My New Blog

Please visit my new blog, The Muskoka Novels, where I will be posting weekly photos, historical tidbits, and musings about writing. This blog is now archived.

Lake Rosseau, Muskoka

Surprising Facts Inspire Intriguing Fiction

Thanks to historical fiction author M.K. Tod for inviting me to do a guest post on her blog - A Writer of History. I discuss how the obscure and quirky facts I uncover in my research inspire characters and plots in my novels.

Sexy, Scandalous, Revolutionary

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.

Summer Fun a Century Ago

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.

Quintessential Muskoka

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?

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

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.

Losing our stories?

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

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!

The Magic of Muskoka Boathouses

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.

The Challenges of Writing Sequels

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

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

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.

Video trailer for the Muskoka Novels!

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!

Intrepid Women

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.

"Millionaires' Row"

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

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

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”!

Real people mingle with the fictional

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.

 

Vintage Boats

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.

 

Researching the Riviera

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!