PAST PRIME MINISTERS

I’ve been thinking about Prime Ministers recently and thought you might have been too. So here’s a handy list of trivial things you might not know about past British Prime Ministers. To cheer you up, or not, as the case may be. Since we’ve all had enough of you know what, I’m only dealing with Prime Ministers up to 1975. Here goes:

• The First PM was Robert Walpole in 1721.
• Shortest holder of the office was William Pultney, Earl of Bath who lasted from 10-12 February 1746. A contemporary commentator reported:

“And thus ended the second and last part of this astonishing administration which lasted 48 hours and three quarters seven minutes, and eleven seconds; which may truly be called the most honest of all administrations; the minister to the astonishment of all wise men never transacted one rash thing; and what is more marvellous left as much money in the Treasury as he had found it.”

• Youngest to take on the office – the younger Pitt at the age of 24 in 1783
• Average age of PMs on first appointment 52 years and six months.
• Educational backgrounds:  (1) Schools – Eton 20, Harrow 7, Westminster 6, and the only other school to boast more than one is Glasgow High School with Campbell- Bannerman and Bonar Law. (2) Universities – Oxford 24, Cambridge 14, Edinburgh 2, Glasgow 2. (3) Colleges – Christ Church – 14, Trinity (Camb) 5, St John’s (Camb) 4.
• Wealth of PMs  on taking office? Wealthiest probably 14th Earl of Derby with  a rent roll of £100, 000 pa in the 1850s. According to A.J.P. Taylor one of the few to ‘leave office flagrantly richer than when he entered it’ was Lloyd George.
• Sexual morals – highly variable. When Melbourne was cited in a divorce suit his brother wrote to his sister: ‘Do not let William think himself invulnerable for having got off again this time. No man’s luck can go further.’ Lloyd George lived openly with his mistress.
• Responses on becoming PM: Churchill felt he was ‘walking with destiny’. Stanley Baldwin asked people to pray for him. Gladstone who was cutting down a tree when informed of the arrival of the Queen’s Private Secretary said it was his mission to pacify Ireland. Disraeli was flippant and slightly cynical announcing that he had ‘climbed to the top of the greasy pole at last’. Melbourne said it was a ‘damned bore’ and was minded not to accept until his secretary ‘Ubiquity’ Young said: ‘Why, damn it, such a position was never occupied by any Greek or Roman, and if it only lasts two months it is well worth while to have been Prime Minister of England.’

Three PMs on a plate: Disraeli (centre) Gladstone (bottom left) Salisbury (bottom right)

And what could be said to make up the mystery of the  perfect Prime Ministerial temperament?

“To define that temperament would not be easy. Courage, tenacity, determination, firm nerves, and clarity of mind are some of the qualities. So too are a certain toughness of the skin and a certain insensitivity. Nor should a Prime Minister be worried too much by scruples and doubts. And if tact and the power to manage men are there too, so much the better. No doubt few Prime Ministers have had every one of these virtues, but if they have not had most of them they have not got very far.”

Robert Blake in The Office of Prime Minister *

And finally, here is Macaulay writing to his father about the death of Canning in 1827 after only 4 months in office:

“To fall at the very moment of reaching the very highest pinnacle of human ambition! the whole work of thirty chequered years of glory and obloquy struck down in a moment! The noblest prize that industry, dexterity, wit and eloquence ever obtained vanishing into nothing in the very instant in which it had been grasped. Vanity of vanities – all is vanity.”

Letters of T. B. Macaulay (ed) Thomas Pinney.

That greasy pole is currently looking – well, pretty greasy, isn’t it?

*All the above from The Office of Prime Minister by Robert Blake (aka Dad).

KOALAS, ANARCHISTS AND DISRAELI…

Another day in the bookshop. Well, the Elvis books haven’t gone anywhere. I’m in the back of the shop where we store our overstock of books and I come across one of my father’s books. It’s Disraeli’s Grand Tour.

Ahhhhh, I think … I tidy it up a bit and flick through it. Have I read it, I wonder? I come to the dedication: To Victoria. For a moment I think, ‘Who’s she?’ Before my marbles return and I remember that Victoria is me. Oh hello me, I think. Victoria. Part of the problem is that I was never called Victoria as a child, always Vicky. So even though my own writing name is Victoria I don’t really identify with the name at all. In the copy he signed for me, Dad recognized this because he writes next to Victoria Vicky with lots of love from the author, Daddy. Daddy is what he called his own father but I called him Dad. My father was a scrupulously fair man so as the youngest child  I got his 6th book dedicated to me after his parents, my mother and my two older sisters had theirs. He was also quite formal so he uses my full name even though it wasn’t one I ever remember him calling me.

Despite the cold, I lounge in the back of the shop reading his book. I like this bit where my father explains why writing his original biography of Disraeli took him eight years by using a quote by Dr Johnson concerning why it took Pope so long to produce his translation of the Iliad.

“Indolence, interruption, business and pleasure, all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can and ten thousand that cannot be recounted.”

DR JOHNSON on POPE

I think I might try that next time my agent asks me how close I am to finishing my WIP. I have the feeling that my sisters and I were one of the interruptions and hopefully one of the pleasures as well, since two of us were born within those eight years and one of us two years before.

Disraeli was as far as I’m aware the only British Prime Minister who was also a best selling novelist. Imagine that today! What kind of novels do we think Theresa May would be writing if she were a novelist, or David Cameron or Tony Blair or John Major. The mind boggles. Mind you, Bill Clinton has just written a novel with James Patterson titled The President is Missing, although I daresay Patterson did all the writing. I wonder what that’s like.

Eventually I have to do some work. I come across this book: The Reader on the 6.27 *, which is about a man who works in a paper recycling plant and every day saves some pages from the maw of the recycling machine and reads them out to the people on his commute to work.

I decide I have to buy it. Maybe I should start reading out pages from the books I chuck in the recycling sacks on the journey back home on the bus. On the other hand …

As for things falling out of books. This week it’s bookmarks of koalas, anarchists and the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction.

I like the bookmark for the Anarchist Bookfair. When I turn it over there is the phrase ‘annus horribilis’ written in biro on the back. The Queen used this phrase to describe her year in a speech at the Guildhall in 1992, so maybe that’s the date of the bookmark.

There at the top of the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist is Anna Burns for No Bones. Sixteen years later she won the Booker Prize with Milkman. Well done, Anna Burns. Well done indeed.

* I have started it and am thoroughly enjoying it.

 

 

LOVE LETTERS

 

Love letters straight from the past …

Just reading a couple makes me feel odd; the sentiments expressed here, written ten years before I was born, are the reason I exist.

My Darling Robert …

And so I say to a friend, ‘Here’s the thing. Someone is interested in writing a biography of my father and I found these love letters before my parents were married, nothing salacious just rather sweet. Should I …?’

She cuts me short, ‘Oh yes, I found some of those between my parents and I spoke to my brother about it. He said they’ve got nothing to do with us, so I threw them away.’

[My hands come to my cheeks, my mouth opens; too late I realize that, right in front of her, I am enacting Munch’s scream.]

On one, my mother has sketched her wedding dress

My father’s to her are wrapped in blue ribbon

A month or so later, in other company, I say, ‘Here’s the thing …’ and then another friend leans forward and bellows, ‘Of course you should.’ He’s practically shouting at me, ‘… because you want the biographer to know the TRUTH …’ and then, as if speaking to a child, he spells the word out: ‘T-R-U-T-H.’

Oh, that, I think, that slippery old eel.

I want to smother you with kisses.

Dad?

Is that really you?

WHEN YOUR CHARACTER IS INTERVIEWED

Robert Blake: January 1939 

Today Michael Armstrong, the main character in my book FAR AWAY is being interviewed by writer Helen Hollick. Helen has been interviewing 26 characters in historical novels for the A2Z Blog Challenge. The historical part of my book is set in Africa and Italy during the Second World War. The interview was fun to take part in although also slightly alarming since my main character is based, ahem, loosely on my father, the historian Robert Blake, and so it turned into had the potential to turn into a bit of a Freudian nightmare.

As the A2Z has advanced I have been experiencing that well-known disease ‘character envy’. Oh, why wasn’t my character a nineteenth century Romany footballer (Steve Kay’s Rabbi Howell), or a seventeenth century pirate (Helen Hollick’s Jesamiah Acorne) or a Greek soldier in 5th century BC (Nick Brown’s Mandrocles) or an Ancient Egyptian Queen (Inge Borg’s Nefret). Well, the reason why not is because one of the purposes of my book was to publish the part of my father’s memoir which he managed to complete before he died; the part which covered his experiences of being in the Royal Artillery and being captured at the fall of Tobruk in Africa and his subsequent escape from a POW camp in Sulmona, Italy. And because I’m a fiction writer I wanted to use a novel to do it.

One of the complications in doing this was that I had quite a large body of writing already in existence before I started and was confronted with the question of how best to utilize it. In none of my other writing have I started off quite so constricted. Throughout the book I battled with whether I should cut or not cut some of his material. Finally I cut very little and for the most part the details of the escape described in FAR AWAY are what happened to him.

Robert Blake in later years

Of course, the Michael Armstrong of my novel is not my father. He couldn’t be because I have no idea what my father was like as a twenty-five year old soldier imprisoned in an Italian POW camp in 1942. I was born when he was forty-eight so I got to know him in the last forty years of his life. If I think back to what I was like in my twenties that person appears to bear little relation to who I am now although my sisters might beg to differ! There is, of course, a perennial fascination to the question of who our parents were before we turned up and maybe that in the end was part of what fueled my desire to write this book. In life my father was not a man to be open about his fears or his passions. He was a charming, brilliant and staunchly private man. FAR AWAY is perhaps my attempt to get to know him a bit better and to shine a light on the young man he once was.

If you’re interested in historical fiction these interviews give an incredible range of characters to choose from. A nineteenth century American spiritualist, a Viking, a Roman soldier, an Egyptian Queen … Great interviews and brilliant books. Thank you, Helen!

If you want to know what Michael Armstrong has to say about me you’ll find him here. Oh, he does go on … and the comments are worth reading just to watch me getting into a whole load of trouble!

http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.co.uk

FAR AWAY LONG LISTED FOR HNS INDIE AWARD 2016

A great  review of my book FAR AWAY by the Historical Novel Society (see below) and the fantastic news that it’s been long listed for their Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016. I’m thrilled because it means I get to show off with some delightful logos.

Isn’t this one lovely?

Ooh … and I might take a moment to drool over this one too!

Here’s the review:

Far Away

Find & buy on

Far Away tells the story of two men, Michael Armstrong and Harry Maynard, thrown together in an Italian Prisoner of War Camp following the fall of Tobruk. Though having little in common, they agree to keep a notebook of their experiences. Michael concentrates on the day to day deprivations they suffer and life in the camp together with the hope of release or escape, whilst Harry – a professional writer prior to the war – decides to tell a highly allegorical ‘fairy story’.

Michael survives the war but Harry does not and seventy years on, Michael’s son, Ian, finds the notebooks and learns more about his father – and his part in the war – than he had ever been told.

Victoria Blake has drawn heavily on the experiences of her own father and those of another man who was the inspiration for the notebooks. Yet this is three stories in one: the lives of Michael and Harry in captivity, the tale of Pelliger in the fairy story, and of Ian who has the harrowing task of sorting through his father’s effects following his death.

I can say no more other than that this is a beautiful book, very well written, with the three stories carefully woven together to form a matter-of-fact version of war as seen by one who took part and without any graphic incidents.

I thoroughly recommend it.

A COMPETITION – A PRIZE

So here’s the question. Part of my novel FAR AWAY is set in a POW camp in Italy during the Second World War and part of the escape described there (based on what actually happened to my father) involves five men hiding in the roof of one of the prison huts.

So in order to win a copy of my book answer this question: How long did they manage to stay in the roof? This includes the day they got in and the day they got down.  The camp was in Sulmona in southern Italy and the month was October 1943. The roof’s proportions were as follows: 14′(L) x 6′(W) x 3’6″(H) – yes, that’s right they couldn’t stand upright.

Here’s a rough sketch from Beverley Edge’s diary; he was one of the five. I’ve coloured the men in orange.

A sketch from Beverley Edge’s diary of one of the huts in Sulmona POW camp in Italy

The person who gets closest  will be the proud winner of a signed copy of FAR AWAY. I mean how can you resist? I would particularly encourage people to enter who have never won anything in a competition before – that would be me, by the way. My father, on the other hand, only had to sneeze on a raffle ticket to have a bottle of sherry winging its way to him from the church fête.

A great deal of luck was involved in his escape and maybe it stayed with him afterwards.

If you’d like to read about the book please click the link below for a lovely review from the Manchester Military History Society:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1360145221

POWS AND CIGARETTES

Cigarettes were an important part of the POW camp economy. In the 1940s the link had not yet been made between smoking and lung cancer and it was very unusual for soldiers not to smoke. My father didn’t but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in being sent cigarettes because cigarettes were a form of currency.

The aim of the Red Cross was to send each man 50 cigarettes every week. From 1941 to the end of March 1945 the Red Cross sent 6 million ounces of tobacco and almost 1.5 billion cigarettes to Italy and Germany.

As well as these, families and friends could also send cigarettes to POWs using tobacco companies which held special permits. The favourites were Woodbine, Players and Craven A.

Most things could be bought with cigarettes and a sophisticated Exchange and Mart system developed and as the war went on only cigarettes and food held their value. In gambling cigarettes were used as chips. Even the packets were used. They could be turned into packs of cards which were popular because they were easily portable.

If there was no tobacco, dried leaves, coffee grounds, grass and even manure was smoked and the leaves of a Bible or Pears Encyclopaedia were used because they were particularly thin. The aim was to produce something that gave the pretence of a cigarette.

Towards the end of the war when deliveries became more sporadic the value of cigarettes rose. A watch was worth 30 cigarettes, a gold ring 20 cigarettes and a safety razor 1 cigarette.

My father never did smoke cigarettes but he did take pleasure in the odd cigar. There was a phase when an ex-student of his used to supply him with Montecristo Cuban cigars, which he enjoyed very much despite being on the other end of the political spectrum to the Castro regime. The cigars came in wooden boxes which, when empty, were handed over to his children. I loved the smell  and the colourful labels  and used them as  pencil boxes or as a store for marbles.

FAR AWAY JUST GOT CLOSER!

FAR AWAY HAS ARRIVED!

An entirely gratuitous picture of me and my book! In fact it arrived a few days ago now but here’s the photo of me and FAR AWAY! If you’d like to buy it I’d be delighted and if you read it I’d love to know what you think. It’s available as a paperback: ISBN 9781784623401 and also as an e-book: eISBN 9781784629953.

Here’s the link: http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3292

You can also order it through your local bookshop.

THE MOST AMAZING ADVENTURES

On the 18th January 1944 my father, Robert Blake, wrote this letter to his father, William Blake, a Norfolk teacher:

Dear Daddy

As I hope you know by now – indeed this letter may well be preceded by myself in person – I am safe, well and back with British forces. Unfortunately the laws of security prevent me telling you the full story by letter. Suffice it to say that I have had along with my two companions, the most amazing adventures, and we are extremely lucky to have got through all right. Apart from a bad cold and a very bruised right foot I feel quite well. I am still very tired.

The last few months since the Armistice with Italy must have been very worrying for you all. I hope you took the news that no news was good news as is certainly the case of Italian POWs since the Armistice …. They say we get 28 days leave as soon as we can get back to England and that should be before this letter.

Lots and lots of love to all of you especially Daddy ( he’s forgotten who he’s writing to!) and Jill. It is marvelous to be seeing you again after all these long years.

Love from Bobby

My compliments to … (this bit is torn but I think he is intending to send his compliments to his Uncle Norman) … am hoping to drink … (I assume he meant that he was hoping to drink his Uncle’s wine cellar dry although I’m sure he would have put it a lot more elegantly than that!)

If you would like to read of some of his amazing adventures then please buy my novel FAR AWAY.

Here’s the link: http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3292

RETURN OF A DIARY

Robert Blake

My father, Robert Blake, was one of a group of five men, consisting of Arthur Dodds, George Burnett, Ken Lowe and Beverley Edge, who were involved in an escape from Sulmona POW camp in Italy in September 1943. When Dad wrote his memoirs he relied on the diary of a fellow escapee, Beverley Edge, because as my father wrote on the outside of the copy it was ‘kept at the time and probably the most authentic of all.’ This is a short post on what happened to that diary.

The diary itself was written on a small paper calendar which had been handed out to all POWs in Italy the previous Christmas, prefaced with a goodwill message from Pope Pius II. As Edge comments, ‘No Christmas pudding and turkey!’ He wrote on the few blank pages between the lines of music and hymns and along the margins. The first part of the escape involved hiding in the roof of one of the huts in the camp. At the point where they were about to get down from the roof, Edge began to rip up the diary but then he changed his mind and wedged it between the tiles of the roof and the rafters.

It wasn’t until July 1961 that an attempt was made to find it. Ken Lowe another of the five men wrote to the mayor of Sulmona asking if he might help. The mayor wrote to the Italian War Office in Rome because the camp was still under the administration of the military and Ken was then contacted by an Italian, Colonel Georgio Bonoli, saying that he would try to find it   but that the POW camp had been 75% demolished. Ken and Beverley then sent a plan, marking the hut they thought they had hidden in.

In January 1962 they received from Colonel Bonoli some notes, which had been made by another of their cohort, Arthur Dodds. This meant that the Colonel was looking in the right roof! They wrote to him again and asked if he might investigate further which he did. In July 1962 the diary was handed over to the British military attaché in Rome and in September it was sent back to Ken nineteen years after he had originally written it. It was a little bit nibbled but otherwise in very good condition. They were lucky because the end of the hut they had hidden in made up part of a brick wall which surrounded the camp. So presumably the hut was left standing because if it had been demolished it would have created a hole in this wall.

Far Away by Victoria Blake

If you’re interested in reading a book which is set against the background of escaping POWs in Italy my novel FAR AWAY is available here:

http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3292