Going down the Rabbit Hole by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about my work please click on the cover.

Working on a historical mystery has its own rewards and challenges. There is so much information to track down and then process. How to fit it all together...what to keep...what to throw away...what to actually use in the story...

The process of tracking down the information and then verifying said information is an experience all on its own. I find myself following links and leads from one site to another and then oh my! looking for actual books, either hard copy or digital, to further add to the pile of data that needs to be sorted through.

Ultimately, I arrive at the bottom of the rabbit hole and I'm never sure if I'm any more enlightened than when I started. But of course, then the author has to start to shovel their way back to the surface, sorting the dross from the gold. I emerge into the light holding some tiny nuggets of  gold (information I can actually use).   

However, the journey is important because even though I may not use all the information directly in the final product, the finding and sorting of all the information helps me to formulate the background structure that I will ultimately pin my story to. It enriches the overall image and atmosphere I wish to create, a backdrop if you will, against which my mystery and the characters involved can play out the storyline.

Though, sometimes I do wish the rabbit hole was not quite so deep or the rabbit warren not quite so extensive.

The Tom Thomson Mystery releases from BWL Publishing in November of 2024. I think you'll find it interesting with a rather unique POV from my protaganist ~ Harriet Agnes St. George of Sprucedale Ontario who is spending her spring and summer of 1917 in Algonquin Park  in what was known then as New Ontario.

Until next month stay well, stay happy

In Memory ~ Never Forget by Nancy M Bell

To find out more about Nancy's work click on the cover above. 

 My novel His Brother's Bride is very roughly based on my grandparent's story. We lived with my grandparents when I was younger and I can vividly remember my grandfather shaving and picking bits of shrapnel out of his face. This was many years after the end of World War One. Both Grampa Pritchard and his brother came to Canada as Dr. Barnardo's home children. They were shipped from Liverpool sheltering homes to eastern Ontario. Although they came a year apart, they were fortunate enough to end up close to each other near Eaganville Ontario. Grampa was given to the Wilcox family, Uncle Joe with the Mills. When World War One broke out he volunteered and lied about his age in order to be sent to Europe. His brother, my great Uncle Joe, enlisted after Grampa did. Grampa was a sapper and part of the engineering corps who went ahead to set up first aide areas and infrastructure. Along with others, he was buried for three days in rubble when the area they were working in was bombed. He was also gassed with mustard gas on six different occasions. 

 Uncle Joe was a private in the 21st Battalion of the Canadian Infantry (Eastern Ontario Regiment) and was lost on August 8, 1918 in an early morning Somme offensive near the village of Marcelcave at the age of 25. He is buried in France at Crucifix Corner Cemetary Villers-Bretonneux which is a village in the Department of the Somme, on the road from Amiens to St Quentin. CRUCIFIX CORNER CEMETERY is south of the village at the crossing of the road to Demuin and the road from Cachy to Marcelcave. 

Following the war, the British War Medal, Victory Medal, Plaque (Dead Man’s Penny) and Scroll were sent to his brother, Herbert Pritchard, c/o C.B. St. George, Sprucedale, Ontario

I wrote the following poem for Uncle Joe. 

 Somme Sleep 

 Crouched and ready we wait, 

Dawn is late in coming 

And when it does it is shrouded In mist and fog 

It is more than the damp and wet 

That sends the shivers over our skin 

Anticipation and fear war with each other 

Where are the tanks that are supposed to support us? 

 Sky and earth merge when we peek over the top 

Stitched together by mizzle and mist 

Yards away, across the trampled earth 

The enemy crouch and wait as we do 

 Where are the tanks? The support? 

Whispers and rumours run up and down the line 

Then—suddenly the wait is over 

“Over the top, boys,” the sergeant yells 

 And we go 

Surging out of our earthen burrows 

Running, firing blind, blinking in the fog

 No time to think, only to run and fire 

Ducking bullets whining by our ears 

 Then—it stops I open my mouth and spit mud 

Blood, hot and cold runs through my fingers 

The old guys were right 

There is no pain when it happens 

Just a mixed sensation of disbelief 

And relief… 

 Even if I die right here in the mud 

It’s over: 

 The fear; 

 the wet; 

 the lice;

 the killing. 

 Somewhere my mates are yelling and shots echo 

But around me there is an odd silence 

A separation from the man-made hell 

One hand clutching my gut, the other somehow still wrapped around my rifle 

I let the lark song sing me to sleep. 

 Copyright 2020 Nancy M Bell