The Obsessed Writer

"Elusive Dawn" Review by Writers’ Digest Magazine

2012-01-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

I was thrilled to receive this 5 star review from Writers’ Digest Magazine:

“In Elusive Dawn, author Gabriele Wills shows talent that is anything but elusive. Her skillfully crafted scenes populated by well drawn characters will pull readers into the story and not let go until the very last page. Although this is the second book in the series, it also works as a stand-alone. I appreciate some of the extras Ms. Wills incorporated into this book, including the map, the list of characters, and the “Author’s Notes” after the story ends. The author’s passion for this story shows through her powerful descriptions, emotional turning points, and bigger-than-life setting. The cover is attractive and simply elegant.

"With a story this awesome, I’m sure fans will be looking for more from Gabriele Wills…. The story is strong and has emotional arcs in all the right places. The most important thing Ms. Wills can do now is effectively market this book.”

Which is harder than researching and writing! So marketing has been put aside until Book 3 in the series is finished.

Deadly Aftermath

2011-12-19T11:34:00.000-05:00

It’s been 93 years since the last of the many millions of shells was fired in the Great War, but every year, farmers in France and Belgium still find dangerous munitions on their land. In Flanders fields alone, some 10,000 unexploded bombs are ploughed up each year. It’s known as the “Iron Harvest”, and farmers place their finds by the roadside for the bomb disposal units to collect. Ironically, people are still being killed by WW1 munitions. Canada’s Vimy Memorial apparently has one unexploded shell for every square metre, which is why there are fences and signs warning people not to stray off the paths.

So imagine how hazardous the devastated landscape was immediately after the war. That’s why I was surprised to discover that Michelin published tourist guides to the battlefields and cemeteries! I just read one about Ypres that was published in 1920. Illustrated with pictures of piles of rubble where villages had once stood, muddy, debris-ridden fields with water-filled shell-holes, and rough roads lined with naked, broken tree stumps, it gives detailed directions on what to see and how to get about. Some roads were not yet passable. Here’s a quote: “Beyond the cross-roads there is a confused heap of rails and broken trucks in the middle of shell-torn ground.”

It seems macabre to me to tour the battlefields when they are still raw, highly dangerous, and gruesome, as dead bodies were being discovered and recovered. Having said that, my own tour of them and the military cemeteries a few years ago was a powerful and moving experience.

The magnificent, medieval city of Ypres was virtually razed, as you can see in the 1919 photo above. Are the people standing there tourists, or citizens returning and trying to imagine rebuilding their homes and lives? Fortunately, they did, as you can see in this photo taken by my daughter.

Photo copyright Melanie Wills

Book Drum

2011-11-21T09:40:00.000-05:00

Would you like to see what women’s bathing suits looked like a hundred years ago? Watch antique mahogany boats zipping about? Listen to popular ragtime tunes? Then visit the profile for my novel, The Summer Before the Storm, on Book Drum, which uses annotations (Bookmarks) to enhance the reading experience.

I had immense fun choosing photos, videos, and music to “illustrate” various aspects of the novel, thereby providing more depth or ancillary information. Some of these I already use in my PowerPoint presentation, “Fact in Fiction”, so I’m excited that they’re now available to the world!

As setting is an important aspect of Book Drum, my profile also becomes advertising for Muskoka, since it is the principle focus for this novel. Already one of the key people from Book Drum has commented on the “incredible setting”.

I’m planning to spend days immersed in the rich and extensive annotations of Hemingway’s, A Moveable Feast, which I’m using for my own research into 1920s Paris. So a word of warning - this site is addictive!

How do you forget?

2011-11-10T11:13:00.001-05:00

CWGC cemetery in Etaples, France, Copyright Melanie Wills

Although the war is over when Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels begins, it lingers for many of my characters. It’s perhaps hard for us to imagine trying to rebuild lives shattered in trenches or aerial combat, and to carry on without friends, husbands, and sweethearts when life is just supposed to be beginning. Little wonder that became known as the “lost generation”.

War veterans were reluctant to talk about their horrific experiences, especially to those who weren’t there and so couldn’t really understand. Many couldn’t readjust to civilian life or were haunted by unforgettable experiences, including their own participation in the brutality. How does a young man, brought up to believe in the sanctity of life, reconcile that with his requirement to kill? The survivors often felt guilty that they didn’t lie alongside their comrades.

A few eventually wrote memoirs or thinly-disguised fiction, possibly to help exorcise the demons, leaving us with valuable insight. There’s a somewhat shocking line in Cecil Lewis’s memoir, Sagittarius Rising. As an aviator with the Royal Flying Corp (which became the RAF in 1918), he had lots of thrilling and harrowing experiences in that dangerous job where life expectancy on the front lines was about three weeks. At the end of the war, he wonders what to do with himself, saying, “I was twenty years old.”

This photo of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery at Etaples on the north coast of France can’t even begin to convey the enormity of the site or the profound sadness that you feel when walking among the nearly11,000 graves. Seeing the ages on the tombstones is heartbreaking - they are mostly young men and a few women - a Canadian nurse lies on the front right - who never had much of a chance at life. Many in Britain felt they had lost their finest young minds and potential leaders. Back home was a generation of “superfluous” women, who, outnumbering the men, would never marry and so, had to make careers for themselves. For some, the war was never really over.

Haunting and Haunted Autumn

2011-10-31T12:10:00.000-04:00

Although I love the warmth and freedom of summer - being close to nature as you swim in the lake and walk around barefoot - there is something about autumn that speaks to my soul. For two months we’ve been surrounded by glowing, ever-changing colours and the rich fragrance of fallen leaves that instantly conjures up memories of childhood fun. And autumn has the added thrill of Halloween, of allowing the imagination to roam into the eerie unknown, of relishing spine-tingling tales, and dressing up as witches and monks of old.

To add some seasonal spice this year, my family did a nighttime “ghost hunting tour” of Casa Loma, that fanciful baronial castle perched majestically above Toronto. With 98 rooms, it’s the largest private residence ever built in Canada, and helped to bankrupt its wealthy owner, Sir Henry Pellatt. Having spent $3.5 million already, he told his neighbour, Lady Flora Eaton, that he needed another million to finish it, which he never did. So Sir Henry and his wife didn’t have many years to enjoy their castle, and certainly didn’t die there, but they are apparently still there in spirit form. Other ghosts - servants, perhaps - scare people from top-floor rooms and prowl the long, creepy tunnel that connects the house with the stables. It was in that tunnel that something snarled menacingly in our ears - unheard by others around us.

When you gaze down the deep length of the darkened library toward the conservatory or climb up the narrow, twisting staircases to the top of the towers, or wander down shadowy passageways, it’s easy to believe that you are not alone. And reinforces for me that I never want to live in a castle. J

The Pellatts and Casa Loma are neighbours to some of my characters, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they attended a dinner or ball there, the Pellatts being renowned for entertaining regularly and lavishly. I get to join them in my imagination, and perhaps I should set it around Halloween.

For more info about Casa Loma, visit the official site.

Canadian Hero Recognized At Last!

2011-09-23T11:18:00.001-04:00

WWI ace pilot, Lieutenant Colonel William Barker, is Canada’s most decorated hero, but how many people these days have ever heard of him? 50,000 people lined the streets of Toronto for his state funeral in 1930, a fitting tribute to one of the greatest and most respected pilots in the world. He had twice taken the Prince of Wales for a flight, once while still recovering from his near-fatal wounds, and with his shattered arm in a sling. As his biographer, Wayne Ralph, states, “He was in a very profound sense the hero’s hero, the man the other heroes held in awe.” Among those was legendary Billy Bishop, Britain’s and Canada’s top ace, who became Barker’s friend and partner after the war when they started one of the first airline services in Canada.

With their Curtiss seaplane, they were able to take passengers between Toronto harbour and the Muskoka lakes, and for sightseeing flights. Arthur Bishop, Billy’s son, told me that they often flew family and friends to Sir John Eaton’s cottage, Kawandag, on Lake Rosseau. Billy had married Sir John’s niece, and one day took her aunt, Lady Flora Eaton for a trip from the cottage to the city. This is how Lady Eaton described the flight in her memoir, Memory’s Wall:

“I sat in the open cockpit for almost 2 hours as we made our ‘lightning’ trip to the city. Jack was waiting for me at the Toronto waterfront, and never have I seen a more perturbed husband! ‘You, a mother of 5 children, risking your life in a thing like that!’ On the way up Yonge St. his driving was so erratic that I finally burst out, ‘Look dear, I may have been taking a risk when I went in the plane, but that is nothing compared to the danger I’m in right now!’ He couldn’t help laughing.”

The Bishop-Barker Company was perhaps ahead of its time, and only survived for a few years. Bishop suffered head injuries in a crash, and didn’t fly again for over a decade. He went off to Britain to make his fortune, but stayed friends with Barker and always held him in high esteem. Barker joined the fledgling RCAF, and in 1924 served as its first director. As nominal president of the young Fairchild Aircraft company, he was demonstrating a new biplane near Ottawa when he was killed in a crash. 81 years later, there will finally be a monument erected to him. See more about that here.

Bishop and Barker appear in book 3 of my Muskoka Novels. One of my objectives in writing historical fiction is to incorporate real people whenever feasible in order to accurately portray an era. And in my own way, I pay homage to them.

If you’re interested in Barker, you’ll enjoy Wayne Ralph’s biography, William Barker VC: The Life, Death & Legend of Canada’s Most Decorated War Hero.

Muskoka is #1!

2011-08-30T12:08:00.001-04:00

I’ve been too busy visiting and writing about Muskoka lately to have noticed that National Geographic travel editors selected it as their top destination for summer trips of 2011! Check out their website.

But why should I be surprised? The natural beauty of the area has drawn tourists and cottagers from throughout North America for well over a century. It’s inspired poetry, art, and certainly my novels, as well as others. And it’s a testament to its magic that many cottages have been in the same family for generations.

Muskoka speaks to my soul, and I truly believe in the tourism tagline “Once discovered, never forgotten”. But if you can’t get there, you can be transported to an earlier era in my Muskoka Novels. The award-winning Book 1, The Summer Before the Storm, is now also available worldwide as an e-book. Check it out on Amazon.

Special Guest Blogger

2011-07-26T11:07:00.000-04:00

Because we’re nearing the 97^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, I thought I’d invite a guest blogger to tell us something about her life at that time.

Hello, my name is Victoria Wyndham, known to close friends and family as Ria. I'd like to introduce you to some of them. Well, perhaps a few words about me first.

Grandmother says I'm incorrigible and impulsive, while Father calls me willful, thoughtless, and disobedient. My mother died when I was born and he has never forgiven me for that.

Prickly Aunt Phyllis has condemned me as a "brazen troublemaker" and “undisciplined hoyden”, but of course, she has never liked me, nor I, her. Luckily Aunt Olivia and Uncle Richard have always been generous and loving, so that I feel very much a part of their large brood, and particularly close to my twin cousins, Zoë and Max, who are my age. Max is such a tease, and Zoë is clever and wonderfully outspoken, even with Grandmother. They're onboard for any adventures that I dream up.

Stuffy cousin Henry claims that I'm reckless and always venture beyond the bounds of his imagination. His younger sister, Phoebe, is surely more inclined to do that, since she is quite mad, and talks to her sinister two-faced doll - who apparently replies. Their brother, Edgar, is easily the most likeable of Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Albert's children, although Grandmother thinks him too self-indulgent.

I should explain that we have a summer home on Wyndwood Island on a pristine lake in Muskoka, about 100 miles north of Toronto, where we live the rest of the year. We Wyndhams spend three or four months together at the cottage every summer, which doesn't always make for harmonious relationships. Especially after Jack arrived.

None of us knew, until this summer of 1914, that we have more Wyndham cousins! Jack’s father was disowned for marrying a “showgirl”. Jack is a charmer, and devilishly handsome - “divine,” as Lydia Carrington remarked. Grandmother admires him as well, although she doesn’t trust him. She thinks that because he grew up so poor, he will be ruthless, and use everyone to get ahead. She would be scandalized if she knew how Jack and I first met. He has three younger sisters, one whose remarkable voice has already been noticed by a Broadway composer. The eldest, Lizzie, is a bit harder to like, although I can’t put my finger on why.

Cousin Bea - Lady Beatrice Kirkland - who is visiting us from England this summer, is truly sympathetic, but she thinks that I have "the unfortunate habit of running away when things get tough". She just doesn't understand how soul shattering some "things" are!

Chas Thornton told me at a ball that I have "the most stunning eyes. Like azure pools. A chap could drown in them." Chas is an outrageous flirt! And tremendous fun. He enjoys life and radiates joy. His family, one of the richest in Canada, owns several neighbouring islands. Our friend Ellie thinks he's "absolutely beautiful" and adores him, even though she detests his lifestyle and lack of ambition.

Of course Ellie - Eleanor Carlyle - doesn't approve of conspicuous wealth. A medical student, she is also something of a crusader, with perhaps too much of a social conscience. She would populate our homes - which she finds obscenely large - with unwed mothers and orphans. But I love her down-to-earth honesty, and she is the staunchest of friends. Her brother, Blake, is already a doctor, and very much the love of Zoë’s life, if only he would realize it!

Chas’s younger brother, Rafe, is rather dissolute, and unsettles me with his rapacious attentions. He seems to be a frustrated boy living in the shadow of his charismatic older brother. Perhaps his aggressiveness is a reaction to Chas’s gentility.

Justin Carrington, on the other hand, is the kindest and most gentlemanly friend. I had a terrific pash for him when I was fifteen, and now I fear that he has rather fallen for me. Grandmother is trying to encourage our marriage, maintaining that “friendship and mutual respect are far better than passion for building a good marriage.” But she doesn’t know where my heart lies.

I have many more friends, whom you can meet if you read The Muskoka Novels - The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn.

And I fear for my dear friends, as several are going off to war, Jack and Chas to become daring aviators. But we girls are not about to be left behind! We are as patriotic and plucky as the men. Zoë intends to become a VAD - a volunteer nurse. Ellie is almost finished her studies as a doctor. And I fancy driving an ambulance. Vivian Carrington and I are going to England aboard the Lusitania, the fastest and safest ship on the seas. Vivian did her VAD training and is using this as an excuse to meet up with her forbidden love, who’s already overseas in the Veterinary Corps.

I do wonder why our generation is being so severely tested. Have we been living in a fool’s paradise?

As for Muskoka, it’s our sanctuary. Once you visit our island with its majestic pines, sparkling granite, and distant vistas of craggy, tufted islands floating on the cobalt blue lake, you might understand why my soul hungers for it.

By the way, we always have room for guests at Wyndwood. Oh do come!

“Secrets and Guilt”: A Literary Weekend with Linden MacIntyre & Friends

2011-06-07T13:01:00.001-04:00

Imagine overlooking a lake with a vista of rocky, pine-tufted islands adrift along miles of shimmering blue water that stretches invitingly before you. What could be better than that?

Well, combine it with two full days of stimulating intellectual conversations, insightful ideas, and thought-provoking discussions among some of Canada’s top authors and journalists - Linden MacIntyre, Steve Paiken, Jay Ingram, Carol Off, and John Ibbitson - throw in a friendly BBQ and informative evening boat cruise, and you have a fabulous Muskoka Chautauqua weekend, such as we just had at the J.W. Marriott’s Rosseau Resort. We certainly felt that we were also included in the “Friends”.

In 2010, some visionary members of Muskoka’s arts community decided to revive the spirit of the original Muskoka Assembly from the 1920s, which sought to provide a restorative holiday for body, mind, and soul in a magnificent setting. (For some historical background, see my previous blog, Naked Poets, Freethinking Clergymen, and an “Enchanted Island”.) Promoting Canadian literature was also a mandate, and led to the Muskoka Assembly being known as the Literary Summer Capital of Canada by 1928. The modern Chautauqua has also reinstated the Reading Circle, which recommends six must-read books each year. I am thrilled and honoured that my novel, The Summer Before the Storm, was one of last year’s winners.

Kudos to the organizers of the revived Muskoka Chautauqua, which indeed encourages renewal, enrichment, and personal growth amid the inspirational beauty of Muskoka.

Perhaps Wilson MacDonald, one of the poets who was popular at the original Muskoka Assembly, expressed this ideology best in his poem, “Out of the Wilderness”:

I, a vagabond, gypsy, lover of freedom,

Come to you who are arrogant, proud, and fevered with civilization -

Come with a tonic of sunlight, bottled in wild, careless acres,

To cure you with secrets as old as the breathing of men;

Come with the clean north wind in my nostrils,

To blow out the dust and the smoke of your lives in a great blast of beauty;

Come with a chaos of wildflowers, grouped in a lovely disorder,

To shame all your gardens of maddening, cloying perfection.

I have in my veins all the sweet unrest of the wild places….

For more information about the Muskoka Chautauqua and future events, visit their website.

Sometimes “beautiful” is the just right word

2011-04-30T10:52:00.000-04:00

When Prince William saw his bride at the altar, he told her that she was “beautiful”, which indeed she was. Because writers are always advised to avoid overworked words like “beautiful”, I began idly thinking about what he might have said instead. Ravishing? Too much of a sexual connotation, not appropriate in this instance. Gorgeous? Too effusive. Stunning? Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily imply beauty as well. Ditto for “resplendent”.

One of the challenges in writing description is to select the perfect word, so connotation and context are critical (not just important). Among the synonyms for “beautiful” are the following: comely, alluring, bewitching, cute, dazzling, divine, exquisite, foxy, magnificent, pretty, radiant, pulchritudinous - well, you see where I’m going with this. Can you envision William using any of those in this situation?

“Beautiful” has a quiet dignity and well-established pedigree, making it sometimes the most appropriate adjective. The dictionary states, “A person or thing that is beautiful has perfection of form, color, etc., or noble and spiritual qualities.” Exactly!

St. Patrick’s Day Tribute to the Irish

2011-03-16T18:22:00.001-04:00

Social, religious, political, or economic strife has often been the catalyst for emigration. All these factors were instrumental in bringing Irish immigrants to Canada in the 19^th century. When the government of Upper Canada - now Ontario - wanted to open up the primitive “backwoods” in the 1820s, Peter Robinson was sent to Ireland to find poor families willing to try their luck with free land grants in the primeval wilderness. Peterborough, in the Newcastle District, was named after Robinson by those grateful settlers who had survived the treacherous voyage and harsh conditions of pioneer life.

The settlement of Upper Canada by the Irish forms the backbone of my novel, A Place To Call Home.

This is what Anne Forrest said about it in “NUACHT”, the Community Newsletter of St. Patrick’s Society of Montreal:

“Once in a while a novel grabs the reader's attention from the opening pages to long after the final words have been savoured. Such is A Place To Call Home… it is Wills' ability to create believable characters that is most impressive…. Wills cleverly weaves several real historical figures into the novel who give the story a strong sense of authenticity…. A novel that is so detailed yet not boring is a rare gift. It takes the reader back to that period about which too little is known. It leaves him wishing he could join Rowena [O’Shaughnessy] and her family for a further 50 years.”

Writer's Digest Magazine said: "A Place To Call Home is a gripping and fascinating saga about an Irish family's immigration to Canada and the building and founding of the [fictional] Ontario town called Launston Mills. Wills masterfully traces the development of the town, told through the eyes of Irish immigrant, Rowena, and her son, Keir. The historical facts were flawlessly researched, but rather than it reading like a series of facts, Wills peopled the book with vivid and very real characters whose experiences captivate the reader. .... An exceptionally well-told story... A Place To Call Home offers a delightful glimpse into Canada's past, told through characters who come to life and jump off the page."

This novel is now available as an e-book as well. See A Place To Call Home for more information, and to order online.

Giveaway!

2011-02-11T10:04:00.001-05:00

“There is amazing stuff close by – local artisans and independently owned retailers, cool things to do and eat, and great charities to support. It’s good for the economy, the environment and the soul,” says 100 Mile Finds. I have a storefront there, and am thrilled that The Summer Before The Storm has been so favourably reviewed on the site. It’s currently being included in a terrific giveaway, so head over to 100milefinds.blogspot.com before Feb. 18 to enter!

Disparities - and Dangers - of Language

2011-01-08T14:00:00.001-05:00

We Canadians use bathrooms, Americans prefer restrooms, and the British, loos. Their cars must be cuter, since they have bonnets and boots, while ours have more prosaic hoods and trunks. I once received a puzzled look from an American waiter when I requested cutlery and serviettes, so I explained, “silverware and napkins” - terms that we also use.

Our cultures have shaped our common language in interesting ways, but we can usually understand one another. Although we North Americans might be a tad confused by that bloke in trainers and a naff jumper, carrying a brolly, who just finished a nosh-up of bangers and jacket potatoes after receiving his wage packet, and then stopped at the off-licence before getting into his estate car and entering a dual carriageway, followed by a bobby in a panda car. Unless you watch lots of British TV shows.

The “dangers”, or perhaps more accurately, pitfalls of language occur when we use ordinary words that mean something completely different in another region. Imagine my surprise when I read that “cottaging” in Britain means anonymous sex between men in public washrooms! So my blog titles like “The Enchantment of Cottaging” and “The Joys and Challenges of Island Cottaging” must have raised a few eyebrows. Cottaging in our part of Canada refers to spending leisure time at a seasonal home by a lake.

Australians must get a chuckle out of Canadians who run around labelled with a popular brand of casual clothing - Roots - and wonder if we’re advertising uninhibited natures. The Aussie slang “root” is a slightly politer form of the F-word. Ironically, Roots outfitted the Canadian team at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. I wonder if that encouraged any Australians to “root” for Canada.

Some years ago when my husband, daughter, and I were in England for a few months on business, I was shopping for a new fanny-pack. I went into a posh department store and had a surprising reaction from two very dignified, middle-aged sales ladies. They looked at each other in astonishment, turned beet-red, and began to giggle. “Dear, we don’t call them that here,” one explained to me between titters when I had described what I wanted. “We call them bum bags.” I thought that a rather rude term, and wondered what was so funny and embarrassing about my request.

My daughter wanted to experience an English private, or as they call them, public school, so I arranged for us to spend a day at one in a nearby town. Upon learning that I had once been a high school teacher, the Headmaster asked if I’d be willing to talk to one of the senior English classes. Well, the topic they wanted to discuss was differences between Canadian and British English. So I started with the usual “You say lorry, we say truck. We have flashlights, you have torches.” And then I began talking about my perplexing experience at the department store.

The class went absolutely silent. The shocked looks among the girls and boys, as well as the teacher, changed to awkward amusement, and then whispered excitement. After the class, I saw the master conferring with other staff, who all looked at me with horror and scuttled away. He said to me, “Well, my class will NEVER forget you!”

Still in the dark about some dreadful faux pas that I had now made twice, I asked one of my husband’s colleagues over dinner at his house. He and his wife both blushed furiously, and he went to fetch a dictionary for me. That was how I learned that “fanny” is a British slang term for female genitalia. Imagining myself standing in the classroom and using the equivalent word, c**t, I was dreadfully shocked, but also highly amused. After all, I had done this in all innocence. I wonder how British schools teach books like Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, which have characters named Fanny.

I still dine out on this story, which elicits riotous laughter from Canadians. Ah, the vagaries and delights of the English language!

A Child’s Christmas in Wales

2010-12-21T13:53:00.001-05:00

From the moment I began reading Dylan Thomas’s classic Christmas tale many years ago, I was completely enchanted. It’s a wonderfully nostalgic memory of Christmases past brought to life through such rich and evocative imagery that it leaves you almost breathless. What a delight then to discover a film version that is not only true to the text, but also so beautifully acted and filmed that it more than does justice to the story. It is a classic in itself. Watching this has become a cherished Christmas tradition at our house since it first appeared on TV in 1987, and indeed, our daughter grew up with it. When we speak of “the Uncles” or the “horrible-whiskered cats” or Miss Prothero and the firemen, we need say no more, but chuckle in fond remembrance.

You can hear Dylan Thomas reading his story at this link, but do be sure to check out the movie with Denholm Elliott as the grandfather who tells the tale to his spellbound grandson on Christmas Eve. Elliott does it so much better!

So on Christmas Eve we will once again be mesmerized by the “bandaged town” with “powder and ice-cream hills” by the “carol-singing sea”.

I wish you all the joys of such a heartfelt Welsh Christmas!

Lest we Forget

2010-11-08T17:17:00.000-05:00

Like my characters, I can’t forget the Great War. I lived through it with them, felt their pain and sorrow, and am now helping them to rebuild their lives in Book 3 of The Muskoka Novels.

So every day is Remembrance Day for them and for me.

At this time of reflection, John McCrae’s less famous poem also deserves to be read.

The Anxious Dead

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear

Above their heads the legions pressing on:

(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,

And died not knowing how the day had gone.)

O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see

The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar;

Then let your mighty chorus witness be

To them, and Caesar, that we still make war.

Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call,

That we have sworn, and will not turn aside,

That we will onward till we win or fall,

That we will keep the faith for which they died.

Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,

They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;

Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,

And in content may turn them to their sleep.

Lest we forget.

Legendary Theatre Ghost

2010-10-26T09:35:00.000-04:00

Who doesn’t love a spooky tale at this time of year, especially if it’s true? So allow me to introduce you to the ghost of the venerable old Academy Theatre in my hometown.

She is thought to be a former caretaker, who, along with her husband, lived in an apartment on the third floor. In the early 1900s she died in a fall down the stairs, but according to theatre staff, she resides there still.

“Mary” is a friendly but mischievous spirit, who moves or hides objects like keys and wallets, and then returns them, sometimes days or weeks later, to the exact location where people knew they had left them. She methodically lowers seats after the cleaning staff have raised them, and turns lights on or off, including the stage lights. Harried employees have, on occasion, appealed to Mary to tone down her antics, and she complies. She has, however, also scared the daylights out of men working in the control booth up on the third floor, where she once lived. Who wouldn’t be terrified when a heavy steel door that requires a really strong arm to manoeuvre it just slides open or slams shut of its own accord? An electrician once reported that he glimpsed a woman out of the corner of his eye, on the staircase to the upper floor, but when he turned to look at her there was no one there. Others recount that they have seen an apparition in the glassed-in control booth from the stage, or felt a hair-raising presence when in there. Even a former theatre manager admitted that he didn’t go up there alone at night, after the audience had gone, despite several decades of happily working alongside Mary. They say that if you want to feel her presence, you should sit in seat #13 in any of the rows when the theatre is silent and empty.

I never did, although I was on the Board of Directors for a few years. It’s a beautiful Victorian building, but when it’s not filled with crowds, it is definitely eerie, and not the sort of place I would care to spend any time alone. Employees, however, soon become accustomed to Mary, and speak fondly of her, even when she sometimes frustrates them with her pranks.

It’s the possibilities of spirits heralding an afterlife that surely intrigues us. That’s why I like to include that in my novels. For instance, I have a character in my “Muskoka” series who is either mad or psychic - or both. She sees dead people. You can meet her in The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn.

And one day I will finish the spine-tingling supernatural novel that I began some years ago.

Happy Halloween!

Where have all the dancers gone?

2010-09-27T18:02:00.000-04:00

Whether summering at a Muskoka cottage or one of the many resort hotels in the last century, one of the fun activities was attending lakeside dances. Elegantly attired enthusiasts would canoe, row, or cruise over to a venue, sometimes in a chauffeur-driven launch.

According to Muskoka Traditions by Andrew Wagner-Chazalon and Bev McMullen, “The Lake Rosseau Club at Cleveland’s House… was so popular in the 1930s that people were known to wait in shifts for their turn to dance. Other resorts had their own style - Windermere House was known for quiet, sedate music, whereas the Charleston and jitterbugging were popular at the Royal Muskoka.”

One of the most renowned dance halls was Dunn’s Pavilion (renamed The Kee to Bala in the 1960s), which hosted big name bands like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Guy Lombardo, and others. It was built mostly over water, with a large sundeck that enticed couples to snatch a few minutes from the hectic activity to watch the moon shimmer across the lake. There were live bands every evening except Sundays, since dancing was not allowed on the Sabbath in Ontario in those days. Weekends were so popular that special trains from Toronto were added to accommodate the crowds of partygoers who, locals lamented, “were sleeping all over the place, on the beaches, in the park.” Those who couldn’t get into Dunn’s would sit in the grounds or on their boats and listen to the music drift into the star-studded night.

Less formal but no less popular were the dances once rock and roll invaded The Kee with bands like April Wine, Lighthouse, The Tragically Hip, and numerous others. Those of us who've been there have never forgotten those magical evenings.

The Kee to Bala still attracts top name bands for concerts on summer weekends, but unfortunately, the few resorts that remain no longer have dances. I’ve missed those on my holidays in Muskoka these last couple of decades. Fortunately, my characters can dance to their heart’s content in the Roaring 20s.

Sexy, Scandalous, Revolutionary

2010-08-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

One of the fun aspects of writing fiction is that you get to create the world your characters inhabit. So you design or select their homes, furnishings, cars, boats (in my case), books, music, and, of course, clothes. So I’ve recently been drooling over photos of fabulous sequined, beaded, bejewelled, gilded, feathered, fringed, flirty, flapper frocks.

The Roaring 20s was an age of opulence and excess, as illustrated in the works of Evelyn Waugh and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, indeed, in the latter’s own outrageous lifestyle with his wife Zelda. It was also a revolutionary era when young women rebelled against the strictures of Victorian society and morality. They scandalized the older generations because they smoked and drank in public (this, during Prohibition), wore makeup, danced “immodestly”, dated unchaperoned, bobbed their hair, and hiked their hemlines. No longer confined by breath-snatching corsets, they wore comfortable clothes in which they could easily participate in sports or dance the night away, and which facilitated sexual exploration, often in the back seats of cars.

The most influential couturier of the “modern” woman was Coco Chanel, whose “garçonne” look or flapper style, made some diehard complain that “women no longer exist; all that’s left are the boys created by Chanel.” If the clothes didn’t show women’s curves, they did reveal unprecedented lengths of leg. One Baptist minister opined:

“Mary had a little skirt,

The latest style no doubt,

But every time she got inside,

She was more than halfway out.”

To see some stunning gowns, visit these websites: Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery and Vintage Textile. It’s evident from the descriptions that the fully beaded dresses were heavy (4 pounds or more), and instructions are given for how to get out of the ones that have no closures (and ergo, no openings). “Bend way forward at the waist, pull the skirt up and then raise your arms over your dropped head and let gravity help you wiggle out of the dress.”

To see how these gowns scintillated, especially when dancing, have a look at this clip on YouTube. The dress that Carol Channing is wearing wouldn’t have had an underskirt slit that high at the side, but otherwise is representative of the period fashion.

I would love to wear one of these vintage dresses (or a replica) at my next book launch, as Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels takes place during the 1920s. In the meantime, I have to go and design half a dozen houses and cottages, a 6-slip boathouse, and a slew of costumes for a fancy dress ball!

For a fascinating look at the Jazz Age, read Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz.

Sir Paul Rocks… and Inspires!

2010-08-10T11:05:00.002-04:00

Photo courtesy of Rob Whitehead & Erin Davis

Paul McCartney is still cute, charming, and dynamic 46 years after he and the rest of the Beatles conquered North America and stole our hearts. Thanks to the generosity of my old friend and fellow Beatle-maniac, the Reverend Fay Patterson-Willsie, I was one of the 16,000+ who cheered and sang ourselves hoarse at Paul’s Toronto concert on Sunday. Or more correctly, love-fest. If he sent us “all [his] lovin’”, we gave it back “in the palm of [our] hand[s]”.

Because his music is part of the soundtrack of our lives, we were instantly plunged into punctuated moments of the past. Like the time I was at Fay’s Muskoka cottage (which inspired my Muskoka Novels), and we listened to the Beatles on some Boston radio station late at night. Or when my husband and I danced to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” at our wedding, reminding ourselves of that pivotal night when we had danced to that song in a pub and realized our friendship had become something more profound. Our “going-away” song at the wedding was, appropriately, “In My Life”. Paul and The Beatles had a way of anticipating and voicing our thoughts, joys, angst, and dreams in a lyrical and timeless way. (I’m now a “Paperback Writer”.) A testament to the power and relevance of the music could be seen in the beaming faces of the audience, young and old alike, who sang along lustily and couldn’t resist dancing.

What was so inspiring was to see Paul’s boundless energy and obvious passion for his music. That he could sing and play virtually non-stop for three hours is truly remarkable for anyone, let alone a 68-year-old. We might have been hoarse and tired from all our singing, clapping, toe-tapping, arm-waving, and hip-swinging, but he showed little sign of flagging, despite the obvious heat on the stage. May we all be that youthful and happily productive at that age and beyond. Paul continues to be a touchstone for my and other generations.

You can be sure that when I get to the 1960s in my Muskoka Novels (Book 5, 6?), Paul and the Beatles will be part of the soundtrack for my characters’ lives, just as Ragtime was in my first two novels.

To see more fab photos of Sir Paul in concert, visit Erin Davis’s website. Many thanks to her and husband Rob Whitehead for the use of the photo from Sunday’s concert!

From Regattas on the Water to Combat in the Skies over France

2010-07-28T14:26:00.000-04:00

It’s that special time of year in Canada - a long weekend, celebrating, in essence, that summer is only half over. And for those lucky enough to be at a lakeside cottage or resort, it can also mean watching or participating in Regattas. These are friendly, but often fierce competitions among amateurs in such traditional sports as canoeing, swimming, and sailing, and also quirkier events such as tilting - as seen in the photo above - and canoe races without paddles. Regattas can be held by just a few neighbours or run by organizations, such as the Muskoka Lakes Association (MLA), which has sponsored them annually for over a century.

The MLA Regatta was already so popular prior to World War 1 that people came from Toronto just for the day, and special steamships and overnight trains took them home again. Hundreds of boats sat at anchor or were moored many deep at the docks and islands within view of the activities. At the end of the day, various resorts held dances because even the largest of them, The Royal Muskoka Hotel, couldn’t accommodate all the revelers.

Canada’s Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, was holidaying at the Royal Muskoka in late July of 1914. He was to have presented the prizes at the MLA Regatta, but was suddenly summoned to Ottawa a few days before. By the end of that long weekend, Canada and the world were at war.

That’s the Regatta that I describe in my novel, The Summer Before The Storm - the last for some of my characters who go off to engage in a more deadly battle.

A Place To Call Home

2010-07-15T13:21:00.002-04:00

“Rowena was dumbfounded by her first glimpse of Launston Mills. Then angry. For this they had travelled more than three thousand arduous miles? For this handful of log cabins and a mill that had the audacity to give themselves a name?”

That arduous journey had involved travelling 8 weeks from Ireland in the filthy, dank hold of what became a “plague ship” when cholera swept through, killing a fifth of the passengers. After quarantine on Grosse Isle, downstream from Quebec City, Rowena O’Shaughnessy and her family spent a further two months making their way by barges and oxcarts and on foot into the primitive backwoods of Upper Canada. A land of opportunity for those who had the stamina of mind, body, and spirit to survive.

Their hardships are detailed in my first novel, A Place to Call Home, which has just come back into print.

Rowena’s complex relationship with the wealthy and powerful Launston family leads to tragedy, and eventually to redemption. Their lives are played out against a rich tapestry of events - devastating plagues, doomed rebellions, mob uprisings, religious conflict, and political unrest - many of which are based upon the history of my hometown of Lindsay.

This is a tale of passionate people and stormy relationships, of unrequited and illicit love, of betrayals and revenge. It is a story of courage, and the undaunted human spirit that manages to survive and surmount appalling conditions and tragedies. It is a celebration of the achievements of the remarkable pioneers who carved thriving communities out of an inhospitable wilderness.

Here’s what Writer's Digest Magazine had to say about it:

"A Place To Call Home is a gripping and fascinating saga about an Irish family's immigration to Canada and the building and founding of the [fictional] Ontario town called Launston Mills. Wills masterfully traces the development of the town, told through the eyes of Irish immigrant, Rowena, and her son, Keir. The historical facts were flawlessly researched, but rather than it reading like a series of facts, Wills peopled the book with vivid and very real characters whose experiences captivate the reader. .... An exceptionally well-told story... A Place To Call Home offers a delightful glimpse into Canada's past, told through characters who come to life and jump off the page."

Find out more about the novel, including reviews and readers' comments, on my website Mindshadows.com, where books can also be purchased online. The novel is also available as and E-book for the Kindle. Check it out here.

Summer Fun a Century Ago

2010-07-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

In my June 23^rd posting we saw the sedate side of summer life in Muskoka’s Age of Elegance, but there were plenty of activities to wile away the hot days. What better than swimming with friends? Although, unlike the people in these Frank Micklethwaite photos, I’d prefer less enveloping bathing suits, especially in this current heat wave.

Rowing and canoeing were popular, even with women wearing floor-length dresses and picture hats.

Most important were the Regattas, for which you practiced all summer, hoping to add to the family showcase on the mantelpiece - trophies for sailing, rowing, and canoe races, swimming, diving, canoe jousting competitions, and so forth.

And for the wealthy and adventuresome in the 1920s and on, there were the motorboat races.

This ethos is captured in my Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, and continues in Book 3, which should be in print next summer.

Oh, please!!!!!

2010-06-29T11:41:00.001-04:00

Anne (of Green Gables) had fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)? Such is the conjecture of academic Helen Hoy, as reported in Maclean’s June 21^st issue. She interprets Anne’s “challenging behaviours” as symptoms because she sees some of these in her adopted daughter, who suffers from FAS.

As readers, we all bring to stories and characters aspects of our own experiences, prejudices, and desires. If Hoy chooses to see pathological behaviour in Anne, then that is her personal reaction to the character. There is no evidence in the book that Anne’s mother drank to excess, or even at all, or that Anne actually fits the true profile of a child with FAS. And is her behaviour pathological?

Anne is a spunky, outspoken, imaginative girl that so many of us admire, especially as children. She holds her own with adults in an era and society where children were to be seen when required, but not heard, and manages to endear herself to them without giving up those qualities that we love in her. I expect that generations of young readers have looked to her as a role model of how to endure and triumph in difficult situations, as well as being entertained by her antics.

Scholars are not only grasping at straws when they try to recast and even exploit popular fictional characters, but also doing a disservice to the author and the fans. Professor Laura Robinson conjectures that Anne had “lesbian urges”. Hoy claims that seeing Anne “as developmentally challenged, with her impairments the source of some of her charm” will help to see FAS in a new light. The fact that Anne not only looks after Marilla, but also marries and raises her own children may actually put unreasonable expectations upon children with FAS and their caregivers, who often have to support them for life.

I heartily agree with the author of the Maclean’s article, Anne Kingston - “Leave Anne alone!”

Quintessential Muskoka

2010-06-23T12:06:00.001-04:00

This 1905 photo evokes for me the ethos of Edwardian Muskoka. Much of cottage life revolved around the expansive veranda where cooling summer breezes, redolent with pine, refreshed you until your next dip in the lake. It was an outdoor room where families gathered to hear grandmother read or to entertain friends. And many of these cottagers spent the entire summer at their lakeside homes.

This photograph by Frank Micklethwaite inspired me to write the following scene in The Summer Before The Storm:

“So this was his family. They lounged with practiced ease on white wicker chairs and rockers and chaise lounges on the broad, pine-boarded veranda that wrapped around the cottage. The youngest children, sitting side by side, swung lazily in the hammock that hung in the bandshell on the southwest corner. A silver tea service and plates of small sandwiches, thick scones, and rich cakes was set before them. To nourish the soul there was the stunning panorama of the lake ― rocky islands adrift along miles of shimmering blue water. A few sailboats and the distant smoke from a steamship wafted across the horizon.”

For some, cottage life hasn’t changed that much since the Age of Elegance, except for the clothes. You can still relax on verandas that embrace shingled cottages, and hear the distinctive creaking and slapping of those old-fashioned screen doors that remind you that it is summer.

Below is a Mickletwaite photo from 1908. Doesn’t it invite you to climb into one of those rattan rockers and savour the moment, perhaps with a good book and a glass of wine?

Novel Part of Chautauqua Revival!

2010-06-14T14:27:00.001-04:00

I’m thrilled and honoured that my novel, The Summer Before The Storm, has been selected as one of the six “must-read” books of the Muskoka Chautauqua Reading Circle for 2010.

The Muskoka Chautauqua is a revival of a movement prominent in the 1920s and early 30s that earned Muskoka the reputation of being the “Literary Summer Capital of Canada”. The website states:

"Muskoka Chautauqua is a vibrant arts-based community where visitors come for personal growth, enrichment and renewal. It is an uplifting cultural hub that encompasses the arts, education and recreation; a place removed from the day-to-day world, where practitioners and leading thinkers of our time share innovative and creative ideas; a place where the arts blend with the natural beauty of Muskoka and where the human spirit – and all its hidden talents – may be liberated … and soar."

From an impressive list of books nominated by the public, six were chosen and announced at a ceremony on Saturday June 12^th at The Rosseau, located quite close to the original Muskoka Assembly Chautauqua on Tobin Island. For a glimpse of that, see my blog “Naked Poets, Free-Thinking Clergymen, and An Enchanted Island”.

The Summer Before The Storm, the first of “The Muskoka Novels”, evokes the Age of Elegance in the summer playground of the affluent and powerful. But their charmed lives begin to unravel with the onset of the Great War, in which many are destined to become part of the “lost generation”. The novel and its sequel, Elusive Dawn, have touched the hearts and minds of thousands of readers worldwide. Focus on Books called them “Historical fiction at its best”. Find out more at TheMuskokaNovels.com.

L.M. Montgomery's Muskoka

2010-05-15T12:39:00.001-04:00

Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables and many other beloved novels, spent two weeks with her family in Muskoka in the summer of 1922. She was obviously so impressed with the beauty of the lakes and islands that she wrote The Blue Castle, an adult love story and her only novel not set in Prince Edward Island.

For a fascinating account of how that holiday inspired her, read “The Muskoka Dream” by Montgomery scholar, Mary Beth Cavert.

Montgomery stayed at the Roselawn Inn in Bala, which is still in existence. Nearby Treelawn, where she and her family ate their meals, is now the Bala Museum dedicated to Montgomery. Touted as one of the best Montgomery museums, it also contains one of the world’s finest public collections of her books, including first editions and rare printings from other countries. The owners, Jack Hutton and Linda Jackson-Hutton, have written Lucy Maud Montgomery and Bala: A Love Story of the North Woods.

It is believed that few people in Bala knew that Maud Macdonald, wife of Presbyterian minister Ewan Macdonald, was the famous author.

The characters in my Muskoka Novels who survived the war are now back in their cherished lake district, and indeed, not far from Bala and its picturesque falls. How natural for them to run into Maud. Ahhh, the possibilities!

Lusitania Tragedy - 95 Years Ago

2010-05-04T10:54:00.000-04:00

She was the fastest luxury liner on the oceans, and the passengers who boarded the Lusitania in New York on May 1st, 1915, included Alfred Vanderbilt, one of America’s richest men, Lady Allan, wife of Canadian shipping magnate Sir Montague Allan, along with their two teenaged daughters, and Josephine Burnside, daughter of mercantile millionaire Timothy Eaton, with her twenty-year-old daughter. But few of them would survive that last voyage.

The Great War was raging in Europe, and tensions had been running high ever since the German Embassy in New York issued a warning to British ships and their allies. But the passengers had been assured that this record-breaking ocean greyhound could outrun any German submarines, and that the British navy would provide safe escort into Liverpool. No one thought that the Germans would attack a passenger ship carrying women and children. But few on board knew that armaments were part of the cargo, making the ship a legitimate target.

It was a sunny afternoon on the Irish sea on May 7, 1915, just hours away from docking at Liverpool, when some of the first class passengers leaving the sumptuous dining room noticed a torpedo slicing through the calm blue water towards them. The Lusitania sank within 18 minutes.

It was amazing that 761 of the 1,959 aboard survived - although very few of the children - many of them immersed in the frigid Irish Sea for two or more hours. Some who were thought to be dead suffered from hyperthermia, but were able to be revived.

Of those first class passengers mentioned earlier, only Lady Allan and Josephine Burnside survived. More than 900 bodies were never recovered, including Alfred Vanderbilt’s, whose family had offered a $5000 reward.

There are many questions still not clearly answered, including why the British navy had not provided the promised escort, and why the ship was running at such reduced speeds in dangerous waters, thereby becoming a sitting target. See Diana Preston’s book, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, for a gripping account of this disaster. And join my characters aboard that ill-fated ship in The Summer Before The Storm.

The Monsters Under the Dock

2010-04-30T17:33:00.001-04:00

They eat small fish and tadpoles, as well as insects. They move with lightning speed, and can illicit the expletive "Holy sh**!" from the bravest and strongest of men. There are people who have summered on lakes all their lives and have never seen one, because these monsters are skittish. Fortunately. They are dock spiders.

More correctly known as fishing spiders, the adults can be about the size of a splayed hand! I can verify that since I have seen them. The first time was as a young wife enjoying a romantic holiday at a Muskoka lodge. My husband and I were canoeing in the calm of late afternoon, absorbing the sublime beauty of the lake and the thrusting granite cliff that sparkled in the sunshine. He said, “Wow, look at that spider!” pointing to the rock wall mere inches from our canoe. I’ve always been afraid, although not phobic, about spiders, so I was immediately on the alert. I didn’t see it at first because it was SO big. But I finally did, shrieked, and nearly tipped the canoe. I’m sure I would have won a regatta race in my haste to get as far away as possible.

It was at least thirty years before I saw another one. Some lakes, or at least areas of them, seem to be more popular with these critters. They like calm water and wood, and often live under docks, which is how they acquired their nickname. They can submerge themselves underwater for 10 to 15 minutes when frightened, and can even "swim"!

If you’d like a laugh, have a look at this brief video of me at a Muskoka resort - after I had seen a huge mother dock spider guarding her egg sac - about the only time that they don’t skitter away immediately upon hearing noise or feeling the vibration of interlopers on their docks. I’d also seen a few sunning themselves on the lovely rocks where I am perched in this clip, as I had kayaked by the previous day.

My reference to a dock spider in The Summer Before The Storm is definitely symbolic.

Only one remedy for this obsession

2010-04-17T11:55:00.002-04:00

I’m obsessed by something that can be dangerous, powerful, deceptive, but also gentle and soothing and exquisite. Water. I love watching it tumble vivaciously over rocks or stretch lazily to distant shores. As soon as I’m near it, I need to divest myself of footwear and plunge in - not always the wisest thing to do. Once, after a week of torrential February rain, we hit a beach in San Diego. I’d walked the length of most of it, unshod, of course, before I saw the warning signs. Beware! The water was contaminated by the run-off from all the flooding. Another time I waded into an enticingly clear and shallow stream in Northern Ontario, and was nearly swept off my feet by the swift current. Even I wasn’t adventuresome (or foolish) enough to frolic on a Welsh beach like a group of schoolchildren did - amid snow flurries in April. But watching from a warm seaside hotel, I could appreciate their joyful enthusiasm as they rolled up trousers and splashed about in the frigid water.

It’s no surprise that swimming is my favourite activity. How sublime it is to be immersed in the silky softness, caressed and buoyed, floating between earth and sky, teased by waves. The next best thing is being in an open-top lake kayak, which makes you feel as if you’re suspended in the water. Just reach out and dip in your hand to cool off. And if you stop paddling, a loon might suddenly surface nearby and treat you to his “insane laughter”, warning you that you’re invading his territory.

I wish it were mine for more than a few snatched weekends each summer. I long to live by a lake and watch the changing moods of sky and water, enjoy the exuberance of summer activities and savour the solitude of snow-shrouded winters.

Water haunts my dreams and speaks to my soul, so it’s little wonder that it always figures in my books - never more so than in the Muskoka Novels.

In the Trenches at Vimy Ridge

2010-04-08T09:46:00.000-04:00

The following is an excerpt from a scene in my novel Elusive Dawn, which is set during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Apr. 9, 1917. Captain Justin Carrington is a young lawyer whose family summers in the lake district of Muskoka, Canada. British aristocrat Antonia Upton is with an ambulance corps near Calais. This has been abridged, leaving out some military details and mention of other characters.

Justin Carrington was thankful to be out of the deep subway and cave where the slimy chalk walls had begun to close in on him, reminding him of the suffocating mud of the Somme, making him ashamed of the panic that he had to force back into the pit of his belly. By now he should have been used to the sweat and latrine stench of war, but with men packed so tightly together in these underground tunnels grey with cigarette and candle smoke, the oxygen seemed to have been used up. So he breathed deeply of the cold, pre-dawn air.

Like most of the men, he hadn’t been able to sleep, even if it had been physically possible to find a comfortable place to rest. For months the entire Canadian Corps had been training for this day. Over and over they had practiced behind the lines – their objectives carefully laid out, the timing of their advance coordinated to the split-second – so that every last man knew exactly what to do….

The men had had their rum ration, and boxes of Canadian Lowney chocolate bars had miraculously appeared. Justin savoured every bite of his, while relishing the reminder of home.

So now they all stood silently in the trenches, in the rain that was turning to sleet, many up to their knees in icy sludge. 30,000 Canadian infantry strung along the four miles of Vimy Ridge. With another 70,000 soldiers in support roles behind – the gunners, engineers, medics, cooks, and so forth – it meant that the entire Canadian Corps was here, together for the first time….

Justin checked his watch yet again. 5:15. Almost Zero Hour.

His company of four platoons would go over in the second wave, leap-frogging those leading the assault at a predetermined line. The first battalions were already in the shallow jumping-off trenches and craters in no-man’s-land.

After a week of constant shelling that had pummeled the German trenches and defences with a million shells, the silence now was eerie. And taut. Every one of them knew only too well that the Allies had tried and failed to take this strongly fortified and tactically important ridge during the past two years…. Despite some trepidation, Justin felt confident that their intense preparation and unprecedented bombardment would surprise and overwhelm the Germans.

And he felt buoyed by the latest letter from Antonia Upton. She had written, “We have been evacuating the wounded from the base hospitals in large numbers recently,” which, in the parlance of censorship, insinuated that she realized space was being made for an onslaught of new casualties. She went on to say:

We often hear the remorseless guns, and I wonder how you can stand the diabolical noise that surely threatens the very sanity of civilization. When we have air raids here, I sometimes find it difficult to muster the courage to keep going, cherishing the sanctity and preciousness of life too much to lose it. There is so much yet to experience, so much promise to fulfill. It seems almost treasonous to admit that I don’t want to sacrifice myself or any of my friends to the dubious glory of the Empire. Forgive my womanly heart, for I do not mean to diminish what you men are trying and dying to achieve.

I expect you will soon be preoccupied, and trust you will be careful as well as lucky. I enjoyed our perambulations about the Hampshire countryside, and hope we can repeat those when the wildflowers are in bloom and the trees, lushly green. And perhaps you will take me sailing and canoeing when I come to visit your magical Muskoka. I have presumptuously included a photograph of myself in the event that you may wish to recall your correspondent.

Fondly, Toni

He had chuckled at the formality of that last sentence, which was no doubt intended to make the gesture appear less intimate. But he was delighted by the photograph and studied it frequently as if he could delve better into her psyche. To him it was evident that she was transparent, her inner beauty reflected in her outer attractiveness. From her perceptive, forthright gaze shone humour and a joie de vivre that captivated him. He had the picture tucked into his breast pocket, and felt the intoxicating stirrings of love.

Joyfully he had replied to her:

Your photo has brought me much cheer, but I hope that I may see the real you before long. Not in your capacity as an ambulance driver, however!

I applaud your womanly heart, and agree with your sentiments. I have done much soul-searching over the past two years, caught between my civilized conscience and the dictates of war. I have seen both the best and the worst that human beings can do, the many and ever more mechanized ways we can slaughter one another, although we are more alike than dissimilar.

Your friendship has revived in me the determination to survive this war and to make a difference in a world changed forever, but open to new possibilities. Our generation must try to right the wrongs that brought us here and for which so many, as Rupert Brooke so aptly said, ‘poured out the red sweet wine of youth’.

Be assured that your thoughts and words comfort and sustain me, Toni. I long to sit in the sunshine with you, listening to the birds, but without the guns which now disturb their songs. The larks here seem forever hopeful. So shall I be.

Affectionately, Justin

It was snowing now, the wind whipping up a blizzard.

5:28. Two minutes to go. After a passing whisper, the tiny clinks of bayonets being fixed to rifles coalesced and tinkled down the line.

Once discovered, never forgotten…

2010-04-01T10:10:00.002-04:00

That’s the tagline for the legendary lake district of Muskoka. I can attest to its veracity, as could Ruth Gaunt Bennett when she became enchanted by it in the summer of 1932. In her memoir, Adventures as a Muskoka Maid, she wrote of her first sight of the lakes, “Suddenly I saw that the so blue water held the blue sky captive within its depths…. I wanted to store all this new, exquisite beauty deep within me.” Even as a maid catering to a well-to-do family at their summer home, she was able to enjoy the delights of cottage country - swimming, canoeing, moonlight cruises, corn roasts, and so forth. Muskoka worked its magic on her, as it has on countless others, and she eventually settled there with her family.

It made me think of my own introduction to this land of sparkling granite, fragrant pine trees, and island-studded lakes. My childhood friend has a cottage, built by her great-grandfather in 1879, on an island on Lake Rosseau. She, her mother, and brother spent every summer there from the time that school ended in June until it began again in September. Her father went up on weekends.

I was first invited there when I was 12, and was instantly captivated by the scenery and the lovely weathered cottage that held within its walls the essence of a different era. It was as if the past still lingered in the scent of old wood and musty books, on the expansive veranda and bedroom balconies, in the vanished spaces that had once housed servants. On rainy days we played vintage records on the ancient gramophone. The cottage still resonates to those long-ago tunes, like “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”.

I heard stories from aged aunts about the old days - the Age of Elegance on the lakes. Even then I knew that one day I would write about that fascinating time. My novels The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn pay tribute to that era. I’m now working on Book 3 in the series, which takes place in the 1920s.

In some inexplicable way, Muskoka has touched my soul. How lucky that I can reside there in my imagination.

To see more lovely photos of Muskoka, watch my short book trailer on YouTube.

Naked Poets, Freethinking Clergymen, and an “Enchanted Island”

2010-03-26T14:27:00.004-04:00

In 1928 when poet Dorothy Livesay was 19 and a student at the University of Toronto, she spent a month in Muskoka helping her cousin, who was the director of a theatre on Tobin Island. It was part of the “Muskoka Assembly” of the Canadian Chautauqua Institute. Founded by Methodist minister Charles Applegath in 1921, the Assembly sought to combine spiritual, educational, and cultural enrichment in a magnificent setting that also encouraged healthy outdoor activities like swimming, golf, tennis, and canoeing. Dorothy, wanting to feel more at one with nature, would go off blueberry picking in the nude with her friends. For her this was just an extension of the then-popular Theosophy, a philosophy that combined Eastern and Western spirituality and mysticism, in which God was nature and beauty, and man, a part of this natural world.

Visitors stayed at the Epworth Inn (later Wigwassan Lodge), while some - clergy mostly - also built cottages on the 200 acre property that stretched along 2 miles of shoreline. In addition to classes and lectures, there were entertainments, which included plays, masquerades, and sunset cruises.

Applegath also sought to promote Canadian literature and music, so recitals and concerts were performed, and famous literary figures like Bliss Carman and E. J. Pratt spent weeks there not only sharing their works, but also being inspired by the picturesque, rugged beauty surrounding them. By 1928, the Muskoka Assembly had become known as Canada’s Literary Summer Capital. Unfortunately, the Depression took its toll on this innovative endeavour.

So it’s exciting to hear that the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival is reviving the Chautauqua, including the Reading Circle. The public is being asked to submit suggestions for this summer’s 5 “Must Read” books by April 31st. Find out more here about the 2010 Muskoka Chautauqua, which will be held at Red Leaves (J.W. Marriot), not far from the “enchanted island” that once offered sustenance for the mind, body, and soul.

In my Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, I’ve very loosely based “The Colony” on the Canadian Chautauqua, albeit pre-WW1.

Celebrating the Irish

2010-03-17T17:04:00.002-04:00

My hometown was to a large extent settled by Irish immigrants in the 1830s - by that I mean that they had to hack a clearing out of the primeval forests, and struggle to survive in the primitive “backwoods” of Upper Canada. The trees that they cut down were squared into logs and used to build their first homes. House-raising “bees” were common, involving all the neighbours, who could literally erect a cabin in one day - fueled by free food and whiskey. But even the best of these dwellings were bitterly cold in winter. One “gentlewoman” wrote in a letter home that the temperature in her bedroom was 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 C)! Water froze in jugs set in front of fireplaces - which had to be kept burning for cooking throughout the blistering hot and humid summers as well.

Bears could be troublesome, and there were hordes of vicious blackflies and clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes to fend off, the latter carrying a type of malarial fever called ague (although that fact was not known at the time). An epidemic raged through the area in 1838, killing nearly a third of the population.

But there were also plentiful fish in the lakes and rivers that belonged to no one. Migrating birds were sometimes so thick in the skies that they could be picked off from the settlers’ front steps (and indeed, the passenger pigeon, which once travelled in flocks of up to 2 billion birds, became extinct by 1914). Deer and moose and other wild game were there for the taking, and land was often free for those willing to clear it.

My first novel, A Place To Call Home, celebrates these intrepid pioneers who carved thriving communities out of an inhospitable wilderness. It is currently out of print, but I’m excited to announce that it is now available for the Kindle from Amazon! Click here to find out more.

You've never seen them like this!

2010-03-12T10:26:00.004-05:00

An innovative new series by Roderick Benns is putting a delightful spin on understanding Canadian Prime Ministers. He invites readers to get to know them as tweens, plunging them into mysteries within the historically accurate context of their eras. The first in the series is entitled The Mystery of the Moonlight Murder: An Early Adventure of John Diefenbaker. Here’s the synopsis:

“One hundred years ago, under the light of a full moon, 12-year-old John Diefenbaker and his younger brother, Elmer, are nearby when their neighbour is shot to death in a field. The murder in small-town Saskatchewan ignites a desperate search for the killer and when a family friend of the Diefenbakers is arrested for the murder, John is certain they have the wrong person. With the help of the man’s 11-year-old daughter, Summer Storm, John and Elmer set out to prove his innocence. But with only five days left before the murder trial, time is running out…”

This YA novel is receiving glowing reviews, and is sure to give a new perspective on the man who became Canada’s 13th Prime Minister.

Some exciting news for young authors is that Roderick’s Fireside Publishing House will award a book publishing contract to a Canadian university, college, or high school student who writes the best first chapter and outline for a historical fiction children’s book on former Prime Minister Paul Martin.

The book will be part of the ‘Leaders & Legacies’ series on Canada’s Prime Ministers, which imagines the young PMs solving mysteries or getting involved in adventures that one day foreshadow their lives to come. The book must focus on Martin at approximately age 12, the median age of readers.

“It’s great to be part of the ‘Leaders & Legacies’ series,” said Martin. “I always wanted to be a detective and now I’ve got the chance.” Martin added, “Historical fiction – it’s kind of like an alternate reality. In other words it’s kind of like the House of Commons.”

For contest details see firesidepublishinghouse.com

Losing our stories?

2010-03-04T09:05:00.005-05:00

Are we losing our identities in this information rich age when we Twitter, text, email, share our thoughts and activities with the world on Facebook and other social networking sites? Such was the prediction I heard recently from a biographer who claims that since we no longer write letters, we won’t leave records of our journeys through life. Who keeps emails? Whatever bits of ourselves we send into cyberspace are as ephemeral as stardust.

You might think that for most of us it would only matter to our families, but as an historical researcher, I can attest to the importance of correspondence from everyone, whether Lady or servant, Prime Minister or clerk, child or octogenarian. It is through letters from soldiers and nurses that I learned what life was like during the Great War. Not so much about the war itself, since they were reluctant to upset their families with gruesome reports that probably would not have passed the censors in any case. But they did discuss what they did on leave, who they met, how much things cost, what they ate, where they lived, how their beliefs sustained them - or not. The trivia of daily life is rather meaningless while we live it, but is of immense importance to someone trying to recreate an era 100 years later, as are the nuances of language, convention, and social interaction that shine from those missives.

Here are some excerpts from Frances Cluett’s letters home (Your Daughter Fanny: The War letters of Frances Cluett, VAD, edited by Bill Romkey and Bert Riggs), beginning in 1916 when she went overseas from Newfoundland (not yet a part of Canada) as a volunteer nurse:
Before leaving - “[The doctor] inoculated us underneath the collarbone. Oh my! Wasn’t it tender afterwards, I could hardly bear the weight of my clothes on it, it was just like a boil… We have to have three inoculations… I just dread it.”
In England - “Oh Mother! We are put on rations. A 2 lb. loaf of bread must last us two days: and we are also given [1/2] lb. sugar to do us for a week. Each nurse was presented with a small bag to hold her loaf of bread and tin of sugar.”
From a French hospital - “I go on duty at ten minutes to eight in the evening and come off at 8 a.m… I have the care of five wards at night; so you can imagine I am kept a bit busy…. One must keep a look out for all sorts of things, such as amputation bleedings, deaths, drinks, etc. This is a very wicked world, mother; you cannot realize what sufferings there are. Some of the misery will ever live in my memory.”
“Mother I have never seen so many flowers in all my life as I have seen since I came to Rouen. All the hospital tents have them at their front entrances; oh! they are beautiful.”
“Ah! Lil, many a bedside have I stood by and watched the last breath, with rats rushing underneath the bed in groups, and the lights darkened.”

The letters are rich with details, as are the ones compiled by R. B. Fleming in The Wartime Letters of Leslie and Cecil Frost 1915-1919.
In England - “It’s lucky for Les and I that we don’t drink as the bill that most fellows run up is a corker - twenty to thirty dollars a month is a whole lot to spend on drinking, but the big majority do all the same.”
Somewhere in France (as they weren’t allowed to say where) - “There was a canteen - imagine, near the front line, as well as writing rooms and ablution rooms for the men - and all underground. Really, this war is getting to be a business.”
“Cecil and I had Christmas dinner together and a very good dinner it was, turkey, etc. etc. He is situated only a mile and a half from here and so we are able to see each other often.”
March 23, 1918 - “Just a brief line - The Date above will be enough to explain this note if you follow the papers. Just want to say that I am taking [into battle] Mother’s last two letters, which she wrote previous to her operation. I think they would be a help to anybody. Don’t worry about me…. Somehow I can’t say much more. I love you all dearly.”

Both brothers were wounded, Leslie quite seriously, spending about 9 months in hospital. He went on to become Premier of Ontario from 1949 - 1961.

There are many websites that showcase letters from the men and women who went overseas during the First World War - some of these can be accessed from my website, Odd, Intriguing, Surprising Facts About WW1. They are sometimes poignant, usually filled with minutiae, but always fascinating and enlightening, and a treasure trove for those interested in the social history of an era. They are, after all, voices from the past.

Lakeside Resorts - Then and Now

2010-02-24T12:17:00.006-05:00

If you wanted to escape from the hot and hectic city a hundred years ago, you could board a train, whether from Toronto or Pittsburgh or beyond, and head towards the pristine beauty of the Muskoka Lakes, where you could frolic in and on the sparkling waters and breathe the pine-scented, ragweed-free air. If you didn’t have a summer home there, you could choose from nearly a hundred resorts, hotels, and inns that catered to over 5500 tourists on the three main, connected lakes. They offered dances, concerts, and even roller skating rinks to augment the many outdoor activities. Arriving at one of the railways terminals, you’d board an elegant steamship and sail to your destination, perhaps another three or four hours away. If you could afford to pay $18 or more per week, you could stay at the grandest one of all, the Royal Muskoka Hotel on Lake Rosseau.

When the Royal was built in 1901, it was touted as being the finest hotel in Canada, with all the amenities and luxuries of any city hotel, including en suite bathrooms, barber shop and hair stylist, bakery, an orchestra, and twice daily mail delivery. See a picture of the Royal here. It burned down in 1952, fire being the fate of many of these summer resorts. Others decayed or were unable to keep up with modern demands. Only a couple of the original hotels remain.

But a new one has arisen quite close to where the Royal once stood, and harkens back in style and opulence to that era. Pictured above is “The Rosseau”, a J.W. Marriott hotel, which is open all year. What surprised me was hearing cottagers opposing its development, complaining of “increased traffic” on the lake. Considering that there are only a handful of hotels that can accommodate tourists these days, that smacks of elitism - that the lakes belong only to those who can afford the overpriced cottages. They would do well to remember that it was the many hotels that helped turn Muskoka into a renowned tourist area, and undoubtedly influenced vacationers to buy property in the days when an island could cost as little as $1. We would be delighted on our non-Muskoka lake to have a hotel to which we could boat for a decent meal, or perhaps a dance, as people did in days gone by.

In the meantime, I will enjoy occasional visits to The Rosseau, since the “Grand Muskoka Hotel” in my novels is heavily based on the Royal. There’s nothing like soaking up the ambiance for inspiration!

Waiting for Summer

2010-02-19T11:17:00.002-05:00

Winter on the lake is snow-shrouded silence. There’s no lapping of waves, no raucous cry of gulls or haunting call of loons. There’s no splashing of swimmers or drone of motorboats, only the rude roar of the occasional snowmobile as it rips across the white expanse of solitude. Trails of footprints beckon the brave to venture onto this ice-bound tundra as snow broods in the skies above. Two Muskoka chairs perch on the edge of a dock and dream of summer.

What you can’t see in the photo above is that there is open water on either side, caused by the turbulence of bubblers that keep ice from forming and damaging the docks. Some people use them around their boathouses as well. Ice can be deceptive - feet thick in some places and safe enough to drive cars across, and yet dangerous in others, where unseen cracks have formed or currents roil beneath a thin sheet. And every year there are people - snowmobilers mostly - who break through. Not far from this spot a mother and daughter drowned last winter while horrified family and friends on snowmobiles right beside them watched helplessly. I have crossed lakes on snowmobiles, but never felt comfortable doing so, especially since I’ve encountered frighteningly soft ice while skiing on a lake in bitter cold, which is obviously no guarantee of safety.

So it always surprises me when I hear of people who live on these islands year-round. In the Muskoka of a century ago, the wealthy often had caretakers who stayed over the winter to look after the property, and apparently some still do. I expect that these people are no longer so isolated, but in the days before snowmobiles and even roads around the perimeter of the lakes that now connect to towns and villages, it would have been a challenge to over-winter here.

After all, the creaking of frozen branches and distant howling of wolves is sometimes all you hear in this muffled and windblown black-and-white world.

The Magic of Muskoka Boathouses

2010-02-09T09:50:00.004-05:00

Muskoka boathouses are so much more than shelters for watercraft. They are architectural gems - some whimsical, most hearkening back to an earlier century, never two the same, and all with stories to tell. Those built before size restrictions came into being in the late 1980s can be enormous, with 3000 or more square feet on the second level. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these spaces were often used as servants’ quarters or ballrooms. Later, they became guest suites or places for children to sleep and play.

Built just prior to WW1, the brown boathouses in the photo above are known as the Girls’ Boathouse (on the left) and the Boys’ Boathouse, which oddly is more ornate. Both have a “Lindbergh door” - a secret passage added later, allowing children to escape should anyone try to kidnap them. This wealthy American family was taking no chances after what happened to Charles Lindbergh’s child in 1932. As in this case, one boathouse is often not sufficient, so it’s not uncommon to see two or even three attached to one property, and housing as many as sixteen boats, each building retaining its unique character.

Boathouses reflect the style and colours of the cottage, as can be seen above in a modern recreation of a century summer home, with an even more fanciful boathouse. Old cottages that have settled comfortably into the landscape over generations are often hidden in the pines, so it’s the boathouse that welcomes visitors.

Some cottages that perch on granite cliffs high above the lake have an inclined elevator to scale the hillside, ferrying people and supplies - a real boon in the days when cottagers and guests arrived with trunks of clothing and other paraphernalia for a two or three month stay.

It’s also understandable that these functional buildings, hovering over the water, often replete with kitchens as well as bedrooms, bathrooms, and sitting rooms, become the focus of lakeside activities. Most have balconies, decks, verandas, or screened porches and are surrounded by docks so you can feel even closer to the water as you sip morning coffee or evening cocktails.

Those lucky enough to live in boathouses talk about the magical light and the serenity of feeling adrift on the water. “On sunny days, sparkles dancing on the lake reflect on our walls and windows. And at night, there’s no better lullaby than the sound of waves lapping beneath the cribs,” writes Judy Ross in Shelter at the Shore: The Boathouses of Muskoka. For her family, the boathouse is the cottage, and if you love being on the water, who needs anything more?

As for me, I can delight in designing boathouses circa 1919 for my characters, and vicariously enjoy the experience of staying in one.

What cats do while you're sleeping

2010-02-04T11:04:00.002-05:00

My late cats, Cally and Gingy, spent many hours sitting on my desk or hovering nearby while I wrote and created websites (a former part-time business). I realized later that they had been surreptitiously studying me, for I discovered that they had put up their own webpage! Here’s what it said:

Greetings, fellow cybercats! We are Cally and Gingy, two high-tech cats with attitude. Here are some useful, cat-tested tips for getting those people you own to do what you want.
• Give them rub-againsts - people need to feel privileged by your attention - it's also a good way to brush off excess fur.
• Reach up and pat them on the arm to tell them you'd like some roast beef, too (or whatever looks appetizing from the dinner table).
• Turn up your nose and strut away in a dignified huff if they give you something really vile to eat, then snatch a meal outside. (We call that fast food!)
• Don’t be greedy - sometimes it's a good idea to share your spoils - women especially shriek with joy when you bring them a mouse.
• Be unpredictable - ambush them from under a couch or dash down the stairs ahead of them - just don't let your people become complacent.
• Practice the fine art of studiously ignoring them - especially if they think you're exhibiting dog-like qualities of devotion.
• Demonstrate your superior decorating skills - keep knocking the ornaments off the Christmas tree until they get it right.
• Establish your territory early - choose the best chair in the house as yours and make sure you leave lots of fur behind so everyone knows it.
• People like routine - sit in the same spot every day to demand your bowl of milk - they soon get the message.
• We hate resorting to this one, but if they're slow to clean your litterbox, use a potted plant.
• Don’t let them fool you with so-called scratching posts - the back of a couch or chair provides a much more satisfying place to exercise your claws.
Be firm and consistent. It may take a while to train your people, but you'll win in the end, and they will become your devoted slaves. Especially if you give them one of your innocent looks and enigmatic smiles. Purrrow!

RIP Cally (Apr. 1989 - Feb. 2007) and Gingy (Apr. 1990 - July 2008).

The Challenges of Writing Sequels

2010-01-29T12:21:00.001-05:00

I’m working on Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels series, and am once again struggling with a few issues. With the Dickensian cast of characters having over 1100 pages of experiences behind them, how much do I reiterate so that those who have not read the first two books will know what’s going on, while those who have just finished them won’t be bored? It’s a fine line to tread.

Continuity also has its challenges. Each character is for me a real person, so no problem recalling how they look or “who” they are. I do have profiles for them, which include their favourite expressions, what other characters think or say about them, whether someone gave them a gold locket or a silver cigarette case, and other minutiae, which may become relevant at some time.

I’ve spent weeks combing through the first two books to compile a list of continuity facts, which also include descriptions of places and events. For instance, Grandmother Wyndham had her portrait painted by John Singer Sargent, so of course it has to hang somewhere. Hothouse flowers were shipped regularly from the Wyndhams’ city estate to their summer cottage on the lake. A lucent necklace of gas lamps encircled the entire point of their island. I have over 40 pages of these types of notes.

So now it’s time to immerse myself in another world again!

Historical weather and other tidbits

2010-01-19T14:11:00.002-05:00

Trying to recreate an era as accurately as possible, I’m continually amazed and delighted that so many historical tidbits can be found instantly on the Internet. I know that in 1914 the July full moon fell on Tuesday the 7th, which is when my characters have a moonlight cruise on the lake. I’ve seen photos of the first class dining lounge on the Lusitania, and know what was served to my characters for dinner as they departed for England. I know what a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost ambulance looks like, as driven by one of my young women. I’ve watched funerals for those killed in air raids, and followed Edward, the Prince of Wales, on his tour through Canada in 1919.

I need a good understanding of the time to be able to realistically place my characters in it. So even trivial things like the weather are taken into account. Looking at the climate data for 1919, I see that June was incredibly hot, with half the days registering over 30°C, while July was almost as hot, and had only four rainy days. How unlike our summer last year, which was lamentably cool and wet. The weather certainly has an impact on how you spend time at your lakeside cottage, as my characters do.

After two cool summers here, I know I’m not the only one looking forward to a blistering 1919-type one. In the meantime, I’m spending the winter there!

Victorian Dress Torture

2010-01-12T11:58:00.003-05:00

Imagine walking around every day with anywhere from 20 to 88 pounds of constant pressure around your abdomen. That’s what the corset provided as it cinched women’s waists to as little as 17 or 18 inches. “It also restricted oxygen intake, crushed the internal organs, caused chronic fatigue and headaches, and created serious long-term medical complications,” explains Joshua Zeitz in his fascinating book, Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and Women Who Made America Modern. A girl at boarding school related how the merciless tight-lacing was painfully intolerable, but that it was an inflexible rule, and the cruel laces not relaxed except during illness. One critic of the day said, “The effects of a tight cord round the neck and of tight-lacing only differ in degree… for the strangulations are both fatal. To wear tight stays is in many cases to wither, to waste, and to die.”

“The loudest defenders of the corset routinely used words like ‘discipline’, ‘confinement’, submission’, and ‘bondage’ and spoke favorably of ‘training the figure’ with a degree of pain ‘rigidly inflicted and unflinchingly imposed’.” One man said, “The corset is an ever present monitor indirectly bidding its wearer to exercise self-restraint: it is evidence of a well-disciplined mind and well-regulated feelings.”

If they couldn’t move or breathe easily because of corsets, women were further hampered by crinolines. ”Built of flexible steel, whalebone, or wood, these contraptions were little more than hooped cages…. sometimes as much as 5 yards in circumference.” Wooden crinolines commonly caught on fire when women stepped too close to a fireplace or candle (i.e. within a couple of yards). One Victorian woman wrote, “Take what precautions we may against fire, so long as the hoop is worn, life is never safe… all are living under a sentence of death which may occur unexpectedly in the most appalling form.”

Appalling indeed! Is it any wonder that Victorian feminists felt that the fashions reinforced women’s subordination to men, keeping them quite literally imprisoned? “How can you ever compete with man… for equal place and pay with garments… so cumbersomely fashioned, and how can you ever hope to enjoy the same health and vigor as men, so long as the waist is pressed into the smallest compass, pounds of clothing hung on the hips, the limbs cramped with skirts?” asked Elizabeth Cady Stanton who wore comfortable “bloomers” in protest.

Welcome to the Age of Elegance

2010-01-06T10:41:00.005-05:00

My name is Victoria Wyndham, known to close friends and family as Ria. I'd like to introduce you to some of them.
Well, perhaps a few words about me first.

Grandmother says I'm incorrigible and impulsive. Father calls me "utterly selfish, inconsiderate, and disobedient". My mother died when I was born and he has never forgiven me for that.

Prickly Aunt Phyllis has condemned me as a "brazen troublemaker" and "undisciplined hoyden", but of course, she has never liked me, nor I, her. Luckily, Aunt Olivia and Uncle Richard have always been generous and loving, so that I feel very much a part of their large brood, and particularly close to my twin cousins, Zoë and Max, who are my age. Max is such a card, and Zoë is clever and wonderfully outspoken, even with Grandmother. They're onboard for any adventures that I dream up.

Stuffy cousin Henry claims that I'm reckless and always venture beyond the bounds of his imagination. His younger sister, Phoebe, is surely more inclined to do that, since she is quite mad, and talks to her sinister two-faced doll - who apparently replies. Their brother, Edgar, is easily the most likeable of Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Albert's children, although Grandmother thinks him too self-indulgent.

I should explain that we have a summer home on Wyndwood Island on a pristine lake in Muskoka, about 100 miles north of Toronto, where we live the rest of the year. We Wyndhams spend three or four months together at the cottage every summer, which doesn't always make for harmonious relationships. Especially after Jack arrived.

None of us knew, until this summer of 1914, that we had more Wyndham cousins! Jack's father was disowned for marrying a "showgirl". Jack is a charmer, and devilishly handsome - "divine," as Lydia Carrington remarked. Grandmother admires him as well, although she doesn't trust him. She thinks that because he grew up so poor, he will be ruthless, and use everyone to get ahead. She would be scandalized if she knew how Jack and I first met. He has three younger sisters, one whose remarkable voice has already impressed a Broadway composer. The eldest, Lizzie, is a bit harder to like, although I can't put my finger on why.

Cousin Bea - Lady Beatrice Kirkland - who is visiting us from England this summer, is truly sympathetic, but she thinks that I have "the unfortunate habit of running away when things get tough". She just doesn't understand how soul shattering some "things" are!

Chas Thornton told me at a ball that I have "the most stunning eyes. Like azure pools. A chap could drown in them." Chas is an outrageous flirt! And tremendous fun. He enjoys life and radiates joy. His family owns a neighbouring island, and his father is one of the richest men in Canada. Our friend, Ellie, thinks he's "absolutely beautiful" and adores him, even though she detests his lifestyle and lack of ambition.

Of course Ellie - Eleanor Carlyle - doesn't approve of conspicuous wealth. A medical student, she is also something of a crusader, with perhaps too much of a social conscience. She would populate our homes - which she finds obscenely large - with unwed mothers and orphans. But I like her down-to-earth honesty, and she is the staunchest of friends.

Her brother, Blake, is already a doctor, and very much the love of Zoë's life, if only he would realize it!

Chas's younger brother, Rafe, is rather dissolute, and he unsettles me with his rapacious attentions. He seems to be a frustrated boy living in the shadow of his charismatic older brother. Perhaps his aggressiveness is a reaction to Chas's gentility.

Justin Carrington, on the other hand, is the kindest and most gentlemanly friend. I had a terrific pash for him when I was fifteen, and now I fear that he has rather fallen for me. Grandmother is trying to encourage our marriage, maintaining that "friendship and mutual respect are far better than passion for building a good marriage." But she doesn't know where my heart lies.

I have many more friends, whom you can meet if you read The Muskoka Novels - The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn.

And I fear for my dear friends, as several are going off to war, Jack and Chas to become daring aviators. But we girls are not about to be left behind! We are as patriotic and plucky as the men. Zoë intends to become a VAD - a volunteer nurse. Ellie is almost finished her studies as a doctor. And I fancy driving an ambulance. Vivian Carrington and I are going to England aboard the Lusitania, the fastest and most elegant ship on the seas. Vivian did her VAD training and is using this as an excuse to meet up with her forbidden love, who's already overseas in the Veterinary Corps.

I do wonder why our generation is being so severely tested. Have we been living in a fool's paradise?

As for Muskoka, it's our sanctuary. Once you visit our island with its stately pines, sparkling granite, and distant vistas of craggy, tufted islands floating on the cobalt blue lake, you might understand why my soul hungers for it.

Christmas Truce

2009-12-21T10:27:00.003-05:00

When tens of thousands of young British and Commonwealth men went off to war so eagerly and naively in the summer of 1914, it was generally thought that they would be home by Christmas. But by then the troops on the Western Front were well entrenched along a mostly static line that would witness a brutal war of attrition during the next four years.

One of the absurdities of war is that the people who are expected to kill one another have no personal enmity towards one another. This became very clear on Christmas, 1914, when there was a spontaneous cessation of hostilities between British and German troops in the front lines. The Germans were decorating their trenches with small Christmas trees and singing carols. The British “retaliated” with English carols, and soon the men were shouting greetings to each other. Many met in No Man's Land (the area between the opposing front lines) where small gifts like chocolate or buttons were exchanged, and pictures of sweethearts were shown. In some places, the opposing troops played soccer, and drank together. It became known as the "Christmas Truce", and was dramatized in the 2005 Oscar-nominated French film entitled "Joyeux Noel". The commanders, of course, didn’t like this fraternization with the enemy, and tried to ensure that it never happened again.

Because my Muskoka Novels take place during WW1 and involve idealistic and patriotic young men and women going off to war, I donated three dozen copies of Book 1, The Summer Before The Storm, to our Canadian troops in Afghanistan two Christmases ago. I thought that they could relate to my characters, since they were also far away from home and loved ones, fighting battles on foreign soil.

Christmas is a time to truly reflect and heed Longfellow’s words, sung for generations - “peace on earth, good will to men”.

Halifax Explosion - 92 years go

2009-12-03T11:31:00.002-05:00

On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax harbour, one packed with high explosives destined for the war in Europe. Curious people watched the burning ship from their parlours and verandas as it drifted towards shore. A few minutes later there was such a powerful explosion that 500 acres of homes and businesses were instantly obliterated. The ship vapourized into a mushroom cloud that dropped shards of hot metal and soot onto the city and neighbouring Dartmouth. A tsunami wave, triggered by the explosion, reached 60 ft. above the high water mark and dragged victims into the sea as it receded. Some actually survived to tell their tales.

And they were harrowing ones, expertly and grippingly recounted in The Curse of The Narrows by Laura MacDonald. Some had all their clothes ripped off and found themselves sitting naked on the ground a mile from where they had stood only an instant before. Others lived while the people right next to them had been decapitated or crushed. Decades later, people were still digging shards of glass or metal from their bodies as these worked their way out.

About 2000 were killed and over 9000, injured, many blinded and cut by flying glass. The blast shook buildings 100 km away and was heard over 300 km away in Cape Breton. It also upset stoves and lamps, causing entire streets to catch on fire and trapping survivors in their ruined homes.

Rescue trains filled with medical personnel and supplies were quickly dispatched from Boston as well as Canadian cities, but were hampered in their journey by the largest blizzard of the decade - snow and bitter cold, which also further complicated rescue operations. The wounded were now freezing to death.

This catastrophe was the largest man-made explosion until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and is still the largest accidental one. There were more casualties than those sustained in the 103 air raids on Britain. Although the Canadian troops had been involved in the Great War since the outset, those at home had now also become victims.

The Halifax explosion figures in my novel, Elusive Dawn.

Influenza Pandemic

2009-11-26T10:31:00.002-05:00

The Great Influenza Pandemic that ravaged the world in 1918 is thought to have killed from 30 to 100 million people. About 50,000 Canadians died in a matter of months, and millions more were sick, many of the survivors suffering lifelong health problems. So it came as a surprise to me that this catastrophe mostly didn’t make the front-page news of the Toronto Star, even though public places like schools, cinemas, and churches closed down, and hotels were turned into temporary hospitals. Was the press somewhat gagged to prevent panic, or had Canadians become so inured to death after 68,000 war fatalities that 1000 more in Toronto over just three weeks was no longer alarming?

What was truly terrifying about that virulent flu was that it killed mostly young (20 - 40 year old) and otherwise healthy people, usually with ferocious speed. Stories about people dropping dead at bus stops, or feeling unwell and going to sleep, never to awaken, were not uncommon. But most deaths weren’t so gentle. Excruciating headaches, pain so severe that victims felt their bones were breaking, hemorrhaging from lungs, noses, and ears, such violent coughing that muscles and cartilage were torn apart. Many turned blue-black, this “heliotrope cyanosis” being invariably fatal. Pregnant women were particularly doomed if they fell ill, with an estimated 70% fatality rate.

The epidemic wasn’t as severe in Canada as in parts of the United States, like Philadelphia, where clergy driving horse-drawn carts called for people to bring out their dead, who were buried in mass graves - so reminiscent of the Black Plague, which in some ways this one resembled.

While the current swine flu pandemic hasn’t claimed that many lives - yet - it is disturbingly similar in many ways. It also targets young adults, some of whom have perished despite modern drugs and interventions. Recently, a local 23-year-old went to bed with flu symptoms and died in his sleep.

Part of the tragedy of the 1918 pandemic is that it decimated the young - the generation that had already sacrificed so much in the war, which is something that figures in my novel, Elusive Dawn.

For a comprehensive look at the Spanish Flu, read John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.

Remembrance Day

2009-11-10T08:06:00.003-05:00

I mentioned in a previous blog that the people of Ypres (Ieper ) Belgium have, since 1928, held a nightly ceremony at the Menin Gate to commemorate the fallen of WW1. Once a year, on Nov. 11 at 11:00 am, we stop for two minutes to remember those mostly very young men and women who innocently, patriotically went off to “do their duty” for King and country, one in ten never to return, and all the other soldiers in other conflicts, some still ongoing. Those who haven’t seen Terry Kelly’s poignant music video about the real meaning of those two minutes of homage should have a look at “A Pittance of Time”.

Through my novels, I’ve been told that I’ve contributed to a deeper understanding of the “war to end all wars”. My books are not war novels, per se, but are about the people caught up in the cataclysm - young men who become aviators, soldiers, front-line medics, and their wives, sweethearts, sisters who endure their own hardships as ambulance drivers and nurses, as well as those anxiously waiting on the home front, who also made enormous contributions. It is by seeing the war through the eyes of individuals that we can truly understand the life-altering consequences of that tumultuous time. As one of my fans recently commented: “I attended the War Museum in Ottawa and with your characters in mind, I could see Chas flying high in his plane! Attaching a soul to the stories and pictures we looked at brought a whole new human meaning to me. It was no longer something we learned about once in school - it had a face, a life, a love, and a tragedy.”

The photo above was taken at the impressive Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge, France.

Video trailer for the Muskoka Novels!

2009-11-06T12:39:00.006-05:00

I'm excited to announce that I have created a short trailer for The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn. It can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcAOJbaiYy8 - just click on the link to the left under "websites".

Thanks to my daughter for providing the beautiful and evocative photos of Muskoka. What tremendous fun it was to create this!

Ghostly Autumn

2009-10-29T08:26:00.004-04:00

There is something about late autumn that cries out for the telling of ghost stories. Is it because we’re surrounded by summer’s decay as flowers shrivel and desiccated leaves are chased by biting breezes? Is it the withering daylight and deep, dark nights? Is it the skeletal trees that reach bony fingers toward the lowering sky or claw on windowpanes? (The spectral Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights comes to mind.) Is it the superstition that spirits wander the earth on Halloween night when the veil between the living and dead becomes gossamer thin? Whatever it is that conjures up some atavistic fears at this season, it’s spine-tingling fun.

One of our favourite family stories that perfectly evokes this autumnal eeriness is called The Ghost-Eye Tree by Bill Martin Jr. We had a "ghost-eye tree" in a riverside park close to our previous home, and always felt the story’s thrill as we passed it. Interesting how that became part of our family lexicon.

For adult books, I prefer creepy rather than gory (which I refuse to read or watch), and find that the most chilling tales are the subtle ones. Stephen King can make a hedge or a fire hose seem like the most malevolent danger, as he did in The Shining. (I remember that from 30+ years ago!) But I think that the scariest book I ever read was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It’s haunted me for way too many years. What a great writer she was!

To celebrate this spooky season, ghosts and skeletons have already invaded our house, and a grimacing jack-o-lantern is soon to join them. On Halloween night we’ll don our witches’ hats and demons’ cloaks so that we can’t be singled out from the real ones that may be about - and to scare the little goblins who dare to come to our door for treats. Candles will flicker… medieval chants will echo… Imaginations will delight…. Bwahahaaaaaaa.

Changing history

2009-10-22T11:05:00.003-04:00

Although having real people mingle with my characters adds even greater realism to my historical novels, there is always some trepidation that I’m altering history somewhat. For example, one of my main Canadian characters in Elusive Dawn is an aviator in WWI, and becomes the top British Ace when Albert Ball dies. The problem is that the person who succeeded Ball was Canadian Billy Bishop. History is “changed” by the fact that for a few weeks at least, my character has claimed Billy’s rightful title.

What a relief then to have Billy Bishop’s son, Arthur, recently tell me that he really enjoyed both my “Muskoka Novels”, and found them not only suspenseful and well written, but also historically accurate. He said that the amazing amount of research evident in the books provides an excellent educational background on the Great War and on aviation. Coming from a WWII pilot, who is himself a respected author - not only of his father’s compelling biography, but also on aviation and other military topics - this is indeed exciting.

Also reassuring is the fact that, since Billy actually interacts (briefly) with my characters in Elusive Dawn, I did justice to him in my portrayal, based upon Arthur’s book as well as Billy’s own account written during the war, and other sources.

Speaking with Arthur, I was also intrigued to feel at just one small remove from the legendary Billy Bishop, VC, about whom there has been much controversy, but who was unquestionably an heroic young man.

Cliveden and the Astors

2009-10-15T13:20:00.002-04:00

I receive a monthly e-newsletter from Cliveden in Berkshire England - “one of the world’s finest luxury hotels” - not because I can ever afford to stay there, but because I used this grand country house in my latest novels. Under the ownership of Waldorf and Nancy Astor, Cliveden became the centre of social and political life between the wars, with many illustrious guests from royalty to George Bernard Shaw, Churchill, and Charlie Chaplin.

During WWI, the Astors offered their indoor tennis court and bowling alley to the Canadians, which became the core of the Duchess of Connaught’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital. Nancy Astor (who didn't become Lady Astor until 1919) was renowned for visiting the men and cajoling them into getting well. A Canadian hospital was once again built in the grounds during WWII, and remained a hospital until the 1980s.

One of the Canadian doctors who worked there during the Second World War talks in his memoirs about Nancy’s generous nature, friendliness, and determination to help. He and other staff were often invited to dine with the Astors, who were teetotal. However, the butler would discreetly ask the guests if they would care for more sustaining refreshment, and pour them glasses of whiskey.

Some of my characters dine with the Astors in Elusive Dawn, while others work at the hospital or are patients. One day I should like to dine at Cliveden as well!

Thanksgiving

2009-10-12T11:57:00.002-04:00

Canadian Thanksgiving falls at the most colourful time of the year, with trees glowing like balls of sunshine or blazing scarlet, the meadows punctuated by purple and yellow wildflowers and sun bronzed stalks.

This long holiday weekend is also the traditional time to “close” the seasonal cottages that aren’t insulated or accessible in winter. This ritual can involve, among other things, draining the water system, putting up shutters, and pulling out docks that are threatened by winter ice. Cottage Life Magazine claims that 60% of Ontario’s 220,000 waterfront vacation homes are now used year-round, so Thanksgiving is no longer the end of the cottaging season for many. There are, however, still resorts that close after this weekend, to be opened again in late May.

Sad to think that it will be seven long winter months before we can re-open the cottage in anticipation of summer.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Intrepid Women

2009-09-29T17:22:00.005-04:00

During my research on the First World War, I came across the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), a Corps of plucky women who volunteered to drive ambulances and run hospitals in war-torn France and Belgium. They were well-bred, often aristocratic young women, and cultivated an image of fierce independence, self-confidence, flair, gaiety, and audacity. The FANYs' work was difficult, dangerous, and dirty (they fixed their own ambulances), but they also had fun. They were renowned for their hospitality, hosting teas, dances, and entertainments for officers when off-duty. Many were accomplished musicians.

The “girls” as they called themselves, often had to drive ambulances during bombing raids. FANY members earned 136 medals and decorations during WW1. One of them was Pat (Waddell) Beauchamp, who lost a leg in the line of duty. She recounts her experiences in her memoir, Fanny Goes to War.

Some of the FANY brought their own cars to France, which were then converted into ambulances. The windshields were removed from all vehicles, and only small sidelights were allowed for night driving. This was so as not to alert enemy aircraft with lights or reflections, and to prevent injuries from breaking glass during bombings. The girls often had to evacuate the wounded from trains to hospitals or ships at night and in all weathers.

It’s amazing to realize the many hardships that these gently reared ladies endured - with stoicism and grace - in their bid to “do their duty” like their brothers and sweethearts.

For a comprehensive account of the FANY, read War Girls by Janet Lee.

I pay homage to these courageous women volunteers in Elusive Dawn through my version of the Corps, the WATS (Women's Ambulance and Transport Service). The FANY is still in existence.

Fictional Friends

2009-09-16T22:01:00.003-04:00

Fictional friends make you laugh and cry. They invite you along on their adventures. They share their most intimate thoughts and moments with you, and become lasting friends whose lives matter to you. Once acquainted, who can ever forget Anne (of Green Gables), Oliver Twist, Tess (of the D’Urbervilles), Jane Eyre, Heathcliffe, Miss Marple, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves to name just a few. But they don’t have to be legendary to impress you. For a multitude of reasons, they touch your heart and soul and linger in your psyche.

As an author, I have an even deeper relationship with my characters. They are constantly in my thoughts, and a part of me resides in each. Once formed, they take over the story, changing the plot to suit their whims. One of them even has a blog, of sorts, which you can visit at InMyLife.

My characters are constantly pestering me to get on with their lives in Book 3 of the Muskoka Novels series. I’m delighted that fans, too, are enthralled with them. Here are some of their comments:

"Through The Summer Before The Storm, and now Elusive Dawn, we have come to know a whole new family - characters that are so real we can't help but be affected by their lives. We've laughed with them, cried with them, felt their fears, anxieties and pain, shared their joy and their sorrow. You have a great talent, combining fact and fiction into a fascinating, engrossing tale of love, loss, inner strength, hope and the power of faith.... I often find myself thinking about 'our new family' and what you may have in store for them. You always leave us wanting more!"

"Turning the final page of [The Summer Before The Storm], I was left wondering what was to become of the rich cast of fictitious characters who had become my friends over the previous 500 or so pages."

"Your fascinating and intriguing characters are so real, so believable, each one unique and passionate in his/her own way, I couldn't help but be drawn into the emotions and circumstances of their lives."

"It is impossible not to be drawn into the lives and emotions of the eminently believable characters."

More comments can be seen on the MuskokaNovels.com

Summer's Lament

2009-09-09T12:27:00.003-04:00

The older I become the more reluctant I am to relinquish summer. Although we’re currently experiencing the best weather we’ve had this entire record-breaking cool and wet summer, this past Labour Day weekend still felt like the unofficial end to the season.

But how delightful to be able to spend it at our island cottage with family and friends!

After a refreshing last swim, we stood in the lake beside the dock and celebrated the perfect day and some significant anniversaries and birthdays with champagne. It will be at least nine long months before I’ll be back there, so I’m looking forward to immersing myself in writing about summers long past as I work on my latest novel. And there are always photos.

"Millionaires' Row"

2009-08-31T13:51:00.006-04:00

On my recent research trip to the Muskoka lakes, I took a delightful cruise on a 1920s-style yacht around the area known as Millionaires’ Row. It was here, over a century ago, that wealthy Americans began building their summer homes or “cottages”. Many were from Pittsburgh; some were and still are among the richest families in America. They ventured north to the pristine wilderness of the Canadian Shield to escape the industrial pollution and stifling heat of summer, bringing along a bevy of servants (one family had 27!), and staying for two or three months. Many of these well-preserved cottages are still in the family, and several generations have grown up on the lakes and been enchanted by the mystique of this beautiful district.

The boathouses are as fanciful as the gingerbread cottages, and usually have party rooms or living quarters above, often for the children or guests. (One is pictured above.) Many of these still shelter aquatic jewels - exquisite boats handcrafted by one of the world-renowned Muskoka boat builders. With vintage launches and grand cottages little changed, it’s easy to imagine the genteel life on these lakes a century ago.

To book a tour on the Idyllwood yacht, visit Sunset Cruises.

My Muskoka Novels will also transport you to this elegant era.

Soundtracks of our lives

2009-08-18T08:52:00.006-04:00

Even more than language (see previous post), music evokes an era - ragtime pre-WW1, jazz in the ‘20s, the Beatles in the ‘60s.

We all have soundtracks for our lives - music that transports us in a heartbeat to a particular time and place whenever we hear it. That applies equally to fictional characters. Throughout my “Muskoka Novels”, appropriate lyrics of popular songs are used for dramatic or ironic effect, and in character and relationship development.

During my research, I came across ragtime historian and award-winning performer Bill Edwards’ website, and became enchanted by his masterful renditions of the hit tunes of the pre- and WW1 eras. It helped me to immerse myself in the mindset for writing about that time.

I thought it would enhance the reading experience to have a companion CD of that music to accompany each novel. Bill readily agreed to produce them. So readers can enjoy the music to which characters dance and flirt - songs that evoke romance as well as themes in the storyline.

When I mentioned that one of my characters wrote a hit Broadway musical in Elusive Dawn, Bill asked me if I had any lyrics for the signature tune, so I sent a few lines that had been playing around in my head. He expanded those into a song in the style of the era, and has recorded it for the Elusive Dawn CD. It's entitled "I'm Over the Moon For You". I just love how fact and fiction intertwine! And I’m eagerly awaiting the release of this latest CD.

Visit NovelTunes for more info about the “Music for Muskoka” CD that accompanies The Summer Before The Storm.

Fun with slang

2009-08-10T12:37:00.003-04:00

Slang and colloquialisms help to define an era. What’s “cool” today was “far out” in the 1950s, “the bee’s knees” in the 1920s, and “swell” in the 1900s. “Cool” actually originated in about 1933, but seems so modern that I wonder if readers would feel that it was an anachronism if it were used in a novel set at that time.

Of course, a lot of slang is in common usage for more than a decade or two. Although we may think these more contemporary than pre-WW1, expressions such as “not on your life”, “frigging”, “necking”, and “boyfriend” were already in use at that time.

You could have “given someone a piece of your mind” back in 1861, or “pi-jawed” them after 1891. It’s the delightful and mostly obsolete expressions like the latter that add a sense of historical place to novels. Something good is surely more fun when it’s “crackerjack”. A “top-hole” “chap” is the best kind of friend, and can also be called a “stout fellow”, or a “jolly”, “howling”, or “cracking” “good egg”.

“Booze” has been around since about 1325, and you’d be “squiffy”, or “pie-eyed”, or “spifflicated” if you overindulged in the pre-WW1 era, as well as being just “high”, “tight”, or “plastered”.

“You could have knocked me down with a feather” in 1741, but “Boy!” “I’ll be jiggered” if I’d rather not have a character in 1914 say, “Zowie!” instead. If you “talk wet” someone may respond with “Applesauce!” or “Flapdoodle!” and might think that you’re either “tapped”, “dippy”, or “off your onion”.

Words are such fun, aren’t they? I use several sources in my research, but the Oxford Dictionary of Slang is “the cat’s pajamas”!

Cottage tales (or tails?)

2009-08-07T13:33:00.002-04:00

The “morning dock” at our family cottage is at the base of a small bluff accessed by about a dozen stairs. As I once savoured the solitude of sitting there watching a summer sunrise, I was startled by a thundering noise approaching me, the ground trembling. I leapt to my feet to see a herd of cows charging for the steps. I screamed. Equally shocked, they seemed to screech to a halt, like cartoon characters. Heart still pounding, I shooed them away.

Cows at the cottage? Yup! I mentioned in my last posting that there had once been a farm on our island. There is still a meadow in the centre, and heifers are brought over every summer to graze there. Of course cows have no respect for property, so they wander where they will, and many cottagers have put up electric fences to keep them away.

My brother and his family once awakened to what they thought was an earthquake, as the cottage was shaking. They quickly discovered that several cows had gone underneath and were scratching their backs on the beams - the building sitting on concrete tubes that left them just enough room to walk beneath. We now have screening around that.

Another time, one of the clever beasts managed to turn on the outdoor faucet so that they could all drink. Who said that cows were dumb?

Lately, there have also been bulls on the island. They are more of a concern, since they have been known to chase cottagers out for a stroll. It gives new meaning to being cautious about the “wildlife”!

The joys and challenges of island cottaging

2009-08-05T10:27:00.004-04:00

Lakes are moody. They can be benignly serene or exuberantly playful, happily reflecting a blue sky and scintillating with sunbeams momentarily captured by the waves. But they can also turn black and malicious. It’s at moments like this that you wish your parents had built their cottage on the mainland instead of on an island.

On brooding and windy days, when waves are belligerently frothing with white caps, docking can be virtually impossible as breakers wash over the stern of the boat and attempt to ram you into the rocks. If you can actually get to the island, it can be equally dangerous to leave, so it’s essential to be well stocked with food and refreshments. In any case, once you’ve hauled all the stuff across three kilometres of capricious water, you don’t want to have to trek back to town to pick up forgotten bread or flashlight batteries. Obviously, planning ahead is important.

So why have a cottage on an island, which is accessible for only about six months of the year? Partly because island property is significantly larger but decidedly cheaper than mainland lots. Our nearest neighbour is a ten-minute walk away through the woods. Some of the mainland cottages are packed as tightly together as suburban houses. We certainly have solitude, along with a bit more adventure.

My friend, whose family has cottaged on an island since 1879, claims that island people are different - hardier, yet more laid back. Perhaps being farther away from the distractions of modern life - the highways, cars, shopping malls - makes it easier to relax, commune with nature, pick up a book instead of the car keys. Certainly when I visit her vintage cottage, it’s like stepping back into time, and out of the frenetic present.

We’re on a 1200 acre island that was once a farm. A generation ago, the family still lived there, and the children had to go to the mainland - nearly a kilometre across the lake at the narrowest point - to attend school. So they could row over until the lake froze solid enough to walk across. But what about the transition period between open water and safe ice, I wanted to know. Seems that the children would push the rowboat and jump into it if the thin ice broke beneath them. Imagine sending your kids off to school like that every day in early winter and late spring!

So I can hardly complain about the “hardships” of island cottaging!

95 years ago today....

2009-07-28T07:58:00.001-04:00

The summer of 1914 was blistering hot in Ontario. Those with the time and the means could spend their days cooling off in and around the many lakes, especially in Muskoka, where private summer homes (“cottages”) and dozens of resort hotels were enjoying the heyday of the Age of Elegance. The assassination of an Austrian Archduke in June was overshadowed somewhat by an election in Ontario the following day. There seemed to be no foreshadowing of the impending cataclysm that would become the “Great War”.

While the Toronto Star headline of Tuesday, July 28, 1914 read, “Austria Formally Declares War”, most Canadians thought that European nations were just sabre rattling, and weren’t unduly alarmed by the escalation of troop mobilizations and the daily ultimatums that began being issued. Canada’s Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, was holidaying at the Royal Muskoka Hotel, so surely these European antics had nothing to do with Canada.

Borden was to have presented the trophies at the annual Muskoka Lakes Association Regatta that upcoming long weekend, but suddenly cut his vacation short and hurried back to Ottawa on the 30^th. By Tuesday, August 4^th Canada and the “world” were at war.

With a mixture of excitement and patriotism, over 30,000 young Canadians hurried to enlist in a war that everyone thought would be over by Christmas. Four and half years later, 600,000 would have served, and 68,000 never returned. Of the 170,000 wounded, many were maimed, but surely all the survivors were forever changed by their experiences.

So it’s hard to imagine that ordinary, leisurely days basking in a perfect summer could so suddenly precipitate into one of the most tumultuous times in modern history.

My first two “Muskoka Novels” are set during this era, giving readers a chance to immerse themselves in the lives, loves, and adventures of the “lost generation”.

Real people mingle with the fictional

2009-07-21T09:53:00.005-04:00

Would you like to dine with Nancy Astor at her fabulous Thames-side estate, Cliveden, and spend a country house weekend at Lord Beaverbrook’s Cherkley Court, along with Rudyard Kipling? My characters do. They also rub shoulders with multimillionaire Alfred Vanderbilt aboard the doomed Lusitania, know Teddy Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, meet Britain’s (and Canada’s) top WW1 Ace, Billy Bishop, in an officer’s mess in France, and attend the moving funeral of poet-doctor John McCrae.

Fictional Chas Thornton attends Magdalen College, Oxford, at the same time as the Prince of Wales, so it’s only natural that affable and debonair Chas knows “David”. Plucky, audacious Victoria Wyndham, who drives an ambulance during the war, encounters the Prince in France during his stint with the Grenadier Guards, just as a real ambulance driver with the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) did.

Having fictional characters interact with real people bestows a greater sense of reality to my historical novels. Of course it means that I do lots of extra research to ensure that I’m doing justice to the real people, and that any words I put into their mouths are plausible and in character. When Max Beaverbrook says to ambitious but fictional Jack Wyndham, “A cleaning lady at Whitehall once berated me for not being a gentleman, because true gentlemen never show their faces before 11:00 AM. It’s preposterous! You can’t run a country, and certainly not a business or a war, with that sort of lackadaisical attitude…” I was paraphrasing what Beaverbrook himself had said and thought, according to one of the several biographies I read about him.

Memoirs are particularly rich mines for historical research, not only providing detailed, first-hand descriptions, but also conveying the mindset of the person and the era. Lady Diana Manners’ autobiography, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, allowed me to create, among others, this exchange between fictional Lady Sidonie (Sid) Dunston and her brother Quentin:

Sid lamented, “I loathe this war. What is the point of saving England or democracy or anything else if one’s family and friends aren’t here to share it? Thank God you’re safely in London, Quentin.”

“I might be knocked down by a crazy cab driver on my way home,” Quentin pointed out.

“Then I suggest you not stagger along the streets after a debauched night at the Cavendish,” Sid retorted.

Quentin guffawed as he reddened. “Whatever are you on about, Sid?”

“You should know that you can’t keep anything secret in London. Mrs. Lewis is renowned for her entertainments. Or as Diana Manners calls them – orgies.”

Chas suppressed a grin at his friend’s embarrassment. He had heard about the Cavendish Hotel where the ebullient, large-hearted Cockney proprietress, Rosa Lewis, a favourite of Edward VII, was famous not only for her cooking, but also for providing approved gentlemen with a ‘nice clean tart’.

Rosa Lewis was immortalized in the TV series, "The Duchess of Duke Street".

As a writer, I find it great fun to interact with real people, many of them pre-eminent in their day.

Romantic Steamship Cruises

2009-07-15T09:44:00.007-04:00

A century ago it took the best part of a day to travel from Toronto to a cottage (summer home) in the Muskoka Lakes District of Ontario about 100 miles to the north. People boarded a train in the city with all their summer baggage, including chests of silver and china, pianos, and even cows, then transferred to one of the large lake steamers at the wharf in Gravenhurst, and were dropped off at their cottage or one of the many resorts on the three major lakes. Wealthy Americans often arrived at the pier aboard their private Pullman coaches with a bevy of servants in tow. This was the “Age of Elegance” in the Muskokas.

Once at the cottage, you could signal the steamships to stop by to pick up passengers by raising a white flag.

You can experience some of this today by taking a cruise on the R.M.S. (Royal Mail Ship) Segwun - the oldest operating steamship in North America. The much larger Wenonah II is an authentic replica of a steamship of that era, and the Wanda III is the restored private steam yacht, built in 1915, that once belonged to the mercantile Eaton family. All are run by the Muskoka Steamship and Historical Society.

On some excursions, they take you past “Millionaires' Row” - millionaires from a century ago, that is. There were plenty on the lakes - a tradition that continues today, with Hollywood celebrities among them.

We enjoyed a magical sunset dinner cruise aboard the Segwun last Friday. How easy it is to imagine yourself in a less hectic time, to completely relax and appreciate the beautiful scenery slip past. Not so romantic are the clouds of black smoke spewing from the coal-fired boilers, so I can imagine how it must have been when dozens of steamers plied the lakes. Apparently the maids at cottages would rush out to take the washing off the line whenever a steamship was spotted approaching, otherwise the soot would foul the laundry.

Nonetheless, the steamships were beloved on the lakes, and ran until 1958. The Segwun - the last survivor of a once grand fleet - was restored and began excursions again in 1981. Cottagers now come down to their docks to wave as she sails by. Motorboats flit alongside, tooting their horns to elicit a throaty blast from the Segwun in response. It seems so fitting to have this graceful steamer once again glide among the islands and past century-old cottages where she once dropped off passengers.

It also inspires me to work on Book 3 in my Muskoka Novels series, which takes place during the Roaring 20s, and is never far from my thoughts!

The photo above shows the Segwun in the distance.

Vintage Boats

2009-07-07T10:00:00.004-04:00

There’s something seductive about vintage wooden boats. Perhaps it’s the rich lustre of lacquered mahogany, the gleaming brass fittings, the sumptuous leather upholstery, and the way the long, elegant displacement hulls glide effortlessly through the water. Admirers of these Rolls Royces of watercraft are in for a treat this weekend in Gravenhurst Ontario for the 29^th annual Antique and Classic Boat Show. Well over a hundred of these lovingly maintained or restored boats will be lining the docks of Muskoka Warf on July 11. They range in size from small skiffs, like the Disappearing Propeller boats - or “Dippies” - to 70-foot steam launches. Hand-crafted, often unique, each has a story to tell. Many were built by the renowned Muskoka boat builders Ditchburn, Greavette, Minett, and Duke for the affluent who summered in Muskoka, like Sir John Eaton, whose family had built a mercantile empire by the turn of the last century.

When I was doing research for my historical “Muskoka Novels”, I visited the Boat Show in 2005. Asking one of the owners about a beautiful 37’ Minett built in 1924, I was invited to go along for a spin. What a thrill that was! How quiet and smooth the ride. What better way to immerse oneself in research? Above is a photo that my daughter took over the stern of that boat, as she was also invited along. Another of her photos - of a Dippy - graces the cover of my first Muskoka Novel, The Summer Before The Storm.

So this weekend I will once again be at the Antique and Classic Boat Show, but selling books this time. I plan to take a few minutes to wander the docks and admire the launches that so readily and delightfully conjure up a bygone era.

Those who can’t visit the show this Saturday can still see antique boats at the only in-water exhibit in North America - the Muskoka Boat and Heritage Centre in Gravenhurst.

Canada Day at the McCrae House Museum

2009-07-01T09:22:00.002-04:00

The birthplace of poet-doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who penned the famous poem, “In Flanders Fields”, is a small stone house in Guelph Ontario, which is now a museum dedicated to him. Visitors from all over the world come here in tribute to McCrae. On a World War 1 forum, I once corresponded with an Englishman who is determined to come to Canada to visit this tiny museum, which his wife had managed to do on a business trip to Toronto years ago. Yet I have talked to many people in Guelph who’ve never even been there.

Perhaps today’s Canada Day celebrations will encourage more to come. There are games and family events, music, highland dancing, military displays and re-enactments, and birthday cake. And the poppies will be in full bloom.

My Muskoka Novels mention John McCrae, and he makes a brief appearance in the second one, Elusive Dawn, in which his funeral is also described. I’ll be at the festivities again this year, selling books and enjoying the old-fashioned fun.

The Enchantment of Cottaging

2009-06-08T11:22:00.003-04:00

Listening to the haunting cry of a loon echoing across the lake, the splash of the paddle as you glide through the water in your canoe, the crackling of the evening bonfire, the lapping of the waves that lull you to sleep. Watching the rising sun chasing the ribbons of mist across the mirror-calm lake, sailboats wafting by, another spectacular sunset, a nighttime sky so heavy with stars that some plummet to earth, the rippling of the moon across the black water. These are just some of the experiences that keep us going back and longing for time at the cottage.

In Canada, “cottages” are waterside dwellings that range from cabins with no running water or electricity to luxurious, multi-million dollar mansions with all the latest gadgets. Most, however, are comfortably in between, many not useable in winter. In Ontario, cottaging began in the last quarter of the 19^th century, when travellers discovered the wonder and beauty of the multitude of lakes carved out of the Precambrian shield by glaciers. Escaping the heat of the cities, people with time and money could spend leisurely summers cooling off lakeside. Many of these cottages have now been passed down through four or five generations, those growing up there, feeling such a strong connection to these family places that they travel great distances - sometimes across the continent - to vacation at the cottage.

And cottages do tend to be places where family and friends congregate to enjoy the outdoors, chat during morning coffee and afternoon cocktails on the dock, bond over meal preparations, and quietly share the tranquility. It’s little wonder that Friday evenings see an exodus of urban people undertaking the two or four or more hour drive to this sanctuary, with the reverse on Sundays. Our family cottage is on an island, which makes our journey more weather dependent, as the lake crossing - and docking the boat - can be tricky and sometimes impossible in high winds and storms that whip up punishing waves. It’s all part of the challenge of island cottaging - outrunning that wall of water coming at you across the menacing lake. But how glorious once you’re there. And how lucky those who, because they can work from the cottage (some even commute, if they live in towns nearby) or are retired, can spend the entire summer there.

My “Muskoka Novels” are set in cottage country, and describe the cottaging ethos prior to WW1, during Muskoka’s Age of Elegance.

Proud to be Canadian

2009-06-05T09:13:00.003-04:00

On this 65^th anniversary of D-Day, I’m reminded of an encounter we had with an elderly French gentleman last year in Hardelot on the north coast of France. We had gone there to see the ruins of the “castle”, which I had read was a popular spot for the nurses working in the Etaples hospital district during WW1 to go for outings. (The ruins are being restored for use as some sort of international centre.) With our half-remembered high school French, we struck up a conversation with this elderly man out for his daily stroll. When he discovered that we were from Canada, he practically embraced us with tears in his eyes, and thanked us Canadians for liberating him and his family from the German occupation in WW2. The Dutch and Belgians, too, seem to have a special place in their hearts for Canadians.

On the flip side, I recently read an article about a prisoner-of-war camp during WW2, set on the shore of magnificent Lake Muskoka (north of Toronto) and touted to be the Rolls-Royce of camps. It seems that over 30% of the 34,000 Germans who were interred in Canadian prison camps returned to settle in Canada after the war. Surely another accolade for us Canadians.

The Victorians - not as prudish as we think?

2009-05-28T10:02:00.003-04:00

“Victorian morality” summons thoughts of sexually repressed people (solidified by later Freudian theories) who covered piano legs with bloomers because they were too erotic. Bathing costumes for women of that era were enveloping, heavy, dark, wool garments over black stockings and even slippers, and many used bathing machines so that no one saw even them in these concealing clothes. So I was astonished to discover that there was a nudist beach - popularly known as "Bare-assed Beach" - at Hanlon’s Point on the Toronto Islands from 1894 to 1930, when morally upright citizens finally succeeded in shutting it down.

Skinny-dipping (swimming naked) was something that many people did - and still do - in lakes and rivers, but usually in same-sex groups or as couples. One Muskoka cottager related how his Victorian grandmother always had her morning bathe in the lake, and was almost caught in the buff by an unexpected visitor. My British grandfather-in-law states in his memoir that when he and his wife honeymooned in Normandy, France, they found a deserted beach, stripped off their clothes, and bathed “au naturel” in the sea. What a delightful picture that conjured up of these young Victorians being spontaneous and uninhibited. Had I known this when I met him at the age of 96, just a couple of years before his death, I would have been even more impressed by this “Victorian” gentleman.

Researching the Riviera

2009-05-20T10:23:00.005-04:00

Just over a year ago my husband, daughter, and I were sitting on a cliff-top terrace in brilliant sunshine, savouring a gourmet lunch - scant food, artistically prepared, and way too expensive - with the ever-changing blues of the Mediterranean lapping at the bleached rocks below. Considering itself the most luxurious in Europe, The Hotel du Cap - Eden Roc at the southern tip of Cap d’Antibes, boasts about the many celebrities that have stayed there. At the prices they charge, only the super-rich can afford to!

We hadn’t come to ogle stars - and didn’t recognize anyone famous, although the Cannes Film Festival was just a week away - but were watched suspiciously by staff, who wouldn’t let us film even though we explained that my daughter was doing a documentary and was not paparazzi. The manager gave me short shrift when I requested some historical information, since the hotel is mentioned in my novels, shoving a piece of paper into my hands and refusing to answer questions. Could we take photos? Absolutely not! Good thing we had before asking. The staff were self-important and quietly disdainful to “nobodies” like us, although they seemed to fawn over others. Noticing a good many of the planet’s most expensive cars in the parking lot, I’m certain the staff are forever mindful of who’s who.

The reason for our visit was to see the place where some of my characters dine when staying nearby in their own villa, and because I had just read about how some Americans helped to make the hotel and the Riviera popular in the 1920s - something that will be explored in Book 3 of my Muskoka Novels.

In the early days, the French Riviera was a winter retreat for the wealthy, but shut down during the heat of the summer. Americans Sara and Gerald Murphy convinced the hotel to remain open one summer, in essence renting it, and invited friends to stay there with them - Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Picasso among them. So beguiled were the Murphys with Cap d’ Antibes, that they bought and then built their own villa there.

So it was exciting to see the places I had read about, to stroll the small beach at La Garoupe, which Gerald Murphy had virtually created by cleaning out the seaweed and daily raking the sand, and thus feel a connection to the past that I will write about.

I think it’s ironic that now the Hotel du Cap - Eden Roc closes for the winter!

(Mis)adventures in moving

2009-05-14T09:33:00.004-04:00

The first evening in our new house didn’t turn out as we had expected - we spent it in a hotel! After a long, arduous, and chilly day moving, we were all looking forward to hot showers, but discovered that we had neither heat nor hot water. The gas supply had been disconnected! On a Friday night you can only reach the gas company’s emergency line. This was no emergency, they assured us. It was only going down to the freezing point that night. Have to wash in cold water? Think of it as camping. Nothing could be done until the business office opened on Monday morning. So by snuggling under warm duvets and showering at the gym, we did camp out in our house after that first night.

Our lawyer - my oldest friend - had done everything required to arrange for the transfer of services, but the gas company denied receiving the instructions. On Monday they told us we might have gas by Friday! After a heated discussion and a talk with the manager, we were finally told we might be reconnected on Tuesday. And were by late afternoon - a job that took only a matter of minutes.

None of the service providers, except for hydro, delivered on time. The phone company made a mistake - which they at least acknowledged - so, although we were supposed to have been connected on Friday, we finally had phone service on Sunday, but no Internet until Thursday. The cable company was also 2 days late, not that we had time to watch TV in any case.

Ironically, we had a card delivered this week from hydro stating that we would be disconnected if we didn’t call their office to set up an account! When I spoke with them, they said that they could no longer take instructions from lawyers because of the Privacy Act, so clients had to call directly to transfer their services. Someone could have informed us of that new policy.

My lawyer and I had a laugh when she told me that the utility providers in her jurisdiction (my old home town, only 2 hours away) refused to take direction from one of her clients, saying that the lawyer had to do it! Surely there should be some consistency in these services, even across municipalities.

Of course none of this has diminished our delight in our new house. But it did make us realize how easy and comfortable our lives usually are, with light, heat (or air conditioning) available with the flick of a switch, and hot running water with the turn of a tap.

My first novel, A Place To Call Home, was set in pioneer Ontario. I marvelled at how those intrepid people had survived harsh Canadian winters in draughty log cabins, so cold that water froze in pitchers set next to the fireplace. One “gentlewoman” wrote in her letters home to England that the temperature in her bedroom was only 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 C), and she had frost on her blankets in the mornings. (Is it any wonder people didn’t bathe often in those days?) Blistering summers, especially for women imprisoned in corsets and those encompassing Victorian gowns, could be just as challenging.

But we don’t need history to tell us how lucky we are. We need only look at other, less “developed” parts of the world to realize that.

Obsessiveness pays off!

2009-04-28T07:55:00.002-04:00

The coordinator of the “Lest We Forget” project at Library and Archives Canada was so impressed with my WW1 website that she will be using it for her workshops with students, and recommending my war-related novels, The Summer Before the Storm and Elusive Dawn. History teachers have also said that they would use the site in their classrooms. So all that research I did is useful for more than the framework for my books, which is thrilling!

I’m moving in a couple of days, and there’s still too much to do. I’ll be back next week.

The perks of research

2009-04-24T08:27:00.004-04:00

A year ago I was in France, driving along the dramatic coastline between Boulogne and Calais, wishing the rain would stop. The colourful fields and yellow gorse were a delight after the drab April browns of Ontario, but the weather wasn’t a lot warmer. Yet I hadn’t come for sunshine. This was a research trip.

On an endlessly snowy day in February, I had been struggling with descriptions of the Calais area where some of my characters work during the First World War. I scoured the Internet for photos, spent plenty of time on Google Earth trying to get a feeling for the landscape, read descriptions by people who had been there at the time, but wasn’t satisfied I really knew what it looked like. So I told my family we had to go to France. Springtime in Paris! No persuasion required and the VISA card had lots of room.

When the rain finally stopped and we were able to walk the beaches at Caps Blanc-Nez and Gris-Nez, and the dunes at Sangatte, I realized how right I had been that I needed to be on location to get a true feeling of the countryside and the sea. And I experienced first-hand the gale-force winds that sandpaper your skin and which people kept mentioning in memoirs. The imposing cliff at Cap Blanc-Nez can’t be fully appreciated from photos, like the one above, and the hilliness of that stretch of coastline was a surprise. Since my characters drive ambulances along here, that was important to know.

Wimereux was a delight, with plenty of Victorian buildings still in existence. I have characters staying in the same small hotel that we enjoyed, since I found a postcard of it from that era, and realize that, except for its name, it has hardly changed. Seeing one of the villas that had been used as an officers’ hospital during the war was also an exciting connection to the past.

I could have spent more than five days exploring this area - we only went as far south as Le Touquet, and hope some time to go to Normandy (for WW2) - but our next stop was the Riviera, where it was warm and sunny. My excuse for this part of the trip was that I have a character who owns a villa in Cap d’Antibes, so we explored that and found the perfect location.

I know that my characters will visit here - often! - and have to admit that I would be thrilled to join them. The exotic vegetation and masses of flowers blooming in the generous sunshine, the rich blues and turquoises of the sea set against the snow-capped Mediterranean Alps were food for a hungry soul. Imagine people actually living here!

In Flanders Fields

2009-04-22T08:30:00.003-04:00

We visited Ypres (now Iper) in Belgium a few years ago when I was doing research on book 1 of The Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm, set during WW1. The first thing that struck me, besides the fact that the city had been beautifully restored from the rubble of war, was that John McCrae’s famous poem, “In Flanders Fields” was plastered everywhere about the town, even in our Novotel lobby. The WW1 museum, housed in the rebuilt Cloth Hall, is called “In Flanders Fields”. How surprised I was when I boasted to the owner of the English bookstore that I came from John McCrae’s hometown, only to have him casually reply, “Oh, you’re from Guelph, Ontario.”

I know that the small museum in Guelph honouring John McCrae regularly has visitors from Europe, so their respect for this famous doctor-poet is more than lip service for tourists.

The Belgians still pay homage to all the fallen. Every evening at sunset, the people of Iper commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the liberation of Belgium. A parade leads to the Menin Gate where 55,000 names of those Allied troops who have no known grave - nearly 7000 Canadians among them - are inscribed. The moving ceremony includes the playing of The Last Post. Aside from a few years during WW2, this has been taking place every evening since 1928! Would that we all gave even a modicum of this kind of tribute to the men who, as poet Rupert Brooke so aptly said, “poured out the red sweet wine of youth”.

Connecting with the past on a visceral level

2009-04-19T11:26:00.004-04:00

This photo of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery at Etaples on the north coast of France can’t even begin to convey the enormity of the site or the profound sadness that you feel when walking among the nearly11,000 graves. The middle and right grave at the front are those of a Canadian doctor and nurse killed in the air raid on the 1^st Canadian General Hospital on May 19, 1918.

There are endless pockets of smaller cemeteries, especially near the battlefields. Neatly walled, lovingly maintained, they appear like a bizarre crop amid farmers’ fields. When you stroll through them, one thing strikes you immediately - most of the dead had barely had a chance at life, many still in their teens.

The CWGC website allows you to do a search on fallen Commonwealth soldiers, and pinpoint the exact location of a grave. Armed with that info, we visited my husband’s great-uncle’s grave at Dud Corner cemetery last year. He died at the age of 21 in the Battle of Loos in 1915. In the photo we have of him in his officer’s uniform, he looks heartbreakingly young.

These former battlefields lie poignantly silent, yet bid you to take a moment to reflect. They brought to mind the last verse in John McCrae’s poem, “The Anxious Dead”:

Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,

They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;

Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,

And in content may turn them to their sleep.

A Fascinating Memoir

2009-04-17T12:40:00.002-04:00

One of the bonuses of doing historical research is discovering books that I would not normally have chosen to read for pleasure. One such is the memoir, Sagittarius Rising, by Cecil Lewis, in which he recounts his adventures as a British Ace pilot during the First World War. His descriptions are sometimes lyrical, especially when he portrays the exhilaration of flying. It makes me long to soar above the clouds with him, and I hate flying! Fortunately, my characters can experience that in my stead. In turns amusing and tragic, the book is always fascinating. The really telling line is his statement that when the war was over, he was twenty years old.

I’m now interested in finding out more about Cecil Lewis, who died as recently as 1997. He flew with the RAF again in WW2, was a co-founder of the BBC, and won an Oscar for his joint-authorship of the screen adaptation of Pygmalion. Surely an interesting and perhaps charmed life!

Inspiring Places

2009-04-15T09:30:00.003-04:00

I'm obsessed with places as well. They inspire me. From the moment I first set foot in Muskoka, I became enchanted by the sparkling granite, fragrant pine forests, and intriguing history of these island-dotted lakes only 100 miles north of Toronto, Canada. Hewn out of the Precambrian Shield by glaciers eons ago, these pristine lakes became the playground of the wealthy and adventuresome over a century ago.

How easy it is to imagine the Age of Elegance in Muskoka, when people travelled from American as well as Canadian cities by train and then steamships to savour carefree summers at resorts and lakeside vacation homes known as "cottages". The tradition continues today, although most people no longer have entire summers free to frolic on the lakes, nor a houseful of servants to cater to them - well, unless you're Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, or some of the other celebrities who now own cottages in this civilized wilderness. The Muskokas have often played host to royalty, dignitaries, and other luminaries over the last century. American President Woodrow Wilson owned an island on one of the Muskoka lakes. Hollywood stars like Clark Gable spent time there.

And I’m just beginning my research into the 20s and 30s. I can hardly wait to see what tantalizing facts await me!

You know you're a fan when....

2009-04-13T10:09:00.007-04:00

... you go on a literary pilgrimage on your honeymoon! We hiked the Bronte Moors, explored Thomas Hardy's Wessex and Daphne du Maurier's Cornwall, which is still one of my favourite places. In 1995 I had hoped to meet James Herriot at his surgery - for he met with fans weekly - but he died just a couple of months before our trip. His Yorkshire Dales are every bit as beautiful and enchanting as he had described in his novels, and as portrayed in the popular TV series," All Creatures Great and Small".

A bit of a twist on this is that I was also thrilled to visit the locations in France and Belgium where my Muskoka Novels take place during WW1. Walking through the enormous cemeteries, standing on the impressive Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, and hearing the haunting Last Post at the Menin Gate in Ypres (now Iper) brought my own novels more to life for me.

The Role of Fiction

2009-04-11T09:05:00.002-04:00

I was involved in a discussion on one of the First World War forums about the viability of war fiction. Some of the purists thought that fiction has no place in the literature of war. I pointed out that fiction can bring enlightenment to those who would normally not pick up an historical tome, having heard that sentiment from some of my readers. I myself would not have read the hundred books I did had I not being doing research for my novels. A pity, since so many are riveting accounts that now number among my favourite books.

But I’m delighted that I’ve interested people in the Great War, and imparted some understanding of it. Here are a few relevant comments from readers:

"Please accept my congratulations on an engrossing novel. Once begun, it was impossible to put down. Because of last year's anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, I have read much of the recent writing about that cataclysmic First World War battle. But that writing did not capture the terror, the mud or the wastage of human life in the detail or degree that you managed to capture in Elusive Dawn."

"I am very appreciative for your depiction of the first world war. My grand-mother lost two brothers in that war and I've always felt that I had no real understanding of it. Today with the war in the Middle East, I still feel as though I have no understanding again. The Summer Before The Storm gave me a glimpse of the horror of war, it felt like a first hand account."

"I love history but tend to find the war stuff quite boring - however you made it all interesting by connecting it to great characters!"

More comments can be seen on my website at theMuskokaNovels.com

In Remembrance

2009-04-09T10:30:00.001-04:00

Ninety-two years ago today, 30,000 Canadian infantry shivered in the biting sleet of early dawn at Vimy Ridge in northern France. With another 70,000 troops in support roles behind them - the gunners, engineers, medics, cooks, and so forth - it meant that the entire Canadian Corps was there, together for the first time. And together they did what the Allies had failed to do during the previous two years, and never expected the Canadians to accomplish - they took that tactically important and heavily fortified Ridge from the Germans. They also helped to forge a nation. That scene is described in my novel, Elusive Dawn.

In the months leading up to the battle, the Canadians had already had 9000 casualties. After the battle there were 10,000 more - a third of whom would never return home.

My photo shows me standing with a poppy umbrella at the impressive Canadian memorial on Vimy Ridge, dedicated to the 60,000 Canadians who died during the First World War. It was an appropriately bleak day, almost a year ago, that I looked out over the Douai Plain as had the victors that long-ago day, marveling at the feat they had accomplished, saddened by the many dead on both sides. It is almost beyond belief to see the stream of names carved into the memorial walls - over 11,000 Canadians who died in France with no known grave. Most of them, heartbreakingly young.

More than a million shells had pummeled this battlefield. Many still lie, unexploded, in the now calm and green young woods that are reclaiming the pock-marked earth. But the thought sends a shiver through you, making you feel that the war didn’t happen almost a century ago. Walking through the long, dank tunnels where troops had gathered before the battle, you can easily imagine what it must have been like for so many men, laden with their gear, anxious or fatalistic, crowded together as they awaited the dawn and an unknown future.

Turning fact into fiction

2009-04-08T17:31:00.000-04:00

I’ve talked about digging up thousands of facts and using real people (having read at least one biography or memoir even for those who make only a cameo appearance - hey, I’m obsessed, remember?). Within that realm of reality I then create my fictional world.

I relish sitting down at the computer every day, wondering where my characters are going to take me. They are best friends, anxious to have their stories told, impatient when I don't have time for them. I start out with a vague idea of plot and relationships, but their strong personalities and the chemistry that happens between them usually sideline my ideas, and they take over. In retrospect, their way always seems so natural and inevitable, so I'm delighted to give them free rein.

So writing is a daily adventure. It’s travel into a different time and place. It’s meeting new people I hadn’t event thought of, but who just introduce themselves, fit in, and sometimes become essential to the story.

I’m always delighted to hear from readers that they, too, feel like they’ve met new friends in my books. Here’s a sampling of comments:

“Your fascinating and intriguing characters are so real, so believable, each one unique and passionate in his/her own way. I couldn't help but be drawn into the emotions and circumstances of their lives.”

“In my opinion, Gabriele Wills's ability to evoke a feeling for the times and characters is equal to Delderfield's. She has an amazing ability to portray multiple characters.”

“The reader becomes immersed in the lives of her characters and suffers and rejoices with them.”

“I loved every moment I shared with Augusta, Chas, Jack and Ria.”

More comments can be seen on my website.

Getting the facts right

2009-04-07T16:13:00.000-04:00

So here’s one of the things that qualifies me for the moniker of “obsessed writer”. I’m a stickler about getting the facts right. For my first two “Muskoka Novels”, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, I read over 170 books, consulted hundreds of websites, visited museums, WW1 battlefields and cemeteries, and joined three war forums, where I asked experts about obscure facts I couldn’t find anywhere else. Those forums became an obsession in themselves. The Great War Forum has over 23,000 members worldwide, so you can imagine how many discussions were posted daily. I finally had to stop actively participating or Elusive Dawn would never have been completed. I have to admit that I still haven’t left them behind completely, although my research on the war is done.

During my final editing of Elusive Dawn I wanted to write a good description of the Bronte moors, but have never been there in winter, only in summer. Doing a search on the Internet, I came across a report from a British ecologist about the moors. So I sent an email requesting more info. Imagine how surprised I was to have a response from BBC Radio Sheffield asking it I would be on the Rony Robinson show? Host Rony would call in the experts and supply me with the desired details. So there I was at 7:00 AM on a transcontinental chat with Rony, the ecologist professor, a renowned artist, and the curator of the Bronte museum. Unfortunately a bad connection kept me from speaking much with them, but I heard it all and came away with an embarrassment of riches from the 20 minute discussion. All I had really needed were a few lines to describe colours, textures, and vegetation in November. I then felt compelled to beef up the description to do some justice to the time invested by these generous people.

Research is such fun!

Using real people in fiction

2009-04-06T09:47:00.000-04:00

In my "Muskoka Novels" I have quite a few real people mingling with my characters or mentioned "off-stage". It gives even more of a sense of the time and the reality for which I strive. In Elusive Dawn we dine with Nancy Astor at her fabulous estate, Cliveden, spend a country house weekend with Lord Beaverbrook, meet Britain's top Ace pilot, Billy Bishop, and hear about lots of others.

One of those is Lady Diana Manners. The Lady Di of her day, Diana was considered to be the most beautiful young woman in England. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, hoped that she would marry the Prince of Wales. She worked as a VAD nurse during the war, which she wrote about in her memoir, The Rainbow Comes and Goes. Her mother in particular was very much against that, as Diana reported, "She explained in words suitable to my innocent ears that wounded soldiers, so long starved of women, inflamed with wine and battle, ravish and leave half-dead the young nurses who wish only to tend them." The Duchess gave in, but "knew, as I did, that my emancipation was at hand." Diana goes on to admit, "I seemed to have done nothing practical in all my twenty years." Nursing plunged her and other young women into a life-altering adventure.

Doesn't that stir the imagination!

Surprising facts make good stories

2009-04-05T11:07:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought that civilian women could travel across war-torn France in 1916 to meet their husbands in Marseille before the men went off to Salonika? That's exactly what my British grandmother-in-law and her friend did! In my grandfather-in-law's memoir, he talks about staying in a hotel with his wife for a week, during which he only had to go to his military camp a couple of hours a day to work. (He was a Captain then.) Not the sort of scenario most people would associate with the First World War, especially as the bloody Battle of the Somme was raging up in the north of France at that time.

Also surprising is that wives of officers were allowed to travel to Paris to meet them for short leaves. And how about the wives of officer Prisoners of War being allowed to live with them in Switzerland or Holland while they were interned there? Germany sent men who were ill or suffering psychologically from imprisonment to these neutral countries. Although not allowed to return to England, those who could afford to, lived in hotels and had their families join them for the duration of the war.

Aviator Cecil Lewis in his fascinating autobiography, Sagittarius Rising, mentions flying secretly from France to England for a weekend rendezvous in London.

It's odd and intriguing facts like these that I like to incorporate into my historical novels. I'll be posting more of them later.