Deadly Inheritance – An Ursula Grandison Mystery

American Ursula Grandison accompanies Belle Seldon to visit her sister, Helen, Countess of Mountstanton, commissioned by their father, multi-millionaire Chauncey Seldon, to discover what is wrong with Helen’s marriage and what has happened to her dowry. At decaying stately Mountstanton House, Ursula finds the Earl is a cold fish, the Dowager Countess of Mounstanton the mother-in-law from hell, and Helen has not forgiven her for stealing her great love. Ursula discovers the drowned body of Polly, the nursemaid, thought to have deserted the household. Neither the Earl’s brother, Colonel Charles Stanhope, nor Ursula believes Polly’s death was an accident.

Investigating against the Earl’s wishes, they uncover a tangle of deception reaching into the past that threatens the reputation of the house of Mountstanton. After another death, Ursula fights to reveal the truth, to save Belle from dreadful scandal, and to fulfil Mr Seldon’s commission, with a final shocking denouement.

Below is an exclusive look at the first chapter of Deadly Inheritance.

Rhoda Edmonds – her story

On the eve of the Second World War Rhoda was a newly qualified teacher living and working in Bristol.  Aged twenty one, Rhoda embarked on her career path with enthusiasm, dedication and, because of the war, a sense of trepidation.  Rhoda had trained as a secondary school teacher but because of a shortage of primary school teachers Rhoda found herself teaching a class of unruly six year olds in a busy primary school in south Bristol.  With the onset of bombing raids however, Rhoda’s main concern was with the maintenance of clean water to the school and her home since the German bombs had shattered the sewerage and water pipes.  Eventually the school was closed down. By the spring of 1940, Rhoda had secured a position in a secondary school in East Bristol and was responsible for teaching a group of teenage girls.

As the Bristol Blitz intensified Rhoda began preparing her pupils for their yearly exams in the most unlikely of places.  Their nearest safe haven from the bombers was the crypt of the local church.  Rhoda and her girls would shelter, huddled together on the sacred tomb stones, studying elements of their curriculum whilst awaiting the all clear signal.  Further problems arose because the school was situated near a railway junction and the train guards’ whistle sounded identical to the whistle that was used by the headmaster to alert staff and pupils of   incoming bombers.  This situation caused considerable anxiety in the class rooms and Rhoda recalled that her girls were a bag of nerves as they tried to focus on their school work.

Nevertheless as the war progressed teachers and pupils became accustomed to the air raids and their devastating consequences.  During a brief visit to her home in Monmouthshire Rhoda received a telegram informing her that her school had been obliterated, then a further telegram informed her that she was required for salvage work.  It is remarkable, given the circumstances, that Rhoda still managed to maintain some semblance of a social life.  Dances were held in church halls and other venues across the country in order to boost morale.  The only activity that Rhoda sorely missed was that of ice skating; the Luftwaffe bombed the ice rink and put an end to her weekly sessions at the ice rink.

Yet even amongst the rubble and debris romance for Rhoda blossomed, and in 1943 she met a young soldier named John.  Following a brief courtship they were married on the 12^th of January 1944, just before John was shipped to Europe as part of the D-Day landings. He later fought in the battles that raged in Arnhem.  Fortunately, John survived the war and returned to Bristol where he and Rhoda began their family life together.

Rhoda, now in her nineties, can still recall the war years with great clarity; and her overriding memory of that period remains steadfast—it is of a nation that was united against a common enemy and of a social cohesion whereby everyone helped each other.  Furthermore, Rhoda believes that this cohesion has sadly disappeared in contemporary Britain.

Penny Starns has researched and taught history at Cambridge, London and Bristol universities, and has written history programmes for BBC Radio 4. Her other books include Nurses at War, Evacuation of Children during World War II, Odette and Surviving Tenko. She lives in Bristol.

Blitz Families: the Children who Stayed Behind is out now at £12.99.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The History Press.

Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers in Burma

Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers is probably best known as one of the four men who died with Captain Scott in 1912 on their return from the South Pole. Crossing the world from London via South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to Antarctica was not, however, his first experience of long-distance travel. When Henry joined Captain Scott’s expedition in 1910 he was an experienced mariner who had circled the globe four times and had, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Indian Marine (the ‘RIM’), recently served in India, Myanmar (then Burma), Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and the Persian Gulf.

Burma was also an old haunt of Henry’s father, Captain Bowers, an entrepreneurial Scottish sea-captain. In 1868, the Captain took part in an expedition up the 1,000-mile-long Irrawaddy, the aim of which was to re-open an over-land trading route to China. At Mandalay, the royal capital of still-independent upper Burma, the expedition party boarded a ship loaned by the king, accompanied by armed guards, local guides and interpreters – and several elephants. From Bhamo, the highest navigable point on the Irrawaddy, they struggled through jungle and remote tribal areas towards China. When Captain Bowers returned to Rangoon he wrote a formal report full of facts and figures and descriptions of the countryside and tribes of upper Burma, illustrated by his own quirky sketches. During a short visit to Britain he talked about the expedition and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1877, in Singapore, the Captain married an English missionary teacher – two daughters were born in the East but Henry, the couple’s first son, was born in Scotland in 1883, during another of the Captain’s short stays at home.

Henry’s father soon returned to Burma. In 1887 the Captain became ill; his wife and young Henry set out to join him but by the time they reached India the Captain had already died in Mergui, southern Burma. The Captain left few assets but Henry inherited his father’s love of the sea and, like him, became a sailor at an early age, initially serving in the mercantile navy on round-the-world routes.

In 1907, two years after joining the RIM (which ranked only after the Royal Navy in prestige), Henry was posted to Burma. By then the last King of Burma had ceded authority to the British and Henry dealt with all levels of British Empire officials, from Viceroys to harbour-masters. He learned to navigate the famously treacherous sandbanks of the Irrawaddy and ferried troops and their animals as well as the ‘great and good’ and their sometimes demanding spouses and offspring. In his spare time Henry traced part of his father’s route from Bhamo towards the Chinese border, admired magnificent temples, found traces of gold in rivers and clambered down torrent-filled gorges. As he travelled, he sent long descriptive letters and brief postcards to his mother and sister in Scotland – one colour postcard, of a beautiful Burmese girl in native costume, remained tucked inside the pages of Henry’s copy of Captain Bowers’ report on his 1868 expedition, unwritten and un-posted.

When Henry left Burma in 1909 Rangoon felt like a second home to him but he had already set his sights on new postings – and on securing a place on Captain Scott’s recently-announced Terra Nova expedition. In April 1910 he received the longed-for summons from Scott to travel to Antarctica, a largely unmapped continent which had fascinated him since the age of seven – it was time to leave extreme heat and monsoon rains for ice and blizzards.

Lieutenant Henry Bowers RIM, aged 26, was about to become ‘Birdie’ Bowers, Captain Scott’s marvel.

Anne Strathie’s new biography of Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers, Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott’s Marvel (The History Press) is published in September 2012.

 

The Role of the War Correspondent- by Ian Hernon

The death in February of Sunday Times war correspondent provided another name in the casualty roll call of an honourable and brave profession.

Newspaper journalists, as I know after more than four decades of being one, are too often held in low public esteem until they pay the ultimate price for a story. Reporters like Marie put their lives on the line …easier to justify than telephone hacking.

Marie lost the sight in her left eye due to a blast by a Sri Lankan army rocket-propelled grenade in April 2001.  She was attacked even after calling out “journalist, journalist!” while reporting on that civil war, showing that the days when a Press or media sign offered some degree of protection.

On February 22 this year she and French photographer Remi Ochik died while covering the Syrian uprising in Homs as government forces shelled a media centre.

She saw her role as shining a light on “humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable.” She added:  “My job is to bear witness.”

A similar view was taken over 150 years earlier by William Howard Russell, The Times correspondent in the Crimean War and the “father” of war correspondents. His best-known mantra was “The truth shall be told.”

Russell despised the term “war correspondent” but his ground-breaking reports made his name and had huge influence on both the resolution of the conflict and the conditions of troops at that and subsequent fronts.

Russell was described by one of the soldiers on the front-lines thus, “A vulgar low Irishman, [who] sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters.”

He was maligned and blacklisted but his vivid accounts of soldiers suffering appalling conditions – many times more died from disease and frostbite than from bullets and shrapnel – shocked a nation. Riting in 1944 during a much bigger conflict, Rupert Furneaux said: “To those Victorian readers of Russell’s letters war ceased to be an objective undertaking taking place in some far-off field. Russell brought the war to the fireside, the breakfast table, the Government office and the Treasury Bench.” Florence Nightingale was moved by his reports to revolutionise nursing, the armed services were reformed and incompetent generals were put out to graze.

Russell left Crimea in December 1855 and saw more action in the Indian Mutiny, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Unlike many of his successors, he retired in 1882 and associated with the great and powerful, being knighted in 1895. He died peacefully in 1907.

Russell and his contemporaries fed a public demand for news from battle zones prompted by a surge in literacy and the subsequent rise of the printed mass media.

Today’s generation face different pressures created by rolling news and the need for constantly updated images. Whereas Russell and his colleagues exposed incompetence and the grim reality of warfare to a home market unused to up-to-date news, today’s generation must negotiate minefields of shifting allegiances in the Middle East, Afghanistan and other war zones in which an apparent ally can be a deadly foe.

The dangers remain and the carnage will continue.

Ian Hernon has been a reporter since 1969, reporting from the Middle East during the mid-70s. From 1978 he was a lobby correspondent in the House of Commons and until 2000 Westminster editor of Central Press, covering for Scottish editions of Daily Express, Sunday Times, and News of the World  He was 2010 Avanta Regional Journalist of the Year. He is the author of Massacre and Retribution (1998) The Savage Empire (2000) and Blood in the Sand (2001) for The History Press, amongst other books.

The Sword and the Sketchbook: A Pictorial History of Queen Victoria’s Wars is out June 2012 at £14.99.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The History Press.

The Changing Face of Weston-Super-Mare – A feature by Sharon Poole

When the Georgians invented the concept of the seaside holiday, the tiny village of Weston-super-Mare was perfectly situated to develop into one of the earliest resorts – close enough to the cities of Bristol and Bath for travellers to reach by horse or stage coach, yet far enough away to present a pleasant mix of rural idyll (for wealthy townsfolk that is), coastal walks and sea bathing.  When the railway was built in 1841 the town’s expansion was guaranteed. Further social changes, such as the introduction of Bank Holidays, brought ever-increasing numbers of people to the town and with it the associated infrastructure to feed, entertain and house them.  From small beginnings as a village whose tiny population relied largely on fishing and farming to earn a living, Weston-super-Mare had become the tourism capital of Somerset by the middle of the nineteenth century. Of course this growth brought continual changes and there must have been times when the town looked like a building site, much as parts of it do today. I suppose the only difference nowadays is the seeming pace of change. Most noticeable over the last few years have been the improvements to the promenade and seafront. With the necessity to provide more robust flood defences, the opportunity was taken to add artistic touches at the same time, such as innovative seating and colour-changing lights. Together with the new pedestrianized area around the Coalbrookdale fountain it has certainly changed the face of this prime site for the better.

Old photographs both record the appearance of a place at any one point in time, whilst also serving to illustrate the changes to the streetscape over the years. As a seaside resort, Weston has perhaps been luckier than many places in that cameras have been used to document the town almost since they were invented in the early nineteenth century.  I love to pour over the old scenes, whether streets of artisan housing, avenues of elegant villas or buildings such as schools and churches. In particular I love shops – interiors and exteriors; I have no idea why they fascinate me so. Perhaps it is because I am of an age where I can just remember the old-style grocery stores with glass-fronted boxes of biscuits along the bottom of the counter, and shelves of colourful tins and packets behind; or the open-fronted fishmonger’s with its marble slabs of glistening fish and seafood amongst the ice and decorative greenery.  One particular favourite of mine was Coulstings Bazaar, a very long narrow shop in Weston High Street. At the closing down sale, they had obviously dug out all manner of obsolete stock and it was a veritable Aladdin’s Cave. Sadly these shops are all now gone, existing only in photographs and postcards and people’s memory. That is why I feel it is important to allow these images to be seen by the wider world, to let everyone know what places used to look like so they can better understand how they grew to be what they are today. To contrast old and new images together is to not only step back into a bygone era but to almost unpick layers of history.

Click here for more information on ‘Weston-Super-Mare Then & Now’

Exploring England’s Other Cathedrals – A feature by Paul Jeffery

In turning what began as a fascinating idea into the reality of a book I have visited or revisited almost all of the ‘other cathedrals’. Some seemed like old friends; others were new to me. Most rewarding in architectural and artistic terms have been those medieval churches fully of cathedral size and splendour and still in use today – such as Beverley Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey and Westminster Abbey. But many others are equally exciting. Some are mutilated but still in use. Chester St. John, though now only a parish church, began life as a Norman cathedral: the outside is battered and partly in ruins, but the inside is splendid. At Bridlington Priory only the nave still stands, but this is convincingly of cathedral scale and quality. Also wonderful are some of the successors to lost Anglo-Saxon cathedrals, especially the thrilling abbeys of Dorchester (Oxfordshire), Hexham and Sherborne.

Rewarding in a different way are those that are now in ruin. Some, such as the famous Fountains Abbey, are superb and inspiring even in their roofless state. Others are much more ruinous: for example, though enough remains of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey to show how enormous and magnificent it must have been, one’s main feeling must be regret for what has been lost.

A very different pleasure has been seeing the cathedrals of the nineteenth century and later. Many of these have been new to me; indeed, most are little known. Yet they are often a delight. An example is Portsmouth’s Anglican cathedral. From east to west it has first beautiful work of about 1180, then of the late 17^th century, then the 1930s, and finally of 1991. Another is the Roman Catholic cathedral at Brentwood, most of which was built in 1989-91, remarkably not ‘modern’ but in an exquisite baroque style that might have been designed by Wren.

Some visits have been memorable for other reasons. One took me deep into the bowels of Welbeck Abbey to see the surviving medieval parts of what might have been made a cathedral by Henry VIII. The abbey is now a vast mansion mostly of the seventeenth century and later. For sixty years it was used as an army college, but in 2005 it returned to being entirely a private home. As a house it is amazing; but equally so are the underground rooms and tunnels built round it for the eccentric Victorian fifth Duke of Portland. Some are dark and mysterious, but the ballroom, newly decorated, is a vast and wonderful room lit by skylights. Extraordinary in an entirely different way was a visit to the Central Church of the Catholic Apostolic Church. This once-important denomination now has no priests or services. The huge and splendid church stands near the British Museum in Bloomsbury; yet it is little known: it is normally inaccessible, and being unfinished it lacks its intended 300-foot tower and spire.

Equally exciting have been aspects such as the history revealed by these ‘other cathedrals’…

Click here for more information on England’s Other Cathedrals

Win 1 of 5 promo codes for our new iPad App – Titanic: Her Journey

On the 15th of March we released our new iPad App Titanic: Her Journey. Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the app is the definitive interactive Titanic experience, telling the story of her maiden voyage in the most engaging way to date. With features such as interactive deck plans, detailed biographies of the ship’s key figures, contemporary film, narrated survivor accounts and photographs from every stage of the ships life, Titanic: Her Journey provides an innovative and detailed new way to experience Titanic‘s legacy.

As part of our centenary offering we are giving away 5 promo codes that allow you to download the app to your iPad for free! Each promo code entitles the user to 4 weeks of free and uninterupted use.

To be in with a chance of winning this unique prize follow these 2 simple steps:

1. Follow @TheHistoryPress on Twitter.

2. Tweet @TheHistoryPress with the answer to the following question followed by the hashtag #TitanicHerJourney

Q: What was the name of the first ship to reach Titanic after it tragically struck an iceberg and sank?

(The 5 winners will be chosen on Wednesday 18th April and will be tweeted from @TheHistoryPress)