me an interview with the Civil Service Registry of Business names. 

In my innocence I had been writing to apply for jobs with large newspapers, and advertising agencies my degree was Fine Art. Not really relevant to either, but with no other guidance I wrote on my little typewriter to people at the top. Not the personnel departments!

I have a lovely letter from Marjorie Proops who replied to the letter I wrote asking for a job at the Daily Mirror. She told me I'd have to do at least a year or more on a local paper, to get some experience. Then apply for junior jobs as they were advertised.

I was disappointed, there was no way I wanted to work for The Hackney Gazette for two years. 

So I wrote to the CEO of a huge London Advertising agency, who when he'd finished laughing at the gall of a young woman straight out of Uni, phoned to say that there were more artists than jobs for them and to give up that line of enquiry.

I kept writing, had romances published in Jackie, Woman, and Woman's Own. I also illustrated other peoples articles and books, I sold paintings on a sell or return basis to an artists supply shop in Oxford Street.  Apparently my innocent views of the Irish countryside where we used to holiday, were bought by quite a few Americans.

All money I earned had to go to my Mum and Dad. His reasoning being he'd kept me all these years, so now it was time to pay back. I told him I didn't ask to be born.  Wow! Boy, that was a mistake, I think you could have heard his explosion in Australia!

So I worked for the Civil Service and hated it. Even applied for the Diplomatic Service, unfortunately my father's political views were unacceptable to the interview committee.

One day I saw a job in the Guardian for a job at ITN, applied and got it. Helped out in the newsroom and in the graphics department and had a great time learning the ropes. I wanted to move on, but ITN was a small company based in Wells Street in the West End, and there was no-where that was a "fit" for me. 

However BBC Broadcasting House was just around the corner in Portland Place, I had an interview and worked for them in Staff Training, where I learnt heaps, doing a camera and radio course alongside the other trainees, after I had set up the equipment for them.

I found that in the BBC and my writing and artistic skills were appreciated through the camerawork and early computer generating caption machines.Even though in the BBC in the 80s a great deal of lipwork was given to equalities, if you were a woman, it really wasn't easy.  It was the best and worst time of my life.

So here I am now. I have worked in the Tourist and Museum Industry for over 15 years after my BBC redundancy. I have been lucky that whoever had the control over what I did next had my best interests at heart (thank you Guardians/Angels/Universe). At times I have felt I have been in a bumper car on the Dodgems at the fair, crashing into this and that.

Now, I am actually doing what I love. Writing. History. Cooking. Making historical clothing.
So I got there in the end. I have the control.

Have a great weekend everybody. Much love.



 

That time of year again

We worked on the garden till it got dark, it was cool after 7pm so we went and deadheaded the roses, cut the lavender, the savoury, pulled the weeds and couch grass out.

I bound the lavender and savoury to dry for my living history. I have made jams and jellies out of our big crop of strawberries. The pears are growing well and the blueberries. I have already stewed and frozen Rhubarb, and the garlic, sage and fennel have a little way to go yet before cropping.

Roses abound, this year I have made rose water from the deep red roses and I have dried bay leaves for cooking. Although the poor bay tree is scorched from the sun now.

Our next foray out with the Sealed Knot is coming soon. Almost everything is ready.

Could I live in the real 17th Century? People did, but they understood the rules and abided by them. I've never been good at rules, I'd probably be put in the stocks or burnt as a witch if I couldn't learn to keep my head down.

Some photos of our plants for you.

 Have a good week everyone.