Lydia, Polly’s overpowering elder sister, makes a brief appearance in Barefoot on the Cobbles and had a part to play in furthering the relationship between Albert and Polly. Her imperious nature highlights the attraction of Polly’s less assertive personality and it is Lydia who draws Polly to Bideford. This physical separation from Albert helps Polly to reassess her feelings.

Lydia Wakely was born in Peppercombe in 1868 and was the eldest of the five surviving daughters. She moved to Bideford to work as a dressmaker, the only one of the sisters who appears to have had a trade. In the novel, her employer was Mrs Newman, who was indeed a local dressmaker but there is no evidence for the identity of Lydia’s real life employer. I tried to give Lydia a personality that matched the facts. She saw two of her younger sisters marry before her, finally securing a husband at the age of thirty. Her spouse, William Jenkins, was a carpenter and they lived initially at Wood Cottage in Landcross. By 1911, however they were living in an 11 room home in Bay View Road, Northam and employing a live-in servant. This and her childlessness, was very different from Polly’s experiences. Lydia died in 1929.

‘ ‘I’m Miss Wakely, Lydia Wakely,’ she said, ‘and these are my younger sisters, Jane and Polly.’

The emphasis on the word younger did not escape Albert. Miss Wakely was clearly expecting that Albert would consider her sisters too childish to warrant notice.’

 Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.

Violet’s Wedding to Walter Daniel

It might be hard to believe that I tried to cull my cast of thousands in Barefoot on the Cobbles but I did and Violet was one of the candidates. She remained in the novel’s pages for two reasons, firstly because to expunge her would have left an unnaturally large gap in Albert and Polly’s family. More importantly, I needed to use the true story of her illness to explain Polly’s reaction to her other children’s ill-health. My interest in the history of medicine meant that I enjoyed researching symptoms and the likely treatments of the time.

Violet was born on the 12 June 1903 in Clovelly. She suffered from rheumatic fever as a child and was never very strong. She married Walter Daniel in 1925 and lived firstly in Upper Clovelly and later in Bideford; the couple had no children but her brother, Bertie, lived with the Daniels after the death of his parents. Violet died in 1977.

‘The next days were a frenzy of fear, as Violet lay, feverish and lethargic, in the bed that she shared with Daisy. Daisy squeezed in with the boys, so that Violet was undisturbed but still the little girl whimpered and moaned. Reluctantly, they sent for Dr Ackland, whose solemnity betrayed the seriousness of Violet’s condition.’ 

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.

Barefoot on the Cobbles is emphatically not a romance, yet it is a novel about people and people have relationships. Annie appears as a love interest for Leonard. There is an argument for removing the whole story of their courtship from the novel but I feel that it needs to be there. Leonard is not a principal player in the main events and as such, can give a different perspective. Annie is the vehicle for exploring a relationship that contrasts with Daisy’s association with Abraham.

Mary Ann (Annie) Stoneman was just a Victorian, being born twenty days before the death of Queen Victoria. She was the fifth child in a family of ten and five of her siblings died as infants. Her father, Sidney, was a labourer and the family moved frequently. Annie was born at Bulland in Parkham and as a small child spent time living with her mother’s grandmother in Clovelly. She later went to school in Monkleigh. In 1909 the family spent a few months living at Rakeham Toll House, near Torrington and Annie transferred to Frithelstock School. A family story relates that a tramp was found on the doorstep of the Toll House with his throat cut. This may be why they only spent a few months there before before moving again to Bideford, where they lived at Brookfield Terrace, East the Water.

When her step grandfather died, Annie was sent to Clovelly to help her maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Smale, in her Clovelly tea-rooms. It is here that we and Leonard, first meet her. I don’t want to give away too much of her story but she did marry and brought up her family in Bideford. She died there at the age of 97.

‘As Leonard drew level with the small panes of blemished glass his eye was drawn by a sudden movement within. Enveloped in a large, wrap-round apron, a slender girl was in the window, dusting the deep sill and readying it for the day’s display of cakes.’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.

Western Times 2 September 1915

Louisa Taylor was the superintendent nurse at the infirmary attached to Newton Abbot workhouse. It is her attitude that contributes to Albert’s sense that everything is slipping terrifyingly out of control. Although we know some of the actual words that she spoke during the trial, we know very little about her. So few clues and the surname Taylor make her very difficult to research. Although the newspaper reports of the incident that leads to her appearance in Barefoot on the Cobbles consistently refer to her as Louisa, she was probably Martha Louisa Taylor and was appointed in 1915, three years before her appearance in the book.

It is likely that she was born in Bitton, Gloucestershire on 1 January 1876 to George and Mary L Taylor; her father was a coal miner. In 1911, Martha Louisa was working as a charge nurse at the workhouse in Kenninghall, Wayland, Norfolk. She remained at Newton Abbot workhouse until at least 1929 but she later retired to Keynsham, Somerset, where she shared a home with two other retired nurses. She died in Somerset in 1958. She is just the sort of character who it is a privilege to have included, as she as no descendats to honour her memory.

‘Louisa Taylor, the superintendent nurse at the infirmary, took Albert into a cramped office. Black-covered ledgers lined the walls and untidy papers trickled over the desk. The nurse, in her sharply starched uniform, moved a pile of books from a chair and bade Albert sit down. She was a woman past middle age, with a plain but pleasing, lined face and iron grey hair. Her brisk efficiency was at odds with the state of her surroundings.’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.