As it's National Poetry Day, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on Byron. The celebrity cult of Lord Byron began while he was still alive, boomed when he died, and still continues today. He remains an object of fascination, scandal, and appeal. I've been interested in him since I first read about him in a "Famous People" encyclopaedia. It was a children's book, so it did not explore the more infamous aspects of his life. But it was enough to inspire me to delve further into research on the man and the myth - including the puzzle of the mirror . Ultimately, Byron went on to become a major inspiration for my first published book Day's Dying Glory , right down to its title. His early poems (generally my favourite ones) feature heavily in the book, and I enjoyed weaving in lines and references which Byron-fans would spot where others might not even notice them. Poets and poetry have inspired hundreds of writers. It is fascinating that language can be so power...
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| Winston Churchill: The Roaring Lion |
At the moment, clips from The Crown keep coming up on my Facebook page and then, once you’ve watched a few, they appear on YouTube too. Thanks, cookies!
I’ve never gone in for writing twentieth century fiction, although I’m not opposed to reading it. One of the most interesting things about historical fiction, of course, is the ability to put words into the mouths of people who really lived. Over the past couple of blogs, I’ve looked at Henry VIII and Alexander the Great, and how I have used their characteristics and moulded them into what I needed for my stories.
How brave, then, of the writers of The Crown to put words into the mouths of people who were still speaking! There has been a lot of speculation about how members of the royal family would have reacted to various parts of programme. In fact, thanks to the aforementioned cookies, I now get spammed with clickbait articles like, “Watch the scene which made Prince Philip want to sue makers of The Crown.”
But the clip which appeared and made me want to write about it in this blog was one where the young queen is speaking to Winston Churchill, her first Prime Minister. In it, she naively comments on how the smog is making her husband grumpy because he can’t fly. The Prime Minister becomes increasingly angry throughout the conversation, seeming to lose all proportion in the matter: he appears a lot more concerned about Prince Philip learning to fly a plane than the poisonous fumes killing people around the capital.
It's a bold portrayal of the man who many laud as having single-handedly brought Britain through the war. Here he is, with his priorities completely out of whack, yelling at a young woman who has simply expressed a personal experience to a person she trusts. It is not a good look, especially with how we now view inter-gender communication.
But it did make me appreciate the writers for doing this: they took a man who is revered for his courage, his stamina and his wit, and chose to display one of the many faults which plagued him as a person. Those who have read more about Churchill will be aware that this courage, stamina and wit disguised a depth of prejudice towards almost anyone who was not English.
As a writer, frailties and foibles are where we can create our most believable characters: Ginny, Clem and I all love our “pincushion characters”, who are subjected to a host of terrible and unlucky happenings. But as a historical fiction writer, we can also work to tap into the personality flaws which made a person from history into more than just their eulogy.
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