A Proper Person to be Detained

My new book is up for pre-order on various sites, including Waterstones so do have a browse - especially if you're interested in all kinds of things, including family history in general, the Irish migrants who fled hunger and privation to become 'hands' in industrial cities, the treatment of women in Victorian Britain, discrimination and poverty, prison conditions, law and order - and murder.

When I began this project a couple of years ago, I didn't intend for it to be quite as relevant as it seems to have become. I simply set out to research and write about a family mystery: who murdered my Irish great great uncle John in Leeds, on Christmas Day in 1881; did the murderer really, as some family members believed, get away with it - and what happened afterwards?

It wasn't simple at all though. It was difficult and complicated and harrowing and tragic, especially for those left behind. I made unexpected discoveries, and sometimes it seemed as though each one was more distressing than the last.

If you love researching your family history, and are the kind of researcher who wants to know more than the bald names and dates - if you are fascinated by the stories that lie beneath the surface - then this is the book for you. I think almost all of us, embarking on this kind of research, will uncover more than we bargained for and often, those discoveries will be profoundly distressing.

This book also stands alone as an exploration of a true crime: what led up to it, how and why the murder came about - and what happened afterwards in terms of justice and imprisonment.

And finally, it is a very personal reflection on the part that migration, poverty and prejudice have played in my personal history: the extraordinary confluence of the varied influences and experiences that have helped to make me what I am today.

A Proper Person to be Detained: We have a cover!

My new book is about a murder in my family. My great great uncle was the innocent victim, dying in the street on Christmas night in 1881.

But the book proved to be about so much more than that. The story involved the appalling treatment of the poor Irish, including many members of my family, who came to mainland Britain, in the mid 1800s, driven by hunger and privation. I researched and wrote about the terrible conditions in which these same people lived and worked, people who were both exploited and damned as 'cheap migrant labour' at the same time. (Ring any bells? It certainly did for me.)

Then there was the treatment of women in particular and  - all unexpectedly because I didn't know very much about this story until I began to research it -  conditions and the treatment of  poor women in particular, in Victorian insane asylums.

The whole story turned out to be fascinating, distressing, moving, enlightening. I've lived with it for a couple of years now, and I realised, time and again, how seldom the people I was writing about, people who were my family, my forebears, are given any kind of voice. And yet their voices came through strong and clear. I think Saraband's lovely, evocative cover, reflects something of that feeling. 

Long Silence = New Project

Me with the BIG bow in New Wortley, Leeds in the 1950s

I must apologise for the long silence, but my excuse is that I've been working on a new book, and it has proved to be so tricky, so time consuming, so all encompassing, that I haven't been able to think, let alone write about anything else for a long time. Now, my editor has said that she likes it very much and my publisher has started to speak about publication dates next year, even though I know that there is more work to do. But it means that I can begin to speak about it, and to wonder exactly what it is that I have created.

It will be called, I think, A Proper Person to be Detained, and it began with a murder that happened in my family, in Leeds, in 1881. I had always known about it, but only in the most general terms: a family story. 'Your great great Uncle John was stabbed in the street, in Leeds, at Christmas.' That was where I started, but not at all where I finished, because John's story led to a great many other revelations about the plight of 19th century Irish migrants in the industrial North of England, and elsewhere. It also involved the tragic story of what happened to John's younger sister, Elizabeth. 

It was a little like trying to do a vast jigsaw puzzle, without benefit of any picture to guide me, and - as it turned out - no edge pieces at all. Then when the picture emerged, it was heartrending and sad beyond belief. This is the most difficult, most harrowing, most alarming piece of writing I have ever done. But it was also oddly heartening. I began to admire that side of my family, especially the women of my family, more than ever. We survived. 

There will be more about all this as soon as I'm on top of edits and tweaks and all the other bits and pieces involved in publishing a book, especially a piece of non-fiction like this, which is still a long process. 

Quite apart from the sadness involved - and sometimes the story felt just plain unbearable - it made me angry.  Although it's good to be angry, if it prompts you to recognise rank injustice where you find it; if it leads you to you try to tell untold stories like this one. 

More about all this in due course.