Ravenscliffe (66 page)

Howse, Geoffrey,
Around Hoyland: A Second Selection
(Sutton Publishing, 2000).

Parsons, R. M.,
The White Ships: The Banana Trade at the Port of Bristol
(City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 1982).

Phillips, Melanie,
The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffrage Movement
(Abacus, 2004).

Pugh, Martin,
The Pankhursts: The History of One Radical Family
(Vintage, 2008).

Russell, A. K.,
Liberal Landslide: the General Election of 1906
(David and Charles, 1973).

The first chapter of
Ravenscliffe
shows Anna’s emotional response to the house on the common. How significant do you think buildings are to our state of mind? And how symbolic, for Eve and for Anna, is the move from Beaumont Lane to Netherwood Common?

Eve’s son Seth plays a significant role in
Ravenscliffe
, particularly in the first two parts. Does his anger and resentment prevent him from being a likeable character? Or is it entirely understandable? Do you think the adults in his life handle him well?

As well as the fictional characters of
Ravenscliffe
, there are also real historical figures such as Edward VII, Keir Hardie and Sylvia Pankhurst. How successfully do you think the author weaves them into the narrative, and what effect does their presence have?

Before his untimely death the Earl of Netherwood seems to be re-evaluating his life and his priorities. How genuine did you feel this impulse was, and how far might it have gone? Do you think his response to the colliery disaster reflected well on him, or badly? Was it too little, too late?

How does the earl’s death alter life for his family? Do you think Henrietta’s character would have developed in the same way if he had lived?

When Thea marries Tobias do you consider her a force for good within the Hoyland dynasty, or the opposite?

What evidence is there in
Ravenscliffe
that British society – and the world at large – was on the brink of great political change?

If the cast of characters were transported to the present day, who among them do you think would be best equipped to cope with modern life? Who would fare worst?

Conversely, if you were transported to the world of
Ravenscliffe
how would you cope and at which level of society would you find a place?

Why do you think, in twenty-first-century Britain, we are still so drawn to the Edwardian era? Does what we know of this period in history – and what we know happens as the century rolls on – influence our understanding and interpretation of fictional events?

Ravenscliffe
has a large cast of characters and storylines – how do you organise your writing to give them all the right amount of space?

That’s a good question, because one of the things I worry about is forgetting someone after the first few chapters, so that they appear once then never again. It has very occasionally happened to me as a reader, and I do hate to be left wondering what on earth became of so-and-so. How I avoid this is to write everyone down on an increasingly long list as and when they appear – it sounds fairly obvious, but it’s really helpful to be able to scan the list from time to time and remind myself of what I called the housemaid or the groom, or some other bit-part who might need another mention. Equally, the list is useful to remind myself of loose ends, those smaller storylines that remain unresolved or that have been temporarily lost in the bigger dramas. One of these days – when I have a free week or two and a very large sheet of paper – I might make a Netherwood family tree, with everyone on it, and their connections to each other.

Do you have a clear picture in your head of the town’s geography?

Yes I do. It helps, of course, that I’m thinking of my old home town of Hoyland when I visualise Netherwood, but I think it’s
actually quite important that I can picture, for example, the route from Ravenscliffe to Netherwood Hall that Daniel and Anna take, or Seth’s journey from Ravenscliffe to New Mill Colliery, or the earl’s fateful drive from Long Martley up to the top of Harley Hill. Perhaps when I get round to doing that family tree I could also do a map of Netherwood with all its principal landmarks, like those maps of Earthsea at the front of Ursula K. Le Guin’s books that I used to pore over as a child.

Do you know where your stories are heading when you start, or do they evolve as you write?

Yes and yes, I would say. That is, I have a fair idea of where I want everyone to end up, but I don’t know exactly how they’re going to get there. Before I start writing the books I prepare a fairly detailed outline for my editor of what’s likely to happen, so the structure of the stories – the bones of them – are in place at the very beginning. But it’s perfectly possible for new ideas and solutions to present themselves, or for individual characters to develop in surprising ways. I didn’t know, for example, that Absalom Blandford was going to deny Eve her gift from the earl until I got well into the writing of
Ravenscliffe
, although I had always known he would wreak some sort of revenge on her for spurning him in
Netherwood
. It would be very dull for me, as the writer, if I knew down to the very last detail exactly what was going to happen. I often sit down without knowing at all what I’m going to write, and then surprise myself with the way the story goes.

Have you got a favourite character?

Oh, that’s a tricky question to answer, and I think I would have to say no. There are things about all my characters that I like: even the reptilian Absalom is interesting to me for his nastiness. His meanness makes him fun to write – I don’t know anyone remotely like him, but he sprang fully formed into my imagination. Of course, among the cast are a few that stand out for special mention: Anna is terrific for her resourcefulness and loyalty, and Amos is fantastic for his integrity and his sense of humour, and his engaging awkwardness in matters of the heart. Henrietta, too, is such a strong individual, so uncharacteristic of women of
her class. And the lovely Eve will always have a place among my favourites, because she was the start of it all. I’ve enjoyed the way that the children have emerged in
Ravenscliffe
too: Eliza has come out of the shadows and Seth has grown in an interesting and – I hope – satisfying way. This next generation of Netherwood inhabitants could be the ones to take the story on, up to and beyond the First World War, perhaps.

How do you get started on your books?

With some trepidation initially, then with increasing confidence as the words start to fill the page. In fact, I think find it more difficult to finish a book than to start one. There’s something so significant, somehow, about those final sentences. Giving them weight and interest but steering clear of sentimentality is my goal.

Could you see your books on the screen?

Yes, I really could – but I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I? Nevertheless, I think both
Ravenscliffe
and the earlier
Netherwood
are extremely televisual, and I’d love to see them brought to life. I’d be hoping for an old-fashioned thirteen-part series, though, not one of those two-parters they like to give us these days, where everything gets condensed into too small a space and entire characters are chopped from the action.

Your female characters tend to be very strong: does your writing have a feminist theme?

There’s no agenda, though I can see why you might ask that question. Eve, Anna, Henrietta, Thea – they’re all independent-minded women with a strong seam of resilience running through them. And of course Henry is drawn to the Suffragists, whose vociferous campaign for the enfranchisement of women was certainly a milestone in the long fight for equality of the sexes. But I think the key word there is resilience. I grew up around strong women who, while they probably wouldn’t have described themselves as feminists, led independent and – in my grandma’s case – self-sufficient lives, and did their best with the hand they were dealt. I wouldn’t say there’s a specifically feminist theme to my writing but I certainly do salute the women in my corner of
Yorkshire who knew what they wanted and worked hard to achieve it.

Did you have a house in mind when you pictured Ravenscliffe?

No, it was purely imaginary, unlike Netherwood Hall, which was based very specifically on Wentworth Woodhouse, a stately home near my own home town. Netherwood Common is imagined, too, but I liked the idea of Eve and Anna and the children making a home in a big old house, with open countryside all around them, and the freedom and space to be themselves. It’s a symbolic move away from the confines of the miners’ terraces.

Are your characters based on anyone you know? Are you in the book?

One of my friends says that I’m definitely Amos. If I am in there it’s because you can’t help, as a writer, deploying your own values or your own sense of humour, although these things don’t emerge in one individual but are scattered among the characteristics of the cast. Similarly, there are elements of people I know now, or people I used to know as a child, in various characters in the books – though I’d say this is more true of the working classes than the aristocrats, since there’s no blue blood in my family!

How easy is it to write the Yorkshire dialect?

Not very easy at all, to be honest. I had to tone it down from the way that I know Yorkshire folk talk because it becomes too much of an obstacle to the uninitiated. As it is, the dropped aitches and the
t
’ instead of
the
is quite difficult to sustain and can look daunting on a page where there’s a lot of dialogue. But I felt it was important to distinguish between the working-class locals and the other characters, and also I wanted to be faithful to my own Yorkshire roots. I sometimes think the books should come with an instructional DVD so that everyone knows how to ‘talk Tyke’.

How long did it take you to write
Ravenscliffe
?

About a year, six months less than it took me to write
Netherwood
, although
Ravenscliffe
is about twenty thousand words longer. Of
course I had a deadline this time around, and I must admit this made me more disciplined about my writing. I didn’t let a day go by without adding to it, even if it was only a couple of hundred words.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you like to make a living?

Naturally, I’d bake fabulous pies and sell them.