Category: annabelle harper

So Who Is Annabelle Harper?

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper, Uncategorized1 Comment

Annabelle Harper has really stepped into the limelight with The Tin God. It’s interesting that many reviewers and readers have seen it as her book, rather than a Tom Harper crime novel.

She’s been there all through the series of course. But for those who don’t know about her past, a little piece of fiction to very quickly tell her story…

Leeds, 1898

Annabelle Harper dusted the mantelpiece. By rights it needed doing every day, but she didn’t have the time. Running the Victoria public house downstairs, her work as a Poor Law Guardian and having a six-year-old daughter took up every waking hour. And with her husband being a Detective Superintendent, there was no knowing when he’d be at home.

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Leeds. It got everywhere. Soot and grit on the windowsills, in the carpets, in the air…it was a losing battle to keep anything clean. Hang out the washing and it was covered in smuts by the time you took it in.

That was the price for prosperity, people said. Maybe they were right. But there was precious little wealth in Sheepscar, just people doing their best to survive, and plenty going under. Yet folk believed the lies, and the ones who told them grew richer.

She picked up the photograph in the silver frame, wiped it carefully, then held it at arm’s length and studied it. How long since she’d really looked at those faces. There she was, carefully posed, back straight as she sat in the chair, wearing the first expensive gown she’d ever owned, her face so young and serious. Standing behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder, Harry Atkinson, her first husband. Much older, the usual twinkle in his eye hidden as he stared seriously at the camera. Thirteen years he’d been gone now. She still thought about him, but only from time to time these days; he seemed like someone from another life. Well, he was, she told herself with a smile, he was. But a good life. Without him, she’d never have had all this. She’d never have met Tom Harper and never have had Mary. You never knew, she thought. You never knew what life was going to do.

Odd flashes of those times ran through her mind. Harry and his wife Elizabeth taking her on as a servant. Elizabeth dying of cancer, vanish right in front of them, inch by inch. The strange courtship she had with Harry, the quick honeymoon in Scarborough, the first time she’d ever seen the sea. The way he taught her how to run a business and how she surprised herself by having a knack for it.

Harry was older, he had a good thirty years older, a man who look at life with his eyes wide open. He’d prepared her for when he’d be gone. And then it happened. Quietly, in his sleep. As soon as Annabelle woke, she knew the life had gone from him. She reached over and stroked his cheek.

‘Oh, you,’ she said as she started to cry. ‘Oh, you.’

The only thing she remembered with absolute clarity preparing for the funeral. The casket was already in the hearse. She just had a few minutes alone up here with his ghost.

Staring at the mirror. The way the light flickered in the gas mantle, reflecting in the jet buttons of her dress. In black, from head to toe. Even the lace and the petticoats and the new leather boots that pinched her feet.

She’d picked the funeral hat off the back of the chair and arranged it on her head, spreading the veil in front of her face. Her hand was raised, ready to pin it all in place, when she tore it off and sent the hat spinning across the room.

She turned to the photograph on the mantelpiece. A shiny silver frame. Herself, sitting with her husband’s hand on her shoulder. Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson.

‘You sod,’ she said quietly. ‘You bloody sod.’

No hand to steady her now.

They’d all be waiting downstairs in the pub. Harry’s sister and her children, Dan the barman, the two servants, and all the neighbours and friends from round Sheepscar. The hearse was outside, the horses with their sober ebony plumes.

She breathed deeply, gathered up the hat and set it in place again, hearing the footsteps on the stairs, then the tentative knock on the door.

‘Annabelle, are you ready, luv?’ Bessie, her sister-in-law. ‘Only it’s time.’

A last glance in the mirror and at the picture.

‘Yes,’ Annabelle Atkinson said. ‘I’m coming.’

 

A final swipe with the duster and she put the picture back on the mantelpiece, adjusting the angle once, twice, a third time until it seemed just right. She took a deep breath. Then she heard the small footsteps on the stairs and her daughter was shouting at the top of her lungs.

‘Mam, can you give me a hand?’

She shook her head, putting all the past behind her again.

‘Yes,’ Annabelle Harper said. ‘I’m coming.’

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The Tin God is out now in the UK, and on July 1 elsewhere. I hope you’ll buy it – and please, leave a review somewhere. It all helps.

Thank you.

The Tin God Launch – The Film

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, the tin god, tom harper, Uncategorized4 Comments

I know many of you don’t live in Leeds, so there was no chance of you attending the full launch of The Tin God on Saturday. And for some who do live here, well, it was a hot, sunny weekend, a Bank Holiday; there were other commitments.

I asked a young filmmaker who’s won awards for her work to document the event.

She came up with an absolutely wonderful piece of work, and I’m grateful.

 

There’s also a full report on the event that you can read right here, and it’s an absolute cracker!

The Reality Of Victorian Leeds

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper, Uncategorized1 Comment

I write crime novels set in Leeds. Historical crime.

That’s hardly a revelation, I know.

The crimes are the spine of my books. But I try to put a little more meat on the bones. The relationships between the characters and the changing face of Leeds itself.

It fascinates me, I try to make it a character in itself, and I find it vitally important. Nowhere is that change more apparent than in the late Victorian series with Detective Superintendent Tom Harper and his wife Annabelle

He’s grown up with the changes in Leeds. By 1890, when Gods of Gold is set, the first organised slum clearance was already underway, a number of the yards and courts between Briggate and Lands Lane already demolished to make way for Thornton’s Arcade and Queens Arcade. Before that, things had simply gown in the space, the original plots built over, the poor crammed away, out of sight.

duftons yard

Many of the places where he’d walked a beat when he started out as a constable had vanished by the time he was a Detective Inspector. The city – and it did finally become a city in 1893 – had a better water supply, the laws across England had changed to give children a little more education before they were sent out to work (although families still had to pay for any secondary education, something most could afford). That same year, Leeds was described as “a great hive of workers…whose products have the whole wide world for their market…her nine hundred factories and workshops, monuments of the wealth, industry and mercantile prestige.”

The workers who created those products saw little of that wealth, of course. They worked long hours for very little money. Few benefits, and any semblance of compassion depended on the owners of the factories. Between them textiles and engineering employed around have the workforce in Leeds – men and women.

It was a place with 23 tanneries and 200 cabinet makers. Leeds was changing, but for many, that change was happening slowly. Not many years before, 50 dead animals were pulled out of the river every single day. A Royal Commission heard that “hundred and thousands of tonnes per annum of ashes, slag, cinders, refuse from mines, chemical works, dyeing, scouring and fulling, worsted and woollen stuff, shin cleaning and tanning, slaughter, house garbage and sewerage from towns and houses” ended up in the Aire. Only around 3,000 houses in Leeds had flushing water closets. For everyone else, there was the midden.

cherry tree yard

That was the reality of the Leeds Tom and Annabelle Harper knew as they grew up, even when they were adults. The grand buildings – the Town Hall, the Corn Exchange –  might have been the public face of Victorian prosperity. Peek behind the curtain, though, and the reality, quite literally, stank.

No surprise, perhaps, that contagious diseases were rife. People died of typhus, whooping cough, diptheria, smallpox, diarrhoea – things we barely recognise today. Advances in public health, in sanitation and some of the housing were greatly lowering those figures by 1890, but they still existed.

A new Leeds was beginning to emerge. But it would still take many years to finally arrive.

The average wage for workers was a little over £42 a year by 1900, up from £34 in 1874. That’s an average; many, especially in unskilled jobs would earn much less, and women far, far less. Half the country’s income was taken home by one-ninth of the population, the kind of disparity still prevalent today.

The cost of living for the working-class is perfectly encapsulated in the broadside ballad “How Five-And-Twenty Shillings Are Expended In A Week”. It’s humorous, but it makes its point sharply. So many people lived hand-to-mouth. Every week, every month, every year.

five and twenty

The very poor relied on outdoor relief (benefits) or the workhouse when they couldn’t look after themselves or their children. That’s the world Annabelle sees when she runs to be a Poor Law Guardian in The Tin God, the sixth book in the series. From 1873-1896, there had been a global economic depression, felt hard in Britain, especially in the industrial centres of the North. Poverty was rife, competition for jobs.

This was their Leeds, their reality. I’m still trying to grasp its essence. Maybe one day I’ll succeed.

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How Annabelle Changed Me

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, the tin god, tom harper, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A couple of things have surprised me about The Tin God. Of course, I’m over the moon about the reviews it’s being receiving, far better than I could ever have expected.

I set out to write a crime novel, a continuation of the Tom Harper series. And really, that’s what I did. But what people seem to see as the heart of the book is Annabelle’s fight to be elected as a Poor Law Guardian. That astonished me, but also gladdened my heart. It’s important, it’s vital, and it means, perhaps, that I’ve written something that reaches out beyond genre to deal with something bigger. As a writer, I don’t think you can ever aim to do that. If it happens, it’s serendipity.

The book has also changed me a little, made me more aware, more vocal on issues. And since I completed it, I’ve been assisting the curator of an exhibition called The Vote Before The Vote, about the Leeds Victorian women who worked for equality and the Parliamentary franchise, perfectly apt for the centenary of some women receiving the vote. Most of these figures are unknown, written out of suffrage history, and they deserve so much more than that. The exhibition runs for the month of May in Room 700 at Leeds Central Library, and there will be a website with all the information.

Exposter final 1

I’m very, very proud to be involved with this. I feel I’m contributing something to the history of my city. Happy, too, as the official launch for The Tin God takes place during the exhibition. And especially because Annabelle has her own board there as part of it all, melding fact and fiction. Emblematic of the working-class women who were involved in the long struggle. She’s become a part of history in a very tangible way, and I suspect that somewhere, she’s beaming with pride, although she’d never admit it.

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On that note, I’ll give you a little from one of her election speeches, and hope it makes you want to buy the book. If you’re anywhere close to Leeds on Saturday, May 5, between 1-2 pm, come to the launch. There may well be more than you expect – and you’ll have the opportunity to see an important exhibition.

book launch

This takes place after someone has set fire to a hall when Annabelle is set to give a speech. Instead, she addresses the crowd out on the street.

‘This happened because someone is scared of women. Not just as Poor Law Guardians or on School Boards. He’s afraid of women. Frightened of half the population. What is there to worry him? Do you know? Because I’m blowed if I do. Just three years ago there were fewer than two hundred women as Poor Law Guardians in the whole of England. Two hundred out of a total of thirty thousand. It’s not exactly taking this over, is it? We want to increase that number here. People believe we should. Important people. The Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, thinks there should be more of us. I’ll tell you what the Secretary of State for India said: “No Board of Guardians is properly constituted when it is composed entirely of men. Having regard to the fact that so large a proportion of the population of our workhouses are women and children, it seems vital to me that women should take their part in Poor Law administration.” Even the men at the top of government and the church think we belong. The one who set fire to this place – to your hall – he’s swimming against history. Women are running for the offices they can hold, and some of them are going to be elected. If not this time, then next, or the one after. We’ve started and we’re not going to stop. That tide he’s swimming against, it’s going to drown him.’ Harper watched as she looked around the faces, her breath steaming in the air. She was smiling. ‘I’ll tell you something else. You vote for me, and you can help send him packing. More importantly, you’ll be electing someone who wants to help the poor, not punish them. You there, John Winters, Frank Hepworth, Catherine Simms. You all know me. You know where I live. Maybe the Temperance people might not like the landlady of a public house holding office. Yes,’ she told them, ‘I’ve heard that grumble. But you know that when I start something, I do it properly.’ She paused and drew in a breath, straightening her back so she seemed taller. ‘You’re ratepayers. You can vote. I’m asking you to put your X next to my name. Thank you.’

And remember. vote for Annabelle Harper!

annabelle election poster texture

Looking Ahead For Tom And Annabelle Harper?

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, gods of gold, leeds, the tin god, tom harper, Uncategorized2 Comments

It’s ironic, really. I always swore I’d never write a crime novel set in Victorian times. There era was overdone, with Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins – even Dickens – and all who’ve followed in their footsteps. And now I have six of them out there, plus a seventh just completed.

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It still makes me shake my head. Especially the reviews that have come in so far for The Tin God. I’ve created something that people seem to love…

Actually, it all began with a painting by Atkinson Grimshaw, the Leeds artist. A woman standing by the canal, holding a bundle. The water is almost empty because of a strike, the smoky skyline of Leeds tries to peer through behind her. She’s alone, just staring.

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She was Annabelle. That’s how she came into my life. It simply grew from there. A short story at first. Then, after reading about the Leeds Gas Strike of 1890, a novel. An event where the strikers won in three days, even as the Council Gas Committee imported strikebreakers? I had to commemorate that.

So Annabelle came back. She told me all about it and introduced me to her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Harper and his assistant, Sergeant Billy Reed. Out of that arrived Gods of Gold.

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The books are unashamedly political. No apologies for that. But they’re also crime novels, the two intertwined in a heart around Leeds. The newest, The Tin God, is the most political of all, and one where Annabelle finally takes centre stage.

In fact, she doesn’t, although the plot revolves around her bid (along with six other women) to be elected as a Poor Law Guardian in 1897. Trying to stop the man who doesn’t want women in politics is the core. But the heart, the linchpin, is Annabelle trying to win in the Sheepscar Ward.

annabelle election poster texture

The Tin God was a book that seemed to write itself. I was simply the conduit. And over the last few years, Annabelle (in particular) and Tom have become every bit as real to me as friends I meet. I know them, and they know me. They’re family, in a way.

I’d like to say that I have plans for them, but the truth is, they have plans for me. To tell their story to the end of the Great War. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen. But I’d like to do it. Although the books themselves aren’t planned out, I know what happens in their lives, and in their daughter Mary’s, too.

The book I’ve just finished writing will actually be my last Victorian (assuming my publisher likes it, of course). No, I’m giving nothing away about it, except it’s set in 1899. If another follows, that will be after 1901, and we’ll be into the Edwardian and George V eras. There’s plenty of Leeds material – the 1908 Suffragette ‘riot,’ the start of the war, news from the Somme in 1916, the Leeds Convention of 1917, and finally, finally, the Armistice a year later.

That will prove interesting. I’d certainly never imagined writing an Edwardian crime novel. Or even given a second through to George V. But I have a strong impression that Annabelle and Tom will guide me through it all.

In the meantime, I’d be very grateful if you read The Tin God. And the other books in the series.

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The Real Annabelle Harpers

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, the tin god, tom harper, Uncategorized6 Comments

The Tin God has finally appeared in print, and damn, the reviews have made my heart soar.  As a number of the writers have mentioned, the central figure of book is Annabelle Harper, a working-class woman running to be elected as a Poor Law Guardian in 1897.

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“I absolutely adored this book, right from the very first chapter. I loved the setting, I loved the characters, and I loved the gritty feel of Victorian police work. But more than anything, I was in love with the plucky and persistent Annabelle Harper, and with all the women like her who moved mountains with regards to women’s rights today… the show was definitely stolen by one, little, pub-owning woman who had the nerve to run in an election.”

“Nickson drops us straight onto the streets of his beloved Leeds. We smell the stench of the factories, hear the clatter of iron-shod hooves on the cobbles, curse when the soot from the chimneys blackens the garments on our washing lines and – most tellingly – we feel the pangs of hunger gnawing at the bellies of the impoverished.”

A change in local government law three years before made it possible for someone like her to run for office. But were there really working-class women in Leeds fighting for equality and representation?

Of course there were.

Three years before Annabelle’s campaign, a woman named Mrs. Eliza Dickenson of 4, School Street in Stourton, a miner’s wife “much involved in the recent colliery strike,” received the second-highest number of votes in her ward and was elected as a Poor Law Guardian for the Rothwell Ward. A perfect example. That same year, Mrs. Woodock of Beeston Road, very close to the Hunslet workhouse, was also elected, for the East Ward.

Mrs. Ann Ellis was a power-loom weaver from Batley (not Leeds, but close). Along with two icons of the 19th century Leeds Suffrage movement, she arranged protests against the Factory Acts that were intended to limit the ability of women, especially married women, to work. Mrs. Ellis was instrumental in setting up branches of the Women’s Trade Union League across West Yorkshire, and in 1875 led a six-week strike of women weavers in Dewsbury.

Ann Ellis (standing behind Alice Cliff Scatcherd)

Mrs. Ann Ellis, standing

The most famous example, perhaps, is Mary Gawthorpe. She grew up in Meanwood, the daughter of a factory foreman (and Tory election agent) and a textile worker. A bright child, Mary won a scholarship to secondary school. But as that only covered the school fees – secondary education wasn’t free at that time – her father refused to let her take, and she became a pupil-teacher at her primary school, teaching younger children in the day and receiving her own lessons in the evening and on Saturday. When she qualified, a little before her 21st birthday, she moved her mother and siblings over to Hunslet to take them away from her abusive father.

Wgawthorpe

By that time she was already becoming active in the Labour Party, the National Union of Teachers, and was a member of the Leeds Suffrage Society, quickly developing a reputation as a public speaker. Labour’s inaction over women receiving the vote took her to the WSPU, and more militant action. In 1909 she was severely beaten after heckling Churchill at a meeting. Six months later she was assaulted again, and a judge threw out the case when she tried to press charges against her attackers. The accumulated injuries made it impossible for her to continue with her work.

These are just a very few examples. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, more. Not just in Leeds, but everywhere. Your town, your city almost certainly had one or two. Ordinary women, without wealth or status or privilege, who felt compelled to act, to do something. They’re the real heroines.

I love Annabelle dearly. To me, she’s completely alive. But a part of me knows that to some degree that I’m the one who controls her destiny. She’s emblematic of the real women who truly did risk everything for equality. I hope you’ll support her in her campaign to be elected.

When I sat down to start The Tin God, I was there to tell a crime story. That’s what I hope I’ve done. But, in my head, it’s become something bigger, a book that opens a window on a time when women were pushing and struggling to become accepted as full citizens, even if there was little prospect of success. I feel as if I’ve tapped into something bigger – but I may be entirely delusional on that. Of course, I’d love for you to buy a copy of the book. But if you can’t, please order it from the library, and if they don’t have it, ask them to buy a copy. Not just because it’s my book, but because it might give a little understanding of what all those real Annabelle Harpers had to endure. And please, honour those who really did put it all on the line. They were the pioneers. They deserve it.

Frank Kidson And The Music Of The Tin God

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This week. This week. Finally, The Tin God will be out. It feels like forever since I sent the manuscript to my publisher, then went through it with the editor. And now it’s happening. Doesn’t matter that I’ve been through it all before, I’m excited. This book means so much to me.

Not just because it’s about women’s rights, although that’s the central focus. But there’s also music in there; the lyrics from folk songs are the clues, one of the threads in the book. I’ve used folk music before in my novels, but only passing references. Things were more overt in my Dan Markham books, with Studio 50 and 1950s jazz, and in the two Seattle books, where grunge – a hated name – and alt-country were central ingredients.

But the traditional folk of The Tin God gives me chance to bring in someone I’ve wanted to involve in my books for a long time – Frank Kidson. He was a real man who had an unusual companion, his niece, Ethel (whose real name was Emma). Kidson was a man fascinated by several things – art, Leeds pottery, and folk songs. He was one of the first real song collectors and became known throughout the country, a pioneer well before those who received far more credit. He wrote several books, including the wonderful Traditional Tunes, which figures largely in my book, and wrote a column on songs for the Leeds Mercury.

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There were song collectors in different parts of the country in Victorian times, and they regularly wrote to each other and compared variations on songs. In the north, though, and certainly in Yorkshire, Kidson was a towering figure, one who developed theories about songs and how old they might be – actually, not as ancient as most people might imagine.

In the book, Frank and Ethel Kidson live at 128, Burley Road, their address at the time. A little later, they moved over to Chapeltown, to 5, Hamilton Avenue, where Frank died in the 1920s. A blue plaque sits on the house, quite deservedly commemorating one of Leeds’ great men.

kidson plaque

In 1923, to recognise his contribution to music, Leeds University awarded him an honorary M.A.

kidson MA

I put together a Spotify playlist of some of the songs from The Tin God. All traditional, and you can listen right here. Or – since Spotify barely pay artists for their work – I’ve also put together a playlist on YouTube.

Songs of all types interested him, including the popular broadside ballads, which were written, printed up, and sold on the streets, sort-of op ed/confessional/humorous take on life and current events. He bought them and saved some in a scrapbook, which is in the Family History Library at Leeds Central Library, and well worth a look.

One that isn’t in that collection, though, is How Five-And-Twenty Shillings Are Expended In A Week, which is a broadside:

It’s of a tradesman and his wife, I heard the other day,
Who did kick up a glorious row; they live across the way;
The husband proved himself a fool, when his money all was spent,
He asked his wife, upon her life, to say which way it went.

Chorus.
So she reckon’d up, and told him, and showed him quite complete,
How five and twenty shillings were expended in a week.

5 and 20

Kidson published a little of the song in Traditional Tunes. At the proper launch for The Tin God, which will be on Saturday May 5, 1pm, as part of The Vote Before The Vote exhibition, it will be performed by Sarah Statham, who was part of the glorious Leeds band, Esper Scout. Details right here.

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Early Reviews…And Listen To Annabelle Speak

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper, Uncategorized6 Comments

It’s’ just over a week until The Tin God is published. I’m hugely proud of this book, it feels as if it’s taken on greater resonance that the crime story I set out to tell – but readers will judge that more objectively than I ever can, of course.

I’m pushing this book hard. Among other things, there’s going to be a blog tour to coincide with publication, and that includes giving away a copy of the novel. So please, keep your eyes on the blogs listed below or follow on Twitter.

Meanwhile…here are a few reactions from early reviewers:

“Chris Nickson is an amazingly skilful author with a love of Leeds, its varied and deep history, and demonstrates it with each book he writes.”

“The whole story has such resonance with today’s current affairs that it makes you realise how much there is still to do regarding social attitudes, as well as how far we have come.”

“I like the strong sense of characterisation in the novels. Annabelle is a suffragette, looking to make things easier for her daughter, Mary, in her path through life. She is, however, no airy fairy dilettante being strong, capable and practical with her feet planted squarely on the ground. I cheer at her every move. She is supported in her efforts by her husband, Tom…He is another strong character. He’s not as enthusiastic about being Superintendent as he might be as the paperwork and meetings take him away from investigative work but this threat to his wife and family gives him the opportunity to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in.”

“There’s a particular talent here with this author’s fine-tuned ability to thread actual historical events into his fiction. This one is quite thought-provoking in reflecting upon those who initially paved the way for women’s rights and those, yet today, who stand tall in the face of current roadblocks. This still grows curiouser and curiouser…”

“The author Chris Nickson is Leeds born (as am I ) and it’s clear that he loves his home city and its place in history, as one of the leading lights of industry. He brings the Leeds of 1897 very much to life both in terms of actual historical events of the time and in the sights, sounds, and smells of this great city. I really enjoyed this particular storyline as it demonstrated the struggle that women had, ( and some would say, still have) to be recognised and valued as legitimate candidates for office, and to be considered equal to men.

I make no bones about it – I love Chris Nickson’s books – love Tom and Annabelle – love the sense of old Leeds with its cobbled streets, the houses huddled together against the chill whipping off the River Aire, the friendly community, and the good old fashioned policing.”

“I always enjoy the sense of period that Mr Nickson evokes and The Tin God is no different. Annabelle’s campaign speeches resound with the possibility of change but don’t ignore the terrible blight of poverty prevalent in the fictional Sheepscar ward.”

And with that mention of Annabelle’s campaign speeches, through the miracle of technology (and the superb voicing of Carolyn Eden), I’ve been able to find one. Take a listen and see if it convinces you….

After that, wouldn’t you vote for Mrs. Annabelle Harper?

annabelle election poster texture

Perhaps you need to discover The Tin God for yourself. I know an author who’d be very grateful…it’s out March 30 in the UK.

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Thank You and A Sense of Place

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, richard nottingham, tom harper, Uncategorized6 Comments

I hope you won’t mind if I begin with a bit of self-congratulation: Publisher’s Weekly has given Free From All Danger a starred review. I’m immensely proud of that for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s impossible to know what any reader will make of what a writer does, so something that positive means a great deal. Secondly, it’s the seventh in the series, arriving four years after the last one. That’s quite a space of time. All the previous six achieved starred reviews, so there’s a giant sigh of relief that they like this one as much. Richard Nottingham is older this time around, a changed man in some ways. I’m just happy people still like him.

Anyway…Christmas and the end of 2017 are just a few days away. I wanted to wish you all a lovely time, and a happy, healthy 2018 – and to thank you for your support. I really do value it.

At this time of year I like looking around Leeds and thinking about my family connections to the place. They crop up quite a bit in my novels. References I know, that I enjoy putting in.

The biggest is probably the Victoria pub from the Tom Harper novels. Annabelle is the landlady, but from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was my great-grandfather who ran the place. My father lived in Cross Green, and as a boy he’d walk over in the summer so he could go upstairs and play the piano for hours on end. Impossible not to celebrate a connection like that.

victoria pub

In fact, a little of the idea of including the place at all came from a book he wrote, that was never published. His main character was a female servant from Barnsley who came to a pub in Sheepscar as a servant. She ended up running the place and owning three bakeries. His maternal grandparents were from Barnsley, and originally ran a pub in Hunslet before taking over the Victoria. And, in the Harper series, Annabelle runs, then sells, three bakeries. So thank you, Dad. You have me a lot in that.

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Dan Markham’s flat in Chapel Allerton (Dark Briggate Blues) is in the building where my parents made their first home, and where I spent my first year. Curiously, a reader told me once that her daughter was living there now. His office on Albion Place is where my father had his office.

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Lottie Armstrong’s house in The Year of the Gun is the house where I grew up. The present owner graciously showed me around, and it’s very much the same as it was, I’m pleased to say.

It’s four years now since I moved back to Leeds, and honestly, I’ve never felt more connected to a place in my life.

May You Live In Interesting Times

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, dark briggate blues, leeds, richard nottingham, tom harper, Uncategorized2 Comments

There appear to be some mighty things afoot. Autumn is going to be very busy. Three – yes, three! – books coming out, although the real highlight is going to be Free From All Danger, the first Richard Nottingham novel in over four years. The proofs have been completed and it’s with the printer, due out in October.

Richard and his family have always had a place deep in my heart, so it’s only right that the book launch should be a celebration. It’s going to be at the Leeds Library on Commercial Street on Thursday, November 9, at 7 pm (free, of course, but please contact them and book a place). It’s going to be an event, with a script and a specially-composed soundtrack by Chris Emmerson. There may also be some live music.

To start the ball rolling, here’s the first trailer for the book

May 2018 will see the publication of The Tin God, the sixth Tom Harper novel. My publisher said this about it: “…this latest entry continues the ongoing series themes of social change and progress, tradition vs modernisation, female emancipation, the grinding poverty and social injustice of the times, to superb effect, highlighting all too vividly the tensions caused by such rapid social change: what is highly welcome for some being anathema to others.  (Such tensions being all too evident in politics today).

 

Once again, devoted family man Tom Harper and his spirited wife Annabelle, battling passionately for the causes she believes in as an early pioneer on the long march towards women’s equality, make for thoroughly likeable lead protagonists, and the plot skips along at an impressive pace, conjuring up a compelling sense of rising tension as the election approaches.”

 

The launch event for this one will be a little different; it will be folded into an exhibition called The Vote Before The Vote at Leeds Central Library (2018, of course, marks the centenary of some women receiving the vote, although the exhibition highlights that many could vote in local elections before that. It will be curated by independent academic Vine Pemberton Joss, whose suggestion sparked the book.

 

Lastly, it looks as if Dan Markham from Dark Briggate Blues will star in a play. And a play with live jazz, at that. Nothing’s set in stone, but it seems likely to happen at Leeds Jazz Fest next July, and will mostly be a celebration of Studio 20, Leeds’ pioneering jazz club ibn the 1950s. No title yet, but the next 12 months promise to be very exciting.