Author Laurel Lindström

A prison visit

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The women were gathered around the steps in the creeping cold of a November Saturday, waiting for a heavy black door to open. The shadowed air was damp and clinging. False lashes were wilting, tight blonde pony tails were limp. A handful of long black spirals, laquered and permed had lost their spring. Only the botoxed lips and the fingernail claws were holding up. Some of the women were holding small children, some had slightly less small children in pushchairs. Some women were pregnant, a desolate cast to their faces. Jolly grandmas with lots of missing teeth were making jokes and smoking. Grim faced male friends and brothers kept their faces tight and unnavigable. They waited at the foot of the stone steps, slightly apart from the women and fidgetting from foot to foot.

In front of them all the high flintstone walls of the prison tipped forwards against the sky, looming and threatening to fall and engulf them at any moment. Somewhere inside their men were waiting, some keen and impatient, anxious to discuss what would change when they got out. Some were bored and unrepentant, disinterested. Some were annoyed that visiting hours, the visiting 90 minutes, coincided with the footie on the telly.

Behind the thick locked door the black and white uniforms, faces carved, colourless and set were waiting. And the keys on long chains, the security cameras, the registration forms, the sniffer dogs, weapons and id scanners. The curious atmosphere of routine boredom and habitual watchfulness. And time, flaccid and loose, moves patiently along the confining walls and corridors, leans lazy against hidden ceilings, hides in corners and under the furniture. It distorts the days and nights to create a new continuum.

The loneliness of the women, their patience and confusion, their anger and fear keeps company with time’s distortion. Inside in the waiting rooms, it is too warm, too close. The hovering testosterone of angry young men blisters the air and pock marks our sights and conversations. The slow tango that happens most Saturdays is not a scene we want to see, to share. It’s not a scene we can truly share with the regular visitors, or with their children. But we try to do it anyway.

We all go through the complicated security, sadly simple for the women who do it every week. We all put our stuff in lockers and throw tissues and chewing gum in the bin as instructed, because they are not allowed. We all go through the scanners and let the sniffer dogs do their thing. We all listen to the stern warden who tells us that smuggling drugs into the prison will get us a long prison term. Her voice is strict but also bored and as she calls the names of the women who can go through to the next stage, she jokes about not needing to repeat her other reminders. They try to laugh politely except the granny who guffaws and declares,  “alright darlin’ we got it first time around”. Except that the man they are visiting, did not get it the first time around and now here they all were coming to see him again as he waits out his fourth term in prison. Petty thefts and drugs and some violence. He didn’t get it in goes one to four, so five when it comes may be his chance to make a change. All a mistake, granny says.

A little boy of four or five smiles through all this and plays on the floor with the toy farm and its plastic animals. He asks his patient mother endless questions and she answers soft and indulgent, makes him sit beside her and holds his hand tight. He asks me where I live and I tell him and I ask him where he lives. He asks his mum and she tells him and he tells me with a proud smile, rolling the name of his town around his mouth for the first time and then again as he laughs through the word. He repeats it and repeats it and I laugh and his mum tries to laugh too. Tries hard to crack her golden face and stop the welling eyes from overflowing. She reaches for her little boy and folds him tight against her shoulder and he laughs and laughs as her tickling fingers caress him. He has no idea that he’s all there is to keep her from screaming her fear, her loneliness and her shattered belief that it wasn’t meant to be like this. And it wasn’t. It never is.

Tokyo turmoil

Laurel Lindström 1 Comment

There is no sense of turmoil in Tokyo. I just like the alliteration. From our hotel room window we see the Tokyo Tower, its lattice painted in bright stripes of red and white against a glowing night sky. Our bathroom has a toilet with a prewarmed, cushioned seat. Like most of the toilets we sat on in restaurant and office facilities, it has an intimate washing system with clear pictograms for ease of use. Some of these toilets even have an option to play music, intended to cover up embarrassing noises. I never tried the music thing because that in itself is an embarrassing noise.

It’s part of the clean clean clean and safety ethics Japan is so well known for. Safety at all costs except for the mad cyclists heading towards you on the pavements, no matter how narrow. They blatantly disregard the cycle lanes and no one seems to mind, except the untrained tourists leaping out of the way. The cyclists barely even slow down and it’s as if they’re in another world. This is understandable as in the bits of Tokyo we visited there is a lovely sense of calm, which gives the impression that Tokyo is quiet. And compared to other cities, it is. That the people are so kind and polite and considerate only adds to this sense of an unspoken gentleness in the place. Even the light in late summer is gentle and caressing.

We visited an enormouse equestrian park called Baji Koen and  located to the west side of Shibuya, a major commercial and financial centre in Tokyo. Baji Koen was originally built in 1940 and lately upgraded for the 2020 Olympics. The facilities were then repurposed and refurbished as a smaller stadium and park. The park has graceful and immaculate lawns where toddlers can totter with no risk of landing in a muddy puddle or of finding something disgusting they might insist on eating. The grass is close cut and perfect for little boys practising their rugby tackles. Girls can swan about in complicated clothes without fear of tripping over. There is also a vast arena for showjumping and dressage and a racetrack, where we watched the ancient art of Yabusame – archery on horseback. No one fell off and of the four contenders the girl was much better at it than the men, one of whom almost did fall off several times and didn’t shoot a single arrow. Yabusame was originally a martial art, but it morphed over the centuries into something spiritual and then something competitive. Riders and horses seemed to be having a great time doing it. Equine visitors can avail themselves of extensive luxury accommodation at Baji Koen and there is probably a hotel somewhere nearby for the humans. It’s all very lovely.

That’s hardly surprising because Tokyo and probably Japan too offers incidental beauty everywhere you look. From the people and their carefully curated clothes, to the parks and green spaces, signage and the food, the focus is as much on the quality of appearance as on the quality of the thing itself. Grubby, rough and untidy doesn’t rear its head. Even a serving of truck stop soba noodles, made of buckwheat and served cold, has the food set bang smack in the middle of their bamboo tray thing. The accompaniments of dashi (broth) and chopped spring onions are carefully placed for optimal symmetry.

The many bizarre and challenging foodstuffs were for a vegetarian more intriguing entertainment than options for nourishment. That is, apart from the weird and unfamiliar vegetables that the Tokyo people didn’t seem to count as vegetarian possibilities. A main dish that does not exclude meat or fish, means there is no vegetarian food available. Except that potatoes with cheese, truffle fries, and rice and salad, noodles, beans and tofu are just fine, especially when you add fried tempe and some of the weird vegetables as a side.

Everything we came across in Tokyo was all about the details: warm damp towels before and after meals, special holders for spent teabags, complex soap and lotion options. And the diverse cooking methods matched to the huge range of foods, including an incredible diversity of dried foods. From the details included in a humble pot noodle to small packages of unfamiliar pickles, the array of foods and their nuances is astonishing. The dried additions for miso soup and potted noodles tell only a tiny bit of the tale. Used to tasteless Ramen packet noodles the enormity of noodle options was almost overwhelming. A single pot can contain everything required to make a divine noodly dinner. There are dried herbs and spices, dried meat or fish of various species and things to me unrecognisable. But they’re probably identifiable to the noodle connoiseur from the picture on the package. Either way there is no lack of choice, whatever your fancy.

The focus on helpful details and convenience spread to the clarity and sense of onstreet parking. There is not a lot. Mostly it’s not allowed except for temporary purpose like getting people into the car. Instead there are lots of small (think four cars) offstreet paid parking lots. That the streets are so clear of parked cars, at least in the districts we saw, is a major reason why Tokyo feels so unstressy. You don’t see congestion on the streets, although you do on the many motorways that traverse Tokyo. But people do not walk there. Despite being one of the most crowded and densely populated cities on the planet Tokyo is a walking city, with busyness confined to the highways and the extremely efficient train systems. 

The districts we were in, Minato and Shibuya in the main, were trashless with no overflowing bins or rubbish in the gutters. There were indeed hardly any bins at all except for recycling purposes. The Tokyo people just don’t drop litter, they take it home instead. It’s part of a sense that people take responsibility for their actions, for how they interact with one another and for how they share their space. There is a softness and assurance without arrogance or complacence. The softness sort of hums in the background, like the birdsong you hear in the most unexpected of places.

Procrastination or worse

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It’s Thursday morning again but there’s still no blog for the website. Oh no! Staring at pirouetting leaves and the battered fade of autum roses isn’t helping. Through the rain jewelled windows the chickens are visibly despondent. Bedraggled, they are scratching at the mud unsatisfied that it just slides aside to leave momentary striations and their feet wet and dirty. Those with feathered ankles and toes are especially displeased. The worms are hiding from the intense wet dumping onto the ground so they are too deep for the chickens to reach. But they scratch at the ooze nonethless. A pair of magpies hovers on the fence, waiting for a hen to lay or for little Lavender to relinquish her post so that they can get to the feed hopper. Lavender is very fierce and the opportunistic magpies are lazy chancers who dare not take a risk. And overhead a sulphorous sky shifts under autumn winds that are too warm. Sitting silent and empty, trawling a reluctant imagination.

There is no light. No thought, just impressions and distant ideas that won’t come into focus. What about a review of Andrey Kurkov’s Jimi Hendrix Live in Kiev? Fine except that the book patiently sits unread and full of promise upstairs somewhere. Its probably lost in a screedump of books, but no one knows for sure. Jimi Hendrix Live in Kiev’s supposed to be good. All the dutiful reviews from people who want to please the author say so. They all name check the magical realism, the vodka, the affection for Lviv and its history. And reference to Mr Kurkov’s dark humour is of course mandatory. All well and good, so set to and read the book. But there is a problem.

Getting around to reading Jimi Hendrix Live in Kiev might take a little while because Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees was unexpectedly dull. Not agonisingly so, but still this is not something to be said out loud. Great long stretches of not much happening. Great long paragraphs to get lost instead in wondering what the point was. It the sort of read where the mind wanders off elsewhere and yet pages later the general gist was still there. The bits about life in the grey zone were somehow incomplete. The bits about bees and their behaviours made a much less powerful a contribution to the story than they might have done. Undeveloped social metaphors lost in a wash of sometime very lovely prose and clever wit. Getting around to reading Jimi Hendrix Live in Kiev will happen, but not yet.

Procrastinating still. Or worse, more boredom setting in. Boredom might be nature’s aid for passage through the winter months and their darkness and shadows. The sense of loss and hopelessness might back off, if boredom’s in the ascendent. Maybe. Boredom’s not worse. But in truth it’s neither procrastination or boredom that sees this week’s blog so laggardly. This week has slid away like the chickens footprints in the slurry. Time’s lines have disappeared without trace, a reminder that time is the most slippery and most precious of foes.

19th Wedding Anniversary

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This is how it started. On that day nineteen years ago I jumped out of bed frantic talking, talking, talking all the way out of the house and along the track to the feed store. “I’m late already. I’m already late. I don’t believe this. What happened to early? It’s already after six and I’m already late. Where’s the sun? Why’s it still so dark? Oh, shit look at the sky, look at the bloody sky. And it’s really raining. It’s raining on our wedding day.

And I’m taking too long doing this, why are all the feed bins empty now, why didn’t I think of this yesterday when they were already nearly empty. And why is it raining so very hard?”

Scuttling along in too-big clogs, falling off their wooden edges unbalanced on the uneven ground and carrying the manger I kept up a persistent muttery mumble, trying to calm matters down and to ignore the rain: “It’s fine, it’s not that late, I can still get showered and have my hair in curlers in plenty of time for my hair to dry by eleven” and scurrying up to the gate she hooked the manger onto it, and gave the Grey Horse a sudden and unexpected pat. Much alarm and headshaking, and a suspicion that she really was quite as mad as he had always believed, the Grey Horse stood back from his breakfast. I sighed, “oh don’t be so silly” before reaching out once again but this time much more slowly, to gently pat the Grey Horse his good morning. Kissing his chaff dusted nose I said: “enjoy your breakfast”.

Back indoors the peace and calm one might expect so early on a Saturday morning was completely absent. Instead there were a dozen or so Swedish relations, long lost friends and teenagers, munching their various ways noisily through a host of breakfast stuff: teas, juices, coffee and the rest. The scene of formless mess only added to the surreal and thunderstruck sense of the day. I couldn’t imagine how the day had suddenly turned into chaos so very soon. Tea at least was already made, so grabbing a mug I hurried upstairs to the shower, barely noticed.

At least the shower was hot. The battle for the hairdryer was about to commence between Hannah and Matilda, both of whom had already showered while I was getting drenched in the rain. When I got out of the shower, only mildly less hysterical, the plan had been to put my hair in curlers and to set the hairdryer on them. I had had in mind a cascade of blondish reddish curls. “We’re nearly finishing Mummy. We won’t be long. Your hair dries quicker than ours”. Gorgeous girls 13 and 14 years old, bubbling over with youth, beauty and innocence still, and in a moment so precious still ours, still our lovely little girls.

So OK. OK. I gave give up on the idea of leisurely drying and cascading glory and concentrated on the dressing bit of the morning. Suddenly everything, even the simplest part of getting ready seemed too complicated to manage. No room. No space, just a blind, fearful panic, wondering where Paul was and whether it was all as mad for him, tangled up with the business of breakfast and all those visiting Swedes. Unlikely somehow and I imagined him serene and slightly excited on the outside, cool, calm and in control and probably quite oblivious to the raging skies beyond the kitchen windows.

Outside the weather was worsening with each passing moment. Lights on indoors in July in the morning? Whatever was happening. The thunder rolled, the girls kept squeaking and fidgeting and I sat down in the corner still in my dressing gown and wondered what to do next. Fortunately someone else was there to egg me gently on to the day’s next steps. I was not alone and true to the traditions of brides and maids of honour, Joanne serene, calm and moving slowly into the room gave me a sudden and loving hug. “It’s the day! Today’s the day. Are you alright? Have you had anything to eat? There’s still toast and tea. Paul’s taking care of the rabble downstairs. All you’ve got to do is have your tea and relax and get dressed. Isn’t it fantastic!” I held her hand tightly and said in  a tiny voice: “Why’s it raining? What’s with the thunder? What’s happening?” And Joanne laughing “all of nature’s getting up and getting ready, so come on, what are you doing?” And with a brusque and bossy “Get your mother another cup of tea and a biscuit”, Joanne pushed the morning machine into gear, sat me down and started getting to work on my hair.

It’s been 19 years and they’re all hovering around my head still. The joys, the less-than joys, the amazing experience of seeing our children grow into such wonderful people. Thank you to everyone who made that day so memorable and thank you to Paul, Hannah, Morgan and Matilda for giving me such a fabulous, joyful and loving family.

 

“Only the shallow know themselves.” —from Oscar Wilde’s “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young” (1882) 

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You don’t know me.

You don’t see me.

You can’t find me.

You don’t know me.

And of this I am certain.

Being old is useful in these days of death and desperation. Death because of Covid and Brexit, stealing lives and lifestyles. Desperation because everyone is so obsessed with being noticed, with being included, recognised, acknowledged. It’s a curious thing this obsession. For those of us who’ve been around awhile, it looks like disease.

The online echo chamber amplifies and distorts, and social media platforms put you, and only you, you, you, you at the heart of every message. Seeing it is mostly boring, if compelling. Being seen is wonderful for those frantic to shine in gleaming limelight and get lost in virtual applause, acclaim. Except that the social media platforms must put all of us at the centre of attention regardless of our mediocrity, so we are none of us individuals just data sets. Yet if the platforms don’t prioritise everyone on some individualised basis, advertisers won’t be happy.

In this saturated and anonymous environment a defined identity is necessary to concepts of self, no matter how arbitrary and divisive. Individual identities must be categorised, celebrated and yelled about, to confirm that we know who we are, that we are entitled to recognition, that we exist at all. Without the platforms and classified identities, we are apparently nobodies. But coming to terms with one’s own ordinariness is part of growing up. Maybe you cannot see that until you’ve finished doing it and only then can recognise the curious paradox that we are all ordinary, and yet extraordinary too. The social media collective thrives on this paradox. Advertisers want maximum engagement and frequency in order to sell more stuff. Definitions and categories provide the platforms with data to help them do that. And we all participate.

But identity is a fragile thing, a thing in constant flux. It is not caged. Identity is vulnerable and frail and it should not be trivialised. Nor should those craving acknowledgement and recognition use identity to bully others into sharing their point of view. Identifying a target to blame for inequalities and unfairness, does not justify attack. Responsibility for being nasty about perceived slights does not go away just because you find someone to blame. The whingers share far more than being victims of generic, universal unfairness. They truly suffer cruelly. White male supremacy, imperialism, sexism, racism, accentism (it’s all the latest rage), genderism (coming to a paranoia near you soon), heightism, fatism, abilityism or some other -ism is the root of their undoing. How about I-don’t-care-ism?

We cannot thrive in a world where a group’s collective identity is considered to matter far more than anyone else’s. Such vanity combined with victimhood stifles interaction and debate. It’s toxic and poisons all chance of dialogue, discussion or inclusion. It excludes those beyond the group, those who challenge the party line, or who step unthinking onto tender toes. Blocking the transmissions we all send out and receive, leaves only static monotony on a single unrelenting channel.

Identity and knowing who and what you are is not about priviledge or advantage. Knowing who and what you are isn’t even a fact for hordes of people. Identity is often a latecomer to the character party. We could call it a very twenty-first century problem, this idea that we all have to be secure in our own identities and that everyone else has to recognise and celebrate those identities. Let’s instead strive for a little more humility, a little more kindness and greater breadth in our world views. Let’s have a little more appreciation of where and how the lines are drawn, so that they mark a point of connection and not of divergence. 

You don’t know me.

You don’t see me.

You can’t find me.

You don’t know me.

And of this I am certain.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phrases_and_Philosophies_for_the_Use_of_the_Young

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus – a review

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This book has already been widely reviewed by the professional reviewing community. But I bought my copy and want to tell you why you should do the same.

This is an astonishing debut novel, but its slickness and technical competence probably reflect the fact that the author has many years as a copywriter under her belt. That said there is nothing hackneyed or formulaic about the writing. It’s compelling, sophisticated, complex and loaded with stuff to make you think. The protagonist Elizabeth Zott is a chemist who falls in love, does not marry, loses her lover but gains their child. She’s obsessed with rowing and cooking and ends up hosting a cooking show on television that becomes hugely successful to everyone’s surprise.

But that is in the sixties and Zott’s story begins in the fifties at a research facility where everyone envies this beautiful, committed and gifted woman. Other women at the place are jealous and conniving, and groping by male colleagues is de rigeur, in line with the times. Being old myself I am familiar with the trope although in my case it was the seventies rather than the fifties and by the seventies men were a little less obvious in their abuses. It is still a common if even less overt occurence. And people still do their best to thwart a woman’s progress especially if she is pretty and unconventional as Elizabeth Zott is. A belief persists that if one is pretty one should a) expect uninvited sexual attention and b) not bother with a career because being pretty means one doesn’t need to. It’s a mentality that is still deeply ingrained and not just amongst men.

Setting her story in the fifties and sixties allows Garmus to illustrate with sharp focus a serious problem that persists to this day. Only by bringing it into stark and shocking contrast can we all address it, especially the men who still don’t get the point of why women want to be treated as equals. Women are still categorised according to their appearance and attitude, not just by men for whom there isn’t the same depth of problem. The truism runs deepest in the male psyche, especially in that of the chivalrous and charming ones. Most of them so miss the point and the ones who don’t are in denial. The ones who persist with being charming and chivalrous and do get the point are the keepers. But they are admittedly rare.

Elizabeth Zott is necessarily an extreme character. She responds to every situation with varying degrees of detachment based on what she observes and her understanding of it. She refuses to play the role society has assigned because it hasn’t occurred to her that she has a predefined role. She’s been incidental and not central in her own life’s story, so she has no reason or space for self-doubt. She doesn’t even consider that she’s being difficult and unexpected because she’s not. Zott’s being honest, unfiltered and truthful, true to herself and we could do with more women like her. Zott is a full-on distillation of femininity, independent objectivity, integrity and intuitive intelligence. She is also intensely warm, passionate and loving. She is deeply touched by consistently bizarre tragedies and loss. She is consistently cheated and molested by colleagues, but allows none of it to pollute her sense of self or truth.

As the book progresses we learn more about Zott’s bizarre back-story and that of her lover, chemist and potential Nobel candidate, Calvin Evans. The book just gets more and more compelling so it becomes necessary to take a break from the narrative and set the book down. You realise that you are absolutely loving the characters and that the novel’s gripping pace is taking you too quickly to the end. I had to put Lessons in Chemistry aside at least twice because I didn’t want it to end. And I wanted to think of ways in which the many narrative strands would be resolved. There was no great and unexpected twist at the end, but the end did come far too suddenly. This was the only flaw in an otherwise immaculate reading experience.

A helpful editor should have pointed out to Bonnie Garmus that there needed to be about twice the scene setting and at least double the story telling for that final chapter. It really should have been spread over a couple of chapters to be consistent with the rhythm of the earlier parts of the book. But what do I know. Maybe other readers would also have appreciated more emotional expurgation from these newly explored late-comers. Maybe other readers would also want a deeper examination of their emotional responses and some sense of what happens next in their lives. It was all a bit too rushed for me, but read the book yourself and see what you think. Oh and I would love to know what the chemical notation on the tombstone says.

UK returns to normal as Brexit is reversed

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1st April, 2023

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced reversal of UK’s Brexit, following revelations of massive referendum vote hacking. British intelligence working with counterparts in Estonia, Ukraine and Poland have uncovered evidence that votes in the 2016 Brexit referendum converted Remain votes to Leave votes. The hack, code named Project Tonsils, was discovered on the day of the vote. But the discovery came too late to halt a mass of false votes being cast and counted.

Project Deep Tonsils was allegedly managed by a network of spies and criminals operating at the behest of the North Korean government. The mastermind behind the project is Ryu Jun-seo. Ryu’s name is believed to have provided an unintended clue to the mass fraud which occurred in June 2016. Search engine optimisation is thought to have been suborned across the entire internet to access online voter accounts.

British citizens casting their referendum votes online made up a relatively small proportion of the overall voting numbers. However they were sufficient for North Korea’s international hacker network to turn the vote from a clear Remain majority to a marginal Leave one.

Following a joint session with King Charles III, the Houses of Parliament, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers, Sunak released a brief statement. “Brexit’s reality is no longer valid and the United Kingdom is returning to its previous state of prosperity and growth. Institutions such as the NHS, our transportation systems, education and the civil service will once again be able to hire the professionals they need to function properly. The City of London will be once again a fully functioning financial centre.” He added that “We look forward to a return to working with the European Union to protect vulnerable migrants, so that they are no longer driven to take the horrific journey across the sea. The illusion that they can disappear into the UK’s unmonitored black economy will be dispelled once and for all.”

Efforts to track down mastermind Ryu Jun-seo are now underway, following his sighting in Burnham-on-Sea on Friday. Clutching his fish and chips (open) close to his chest Mr Ryu was  spotted sprinting along the seafront towards a busstop, before disappearing under the pier. Extensive searches failed to discover Ryu who is believed to be swimming to France. As an EU member, the UK is trusting the French authorites to nab the brain behind Project Tonsils. 

Sunak concluded his announcement with the news that EU rules protecting coastlines, scientific endeavour and investment in declining regions throughout the UK could now be implemented, along with coordinated and realistic support for Ukrainian refugees and defence. He added that cancelling Brexit also means that there is no further need for the Northern Ireland Protocol nor the Windsor one. The Democratic Unionist Party welcomed the announcement and is returning to government in Northern Ireland following many years of skiving at taxpayers’ expense. And all will be well. As if.

…so here is me trying to write romantic fiction

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The wind drove lonely clouds across a lowering sky and an icy rain was falling. Esmerelda pulled her shawl tight around her and hunched her shoulders. She leant into the wind, against the cold. She knew that somewhere in this desolate landscape she’d find the house. She knew that somewhere in the house, she’d find him. Would they let her see him? Would they know why she was there? Would he?

Ten years ago she could remember the way across the moors to the house. But that last time was in a summer of love and sunshine and so much had happened since. And there was so much more that was coming that Esmerelda daren’t take the chance of losing her way. She had to see him, she had to tell him about Elly before it was too late. She couldn’t risk getting lost, so she stuck to the road. Eyes down, one foot in front of the other, relentless and dogged along the sodden track.

The rain was coming down more heavily and it was getting dark. Off in the distance she could see the lights from the Hall. She trudged on determined, cold and so very alone as the dusk deepened and the wind picked up. To comfort herself Esmerelda took refuge in memories dragged up from the depths of her being, from somewhere deep amongst the shards of her broken heart. Simon had loved her, this she knew. Simon was coming for her this she knew too. Until things changed.

The certainty ended when she encountered a wayward hussar on the run from his regiment. He had told Esmerelda a different story when he had begged shelter. In a cavernous kitchen deep in the bowels of a big house, Esmerelda was getting food ready for the family. They were due to return to Harehurst Hall within hours and the whole house was in an uproar of preparations. She was humming softly and for a few brief moments, she was blissfully alone in the kitchen stirring a steaming pot of casserole. The hussar must have been waiting for his moment, the moment when Esmerelda was by herself. Drifting in and out of consciousness he had staggered in towards the warm, falling across the scullery threshold exhausted and hungry. An unexpected and filthy mess had fainted on Esmerelda’s immaculate floor. 

Esmerelda gave a small scream of surprise, dropping her spoon into the depths of the stew. Hot gravy was splashing on her apron and burning her hands. At the sound of her cry the hussar roused himself and looked up, peering at her through tangled wet hair, his blue eyes bleary and bloodshot. He was wild with unspoken fear and looked about the kitchen in terror, lest someone else come into the room. But the rest of the staff were busying themselves elsewhere, anxious to be ready for the telltale sounds of hooves and wheels on gravel as the family finally arrived home. Esmerelda could see that this pathetic wretch could do her no harm. She could see that the poor man needed food, warmth and shelter. He was doing his best to whisper something and she thought she heard in his garbled mumbling something about Simon. She drew a sharp breath and hurried to shut the main kitchen door, locking it sharply. 

… to be continued (or not). 

Traitor King by Andrew Lownie – a review

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Much has been written about the dreadful antics of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. So much so that according to Andrew Lownie, the author of Traitor King, it was difficult to get reviewers to read and review his latest book. This might be because they believe, wrongly, that there is nothing new to add to the well trodden territory that has seen some fifty titles about the notorious couple. Or it might be that literary editors and reviewers are too lazy to want to learn more about them. But learning more is what Traitor King is all about: it’s new territory presented in eensy weensy detail.

The book covers the years following King Edward VIII’s abdication, his marriage to Wallis Simpson and their dubious career as celebrity royals. Much as seems to be happening with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex today, the Windsors went to immense effort to earn a very juicy living by exploiting their non-roles. No longer part of the monarchy, they continued to live the lifestyle that Edward had enjoyed prior to his new life with Wallis, except that he wasn’t king anymore. They married in 1937 as soon as her divorce from her second husband was finalised and spent the rest of their lives as glamourous nomads, mostly in Europe and often at the expense of others.

They did a stint in the Bahamas, then a British Crown Colony, where Edward was put out of harm’s way during World War II. At least that was Winston Churchill’s intention. But corruption, scandal and murder attended the Windsors’ time in the sun. Edward’s deficit of grey matter was a serious impediment when it came to making sensible choices, no matter how obvious they were. Mrs Windsor did at least make an effort in the Bahamas and got involved in good works to the benefit of the islanders. But the local murder of Harry Oakes, a British gold miner, tax exile and close friend of the Duke of Windsor, was never solved and the Duke was directly involved in the haphazard investigation into the death. In Traitor King Lownie presents compelling evidence that Windsor was implicated in Harry Oakes’ demise.

Churchill had sent the pair away for several reasons, but mainly to keep them out of range of the throne. This sounds outlandish but the close connections between the Windsors and the Nazis was more than a mere sharing of ideologies. It was easy to flatter Wallis and Edward with promises of wealth and power, as neither was politically astute. It was even easier to appeal to their shared vanity with a promise to reinstate Edward as the King of England, with Wallis as his queen once Germany had vanquished Great Britain.

Edward and Wallis were obvious security risks although much of the evidence for the gravity of the risk has only recently come to light. Sitting at the heart of the diplomatic circles in various European capitals, Edward was well-placed to keep up to date with developments as the war progressed. Unfortunately he was keen to brag over dinner about what he heard, regardless of its sensitivity and security implications. He professed he wanted to help and he craved position for most of his life. During the war, got only a token position as a military liaison official where he could do the least harm.

Wallis was known to have had Nazi sympathies and it turns out that before the war she had had an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop. From 1938 to 1945 he was the Nazi’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. Does that title scream spymaster or what? As far as Wallis was concerned he lived up to his title. She had become of interest to intelligence services in the USA and elsewhere and a recently disclosed FBI report states that “because of her high official position, the duchess is obtaining a variety of information concerning the British and French activities that she is passing on to the Germans.”Once married to Edward the pair were targets for the British and French intelligence services as well. The 1937 tour of Germany and meeting Hitler and his odious crew didn’t help matters and nor did Edward’s close family connections in Germany. 

In 1940 the Germans set up Operation Willi, a pretty half-hearted effort to kidnap the couple. This was another reason to get the Windsors out of Europe. In the Bahamas they continued to be annoying, hobnobbing with known Nazi sympathisers and getting involved in what appears to be money laundering and currency gambles. Money was very important to the Windsors although they appear to have been takers more than givers.

Andrew Lownie documents all this and much more in granular detail. At times his book reads as if it were an elaborated list of every interaction the Windsors had with a vast miscellany of people as documented in security reports, sales catalogues, travel documents, letters and diaries. Lownie has scoured the planet for any references to the Windsors in the biographies, letters and diaries of their friends, colleagues, servants, guests, business partners and hangers on. This data overwhelm creates a tension with the book’s narrative flow and the drumbeat of meticulously documented facts too often drowns out the author’s voice. Bolder opinions on the facts presented would have made for a more compelling storyline and an easier read.

Traitor King doesn’t really hit its stride until the final quarter. By this time its 1953 and the couple is settling down in Paris where they continue to entertain on a grand scale and Edward is still trying to get his family to be nice to Wallis. That never happens and after his death in May 1972 Wallis lives on for another 14 years, still exiled, depressed and unloved. In her final days parasites posing as aides sell off her belongings and she is confined to her bedroom waiting to die. 

It’s all very sad, but although love was the reason for Edward’s abdication, love seems not to have been at the heart of the Windsors’ relationship. That is even sadder. He worshipped his idealised version of her and she treated him with condescension and distain. Ambition, greed, vanity, platforming, ostentatiousness, all ooze from these two people even at such a distance. They are odious individuals, selfish, mean and competitive narcissists of limited intelligence and perception. Beyond the romance that persistently overshadows the human reality Andrew Lownie’s book, with all its details, shows us the pair for who they really were.

Opportunities for authors and their ilk

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) recently published details of research into authors’ earnings. The study was conducted by the CREATe Centre at the University of Glasgow which found that the future of writing as a profession is under threat. But authoring isn’t under threat any more today than it ever was. People will always want to read and writers, whose imagination is their trade, are very good at reinvention. The ALCS figures, particularly the reduction in fulltime authors’ median earnings from £12,330 in 2006 to £7,000 in 2022, are alarming. But they do not tell a complete story.

Rapidly evolving digital technology has provided an environment for new commercial models within publishing. Technology has spawned a world of new opportunities throughout authors’ supply chains, primarily in online services and tools to support writers. Unfortunately this has helped to drive down average earnings.

The online publishing eco-system is a dynamic adjunct to the traditional publishing industry. It is one that publishers readily exploit without much investment. Hordes of online service providers from authors and copy writers to reviewers, filter and sift new talent at their own risk and to the benefit of publishers. These new players offer fee-based publishing opportunities and fee-based prizes in every imaginable category. New writers can today self-publish without much difficulty, because the technology and the people are there to grease the wheels. These business models did not exist in the same abundance in 2006.

There is a mutual dependency between the digital environment and those who inhabit it. And this is where publishers feed, either directly or via the agent community. That they can exploit the vanity of potential authors is a given. We are all keen for the attention of a commercial publishing contract that might take our careers in a new direction. And today there are so many more of us offering raw material: supply outstrips demand.

The online eco-system hosts all manner of writerly services from software and online courses, to review sites, editorial services, printing and publishing services, marketing, blog tours and publicity. The enormity of this opportunistic system, enhanced and amplified with a host of social media channels, means that anyone who fancies their chances as an author can present themselves as such. Authors are the raw material, rather than their work. Those who are good at the online gig (and patient enough to get good at it) are rewarded by traditional publishing in the end. Top selling titles based on blogging and websites with huge followings are massive successes. Publishers put money into these writers, knowing that their risk is mitigated.

The fall in authors’ average earnings between 2006 and 2022 reflects the brutal facts of supply and demand. Today’s economic landscape is much less favourable, as the ALCS data shows. There are so many more active authors and agents in our industry now and most will work for much less money than was likely in 2006. Back then there were far fewer writers actively pursuing success, and publishers were far hungrier.

Mainstream publishers today can and do focus on what are likely to be successful products, usually from credentialled writers. Mostly publishers are very good at doing this, as the astonishing turnover and profit figures confirm. The writer’s profession is about opportunity and yes luck. But luck has nothing to do with the inclination of mainstream publishers to turn away from reduced risk investments. That is never going to happen. Luck plays a part at all points in the publishing supply chain, from the writing and commercial attractions of a work, through to whether or not the paper costs for printing it on is within budget. The reliability or not of ‘luck’ is precisely what makes it luck. And there is nothing lucky in the success of top selling titles. They succeed because publishers put the money behind them to make sure that they succeed. As with celebrity tomes, the publishers of work that started life as a high profile blog already have a defined market.

Earning a living as an author has never been easy. Oscar Wilde wrote in a letter to one Mr Morgan that ‘the best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend upon it for their daily bread’. That was in 1885 and today’s publishing economics keep it that way.

The relationship between authors and publishers is changed. Publishers no longer want to recognise that support for authors is their responsibility. And why should it be when raw materials for new products are so readily available, the risk so much less and the profits so much more? The traditional contract between authors and publishers is broken. Authors need a new more compelling and sustainable model, one that authors themselves should dictate. This ought to mean opportunities for ambitious publishers keen to disrupt and reinvent their industry. Let’s hope it does.