Later this year, a Ravenser Odd exhibition will be shared at Cleethorpes and Grimsby, not far from where the ill-fated island was situated. Last year, I was delighted to chat with Emily, whose PhD has been instrumental in the research and promotion of Yorkshire's Atlantis, and we talked about how the island had inspired this story, adding to the cultural evolution of the legend of of Ravenser Odd. It's a long read, but I hope you enjoy it... Ravenser Odd I had lived all of my fifteen years in Ravenser Odd. In my earliest memories it had been a busy town, the docks lined with ships of all sizes, carrying garments and foods from the mystical continent beyond the mouth of the Humber. Then, aboard one of those ships, arrived the plague. Forced to anchor at the toll on the peninsula, the ship had paid a deadly tax upon Ravenser Odd, carrying away half its population on the riptide of the Black Death. When the low-lying land had flooded, forcing out many of the surviving inhabi...
I've been talking a lot about my family saga this month, so here's a little excerpt from Beneath Black Clouds and White . Although I published this second, it comes first chronologically. I hope you enjoy it! Chapter Nine Persephone and Rosanna Fotherby wasted little time as Peters left him, but began walking in the direction of Mayfair. After arriving at the house of Sir Manfred Chester so late on the last two occasions he had been a house guest, he was determined to arrive at a civilised time. He reached the white fronted house in the late afternoon and paused at the steps, uncertain that he should presume to simply arrive there. He walked across the road, rebuking himself for his lack of etiquette. He still carried the card that Peters had given him and he wondered at what the address was. It was somewhere in Westminster, and he was on the point of returning into the city when he turned at the sound of his name. “Henry! You have come back to us. You must come in at once.” “...