A Writer's Journal

16 June 2024

A day in a Cotswolds arts and crafts house, 18^th century street life, puppets…

Rodmarton Manor, Gloucestershire

Monday 10 June

I got up early and worked on the novel, then did some work on the Biography. I had a few errands to run in the afternoon – collecting prescriptions, a bit of shopping, then home for more on the Biography. I cooked stilton and walnut tart for supper, followed by home made coconut ice cream and strawberries. Then we watched a Denzel Washington film. Another exciting day in the life. I enjoyed it.

Tuesday 11 June

Up early again to work on the novel, breakfast, then the Biography. I finished reading Margaret Oliphant’s autobiography.

I had a nice email from a reader who likes my blog – always so good to think something you’ve written has spoken to someone. She also had a question about a passage she’d read in an 18^th century diary; she couldn’t understand what was happening, could I explain? I said I’d have a go and asked her to send it to me. Then a Women’s History Network committee meeting on Zoom. Ended up with more work than I want. Baked a Dundee cake.

Wednesday 12 June

I didn’t sleep well last night, so was tired today. But we packed sandwiches and cake and went to Rodmarton Manor (Cotswolds, near Cirencester), which is absolutely beautiful. It’s brimming with the most wonderful arts and crafts furniture, ceramics, paintings – work by Ernest Gimson, various Barnsleys, Alfred Powell, Louise Powell, Norman Jewson, Peter Waals. The rooms are large, lovely and light, mellowed oak wooden floors and panelling, like walking through a golden grove. So many treasures and marvels: a gorgeous doll’s house made by the game keeper, applique tapestries designed by Hilda Sexton – a hunting scene (ha! one of the riders falling off), archery – made by the Rodmarton Women’s Guild, furniture made locally in the Rodmarton Workshops.

The gardens are beautiful too, laid out as lots of little gardens, full of grey stone and green grass, crazily paved paths that lead past flowerbeds and form tunnels through trees and hedges, stone troughs of alpines, marvellous views.

The highlight for me was the William Simmonds puppets – the ones at Rodmarton are Punch and Judy. I love his work, and especially the puppets he carved; his wife Eve, an embroiderer, made the costumes. Though in the case of the Punch puppets the least said about the racially stereotyped black character the better. Simmonds’s string puppets are marvellous. There are some in Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum and in 2019 (I think) I went to see an exhibition of his puppets at the Museum of Gloucester – oh how I loved them!

I always think that if I had another life to live and could be whatever I wanted, I’d be a puppeteer.

I thought I’d do some work when we got home, but I was so tired I just settled down with The Sentence is Death, Hawthorne & Horowitz. Great book but bizarrely inaccurate cover, proclaiming that a message is scrawled at a murder scene in blood. It isn’t. Perhaps the designer didn’t read the book. Or perhaps the publishers thought blood sounded catchier.

Thursday 13 June

Up early again to work on the novel, and after breakfast back to the Biography. Another Zoom Women’s History Network meeting in the afternoon.

Friday 14 June

I spent most of the day working on one of the suffragette interviews, it’s very difficult to transcribe as the sound isn’t great.

The passage in the 18^th century diary (by the writer Mary Berry) turned out to be a description of a scene she witnessed in 1811 from a window overlooking Oxford Street – a man in a pillory pelted with muck etc. It upset Miss Berry very much, as well it might. Sent an email explaining. I haven’t read her journals so added the title to my reading list. 

Saturday 15 June

I worked on the blog I started last week.

Though I had a lovely day at Rodmarton, it’s been a fairly shitty week. Still I’ve plodded on in my usual dogged and stubborn way.