Juxtabook

Wolf Hall Historical Advisor

 

For all those waiting for tonight's BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall you might like to start following the University of Sheffield's Catherine Fletcher on twitter. Fletcher was the historical adviser for the series and her insights should be fascinating. If you don't want to spoil the flow of the drama by having one eye on twitter (I certainly don't) then you can always review her time line afterwards.

Jane Brocket's Grand Provincial Tour Guides

As I mentioned in my last post - the review of High Wages by Dorothy Whipple - Jane Brocket who wrote the excellent introduction to the Persephone Books edition, has written a number of pocket guides to towns which she charmingly calls Grand Provincial Tour Guides. These are wonderful antidotes to the negative Crap Towns guide, and in the case of this week's offering, Preston, showcase the much missed treasures in our industrial heritage. Jane Brocket has been tripped up by the changes on VAT rules (like many, many small businesses) and can't sell the guides herself because of the prohibitive costs and VAT paperwork so she is offering some of them free on her website in return for a donation to the Trussel Trust.

This week, as I say, she is releasing Preston on free download which is well worth a read is you're a Lancastrian or if you've read High Wages or other novels set in the industrial North of England. The guide is beautifully illustrated with lots on the architecture as you'd expect but also lots on food (Butter pies! My Preston North End supporting husband was pleased to see them!) and on bookshops and other delights, as well as a Pevsner style perambulation for those wanting a quick way to take in the most interesting areas.

Jane has already published Chichester and will be releasing Shoreditch next week.

High Wages by Dorothy Whipple

High Wages by Dorothy Whipple is a charming story of a woman in the 'man's world of women's clothing', as Jane Brocket puts it in the introduction to the Persephone edition. Set in Whipple's native Lancashire the story follows Jane, an 18 year old orphan beginning life away from her step-mother. She is living-in over a draper's shop in Tidsley, a northern market/manufacturing town with a traditional centre of little shops, a library and cafes, an industrial area, and up the hill away from the worst of the smoke the big houses owned by mill owners, solicitors, etc. Brocket speculates that the town is a version of Preston and that certainly fits both the internal geography and the direction of railway lines mentioned in the story.

Jane has vision and ambition and won't be bullied or squashed and despite the oppressive life she leads with the drapers the Chadwicks, where Mr Chadwick chalks her sales up as his own to deprive her of her commission and Mrs Chadwick takes delight in feeding her as little as possible, she looks and learns and saves, moving onward and upward from haberdashery to ready-mades as the world becomes her business oyster.

Jane is a captivating character for whom one roots from the very beginning. But alongside the very charming story is a fascinating social history of shops, shop girls and small town business in the 1920s and 1930s.

As a the owner of a small business myself who went through many of the "could I?", "should I?", questions that Jane does, Jane's steps on the path of business ring very true. More fascinating than that to me was another family connection. This is not the first Hawley name on a business sign:

 

 

Mr J's paternal grandmother Hilda Hawley, who started life as a mill girl, was by middle age the owner of Hilda Hawley's gown shop in another Lancashire town in the 1930s.

 

 

There are many parallels between Jane's story and Hilda's. Just as Jane acquired Lily and other characters that she comes to feel responsible for, so Hilda's shop gathered an interesting group of ladies that my husband grew up knowing as 'aunties' and for whom the family exercised some responsibility for for many years. Hilda's daughter-in-law was still doing the weekly shop for one of these elderly ladies when I joined the Hawley family in the early 90s.

For both the fictional Jane and the real life Hilda beginning, and then building to success, a business in a man's world was no mean feat. Especially when, as Jane discovers when she dares to venture to the Hospital Ball, the social pecking order of the early 20th century was so strongly marshalled by ladies like Mrs Greenwood, the mill owner's wife in High Wages. Hilda too clearly felt this we know, as she was quick to join social and business organisations that gave her social standing.

But back in her youth I wonder if Hilda, like Jane, took the train to Manchester and looked at the dressed windows of Kendals and dreamed ...

 

 

Whipple's novel then contains both story and history and in both senses the characterisation (Whipple's strength, I think) shines through, bathing the whole in an enticing light. At one point Jane is so taken with a 'lovely glow' of a window dressing that it, 'makes you feel luxurious and extravagant. As if you could spend all your money and never care'. Whipple takes sateen and alpaca and bathes the whole in such a glow, making you buy the lot. It is a funny book too: the scene where a shabby-genteel companion to Mrs Greenwood, anxious to make a good tea at Mrs Greenwood's expense, misses out on a second hot scone and a sandwich by accidentally revealing the assignations of Sylvia Greenwood and the curate, is worth the book price alone. This is my second Whipple novel and I continue to be charmed.

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BTW: Jane Brocket has written some town guides, one of which is for Preston, and is available as a free download on her blog from January 19th.

Adventures at the York Bookfair

Rob and I have just returned from the PBFA York Book Fair. This January fair is the smaller of the two fairs that the PBFA run in York. This one had a mere 120 or so dealers offering around 400,000 books. We've been to this fair before but only as customers, this time we were exhibiting our own stock at stall number 61.

It was hard work, as we knew it would be, but we benefited from lots of advice before hand from the lovely Heather and Jeff at Peakirk Books as well as from the fair organisers. It was lovely to meet lots of new customers as well as the other dealers. It was also lovely to meet one other book blogger, the writer Martin Edwards from Do You Write Under Your own Name.

Speaking to Martin, it occurred to me that though I often read posts by bloggers about a wonderful bookshop they've been to, or a great library, or even what they've bought from a charity shop, I rarely see posts about book fairs. In fact Martin is one the few people I've seen write about bookfairs (and again today, you can read his review of York). In an age when the economics of selling mean that so many sellers, like myself, can only trade from behind a keyboard, a book fair is great opportunity for buyers to chat to dealers and browse the physical books.

Why do bloggers not go to bookfairs then is the burning question? Have you ever been to one, PBFA or otherwise? Did you enjoy it? Do you know how to find out about book fairs? I'd be interested to know!

On that last question at least I can help:

For PBFA Fairs you can browse the PBFA's fairs calendar. There are fairs coming up at Stratford, Poole, Cambridge, Durham and Edgbaston in the next few weeks and many more throughout the year. They're all over the country including Scotland and Ireland.

For other fairs you can try the monster The Book Fair Calendar from the The Book Guide which lists PBFA fairs along side many other major book fairs plus many smaller independent fairs. There are fairs listed for Lewes, Sherborne, Winchester, Preston, Kinver, Tenterden and Long Melford for this month alone.

As to our own recent experience we nearly sold out of Tony Harrison and Leonard Woolf, and sold lots of Bronte and Ted Hughes items as you'd imagine in Yorkshire, plus lots of William Morris, and best of all we had a great time. We've just got to unpack the book boxes now!