The Vanishing of Dr Winter: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 4)
Page 19
11. Geographically, I have played with the location of the Zeppelin raid in Soho. There was never a Zeppelin raid on Rupert Street, but there was one on nearby Piccadilly Circus at the same time as detailed in the story (19th October 1917) with a loss of seven lives and huge destruction to the area. There were several Zeppelin raids in central London (including in Soho) during the Great War. The damage left by them was indeed visible for years afterwards in the London landscape, with bomb craters and hoardings covering the bomb-sites remaining visible throughout the 1920s.
12. ‘The Florence’ Restaurant on Rupert Street was a fashionable and popular restaurant set up during the Victorian era, running on through the Great War into the 1920s and 1930s. Run by Luigi Azario, it was something of a celebrity hotspot and Oscar Wilde was one of its famous early patrons. It no longer exists and its premises now belong to a mobile phone shop.
13. The nurses’ hostel as detailed in this story (on Rupert Street) is fictional, although women’s hostels were abundant all over London at this time, especially in Soho and the area around the Tottenham Court Road.
14. The Wickham Academy for Boys at Bishop’s Stortford is fictional, as is the River Wick.
15. Posie’s black Brigg umbrella is from Swaine Adeney Brigg. See: http://www.swaineadeneybrigg.com/
16. The Geddes Axe, or Geddes Act which Mr Florizel refers to in Chapter Eleven (and is mentioned too by Chief Inspector Lovelace in Chapter Seven) was a programme of major cuts in public spending implemented by David Lloyd George’s government during the course of 1921-1922. Britain was crippled by huge debts following the Great War (national debt was £7.8 billion by 1920, which was larger than the country’s GDP) but the spending cuts which were instigated hit people very hard and contributed to Britain’s downturn in the next decade. One of the major areas to be affected by the Geddes Axe was education, with teachers’ salaries being slashed by 8 shillings per week (£58 in todays’ money) in 1922.
17. The Triumph Motorbike as ridden by Alaric Boynton-Dale in Chapter Thirteen would have been made by Triumph Engineering in 1922, rather than the current manufacturer of the bikes, Triumph Motorcycles Ltd, which is a separate company.
18. The terms ‘blackmail’ and ‘blackmailer’ were in colloquial use in England in 1922, but in legal terms it had no standing until the 1960’s. Instead, a blackmailer in the 1920’s would have been tried for crimes of extortion or ‘menaces’ under the Larceny Act of 1916, as Inspector Oats refers to in Chapter Fourteen, and which I’ve glossed over in Chapter Fifteen to keep things easier for the modern reader.
EPILOGUE
19. There is no such plaque in the current Porter’s Lodge.
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Recipe for World War One Ginger Cake*
*This is a 1916 Scottish recipe for Ginger Sponge Cake as originally featured in The Falkirk Herald.
The slightly modern adjustments are courtesy of Laura Macdonald, who rediscovered the recipe. She writes a cookery blog at www.yellowbrolly.co.uk. Laura can also be found on twitter @TheYellowBrolly.
In addition, she made a wonderful film (see link below) all about baking this very cake, and it features some interesting background about rationing of food in World War One Britain, too. Definitely worth a peep. www.scottisharchives.org.uk/ediblearchive/ww1
RECIPE
1. Take a half pound of golden syrup, two ounces of butter, one egg, half an ounce of ground ginger, ten ounces of flour, two ounces of sugar, about two tablespoons of milk and half a teaspoon of soda.
2. Put the flour, ginger and sugar into a bowl.
3. In a saucepan, stir the milk, butter and syrup until dissolved, then stir in the dry ingredients.
4. Dissolve the soda in a little milk, add this and the well-beaten egg to the mixture, pour into a shallow tin lined with greased paper and bake for thirty or forty minutes in a slow oven.
5. Cut into fingers when cold.
6. Laura recommends using finely grated fresh ginger rather than ground, and substituting self-raising flour for plain and bicarbonate soda. She suggests the cake should be baked at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.
Acknowledgements and Author Note
1. Thank you to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, for allowing me to use Trinity College as a location in this story. 2. Thank you to The Falkirk Herald for allowing me to use its original 1916 recipe for Ginger Sponge Cake and thanks too to Laura Macdonald (www.yellowbrolly.co.uk) for rediscovering the 1916 Ginger Sponge Cake recipe in the first place and for helping with the slight adjustments in the recipe.
3. Thank you to the author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, whose brain I have picked on occasion regarding this book and whose bestselling book, The Orange Lilies, inspired me to revisit Posie Parker’s own World War One experience in the first place. I also owe him the reference to the Christmas goodie tins sent out from the Royal family to the troops on the front line.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Orange-Lilies-Forensic-Genealogist-ebook/dp/B00QF7HXAW
4. I personally dislike heavy quotations at the start of books, and I don’t think they would be quite right in the Posie Parker Mystery series. However, Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale features quite often in this story. If I were to quote something from it, it would be this:
“What’s gone and what’s past help should be past grief.” (The Winter’s Tale, Act 3.2).
My supremely unworthy translation of this is: “No point crying over spilt milk. Move on.”
And I think that’s just what Posie Parker would have said about her experiences in the Great War, however awful.
Further Reading
1. The classic reading for the experience of a young female volunteer nurse on the front line in the Great War of 1914–18 (and all the tragedy it entailed) is of course Vera Brittain’s wonderful, harrowing autobiography, Testament of Youth.
See: http://www.amazon.com/Testament-Youth-Autobiographical-Study-1900-1925-ebook/dp/B002U3CCH4/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
2. Other interesting books I found useful in the research for this novel were:
a. War Girls: The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the First World War, by Janet Lee (Manchester University Press, 2012 Reprint). See:
http://www.amazon.com/War-Girls-First-Nursing-Yeomanry/dp/0719067138/edwardiannovelist-20
b. Elsie and Mairi Go to War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front, by Diane Atkinson (Preface Publishing, 2010 edition). See:
http://www.amazon.com/Elsie-Mairi-Go-War-Extraordinary/dp/1848091354/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0VREZXE0H8BCNN3B6E77
c. Women in the War Zone: Hospital Service in the First World War, by Anne Powel (The History Press, 2013). See:
http://www.amazon.com/Women-War-Zone-Hospital-Service/dp/0752493604/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1VS970AT7Y0XDSBF67N2
About the Author
Cambridge-educated, British-born L.B. Hathaway writes historical fiction and contributes to a number of popular history magazines and websites. She worked as a lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn in London for almost a decade before becoming a full-time writer. She is a lifelong fan of detective novels set in the Golden Age of Crime, and is an ardent Agatha Christie devotee.
Her other interests, in no particular order, are: very fast downhill skiing, theatre-going, drinking strong tea, Tudor history, exploring castles and generally trying to cram as much into life as possible. She lives in London and Switzerland with her husband and young family.
The Posie Parker series of cosy crime novels and novellas span the 1920s. They each combine a core central mystery, an exploration of the reckless glamour of the age and a feisty protagonist who you would love to have as your best friend.
To find out more and for news of new releases and giveaways, go to:
http://www.lbhathaway.com
Connect with L.B. Hathaway online:
(e) mailto:author@lbhathaway.com
(t) @LbHathaway
(f) https://www.facebook.com/pages/L-B-Hathaway-books/1423516601228019
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sp; (Goodreads) http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8339051.L_B_Hathaway
Table of Contents
PART ONE
Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th December, 1922
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
PART TWO
Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st December, 1922
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
PART THREE
Friday 22nd December, 1922
Eleven
Twelve
PART FOUR
Afternoon of Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd December, 1922
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Acknowledgements and Author Note