Burning of St Paul’s by Katherine Pym

London burning

Of late there has been a plethora of articles re: the London Fire. The reason for this is we are nearing the 350^th year anniversary of this spectacular event. Books are coming out. We’ll probably see a television special on it, maybe a movie.

If you believe in reincarnation, people who were there will remember it while we are being inundated with its drama. If you believe that memories can be passed down from one generation to another from the genes of our ancestors, if you are in any way related to them who lived through this event, you will remember the horror of it today.

The fire began in the wee hours of Sept 1, 1666 in Pudding Lane. A great wind rose that stoked the fire into a conflagration that did not end until Sept 5.

St Paul’s Cathedral was 2 churches in one. Underneath the grand structure, in the crypt, was St Faith where booksellers and their families worshipped. It was also a storage place for books, paper and printing presses. While the fire consumed the eastern portion of London city, people stored their goods there, expecting the great cathedral’s stout walls would protect them. 

View of London burning from Tower of London

When built 150 years earlier, the roof had been layered with lead, but over the years, holes had been patched with wood to keep out the weather. During the Civil Wars, horses had been stabled in the church. A blacksmith had worked within those vaulted walls, his forge chimney piercing through the cathedral’s lead roof.

In 1663 or so, a committee gathered to repair the old building. The closest they came was to enclose it with a webbing of wooden scaffolding. By Sept of 1666, the old cathedral was a neglected pile of stone. All it needed was a spark to meet its end, and what a spectacular end it was.

Wind whipped the London fire into a frenzy. It burned so hot, the glow and smoke could be seen for miles.  

People fled into the old church because it was stanchion against all adversity. They ran with what they could carry on their backs and huddled within the nave. Tuesday, as night fell over the burning city, the worst was yet to come.

“The pall of black, oily smoke over the city grew more and more dense, forming clouds so thickly charged with particles that a thunderstorm broke out, but it was unlike any storm the watchers... had ever seen. Out of the lowering pall of smoke, lightning began forking down around St Paul’s, the bolts stabbing into buildings that already were ablaze. The peals of thunder were lost in the roar of the flames and screaming of the wind...” ^{pg 134 Great Fire of London}

“The dry timber forming the roof above the stone vaulting burnt furiously... Large parts of the roof, both stone and burning timber, fell in, and the Cathedral became a roaring cauldron of fire...” ^{pg 177 The Story of London’s Great Fire}

The choir loft crashed into the vaults, causing the floor of the cathedral to collapse.  Tombs split open, their contents furiously burning.  Walls burst apart like cannon torpedoes, and the massive lead roof melted, pouring off the sides of the walls like silver rain.  It covered everything in a silver sheen before running in molten streams down London streets. 

Ludgate burning w St Paul's in the background

The next morning, a man named Taswell walked through the smoking ruins of London to Paul’s Cathedral. “The ground was so hot as almost to scorch my shoes; and the air so intensely warm that unless I had stopped... I must [would] have fainted... I perceived the metal belonging to the bells melting; the ruinous condition of the walls; whole heaps of stone of a large circumference tumbling down with a great noise just upon my feet, ready to crush me to death.” ^{pg 181 The Story of London’s Great Fire} 

Flames still burned from St Paul’s 48 hours later. Those who had sheltered in there slept with dead in their vaults. Piles of stone cooled under a sheathing of lead. It covered ancient relics in silver relief, reminders of the cathedral’s better days.  

The city hissed and smoked for weeks after. Over the months, spontaneous explosions would burst from cellars where the fire had never stopped smoldering.

Yes, we’ll see more of this in the coming weeks, but I don’t know if the extent of the calamity will ever be felt by those glued to their seats. Only those whose memories have drifted through the eons to this moment will really know what it was like.

Map of the destruction

Many thanks to:

Wikicommons, Public Domain

 

Bell, Walter G. The Story of London’s Great Fire, London 1929

Hanson, Neil. The Great Fire of London in that Apocalyptic Year, 1666. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, USA. 2002

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Coming August 7th, Pre-Order available now.

Order Here

A Passion for History by Victoria Chatham

When I was in school, history was never my favorite subject. The only dates clearly engraved in my brain

 

are still 1066 (the Norman Conquest of England) and 1492 (Columbus sailed the ocean blue) but don’t ask me about the succession of kings or when the Industrial or French Revolutions began..

Somewhere in my late twenties I read Jean Plaidy’s The Sun in Splendour and what a difference that made. I could see the characters in history, the people behind the names. I scrambled to read all I could on the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses. My history teacher would have been proud of me.

When I immigrated to Canada in 1990, I frequently had people tell me ‘you won’t like it here, we’re not old enough’, or ‘Canada has no history’. I will admit my ignorance at that time. After all, what did I know of Canada other than it’s a very big country, the Mounties always get their man (or woman) and it’s cold. After twenty-five years I am happy to beg to differ with those early and misleading statements. Well, maybe not quite so happy about the cold.

While Canada may not have 8^th century churches and medieval castles it has its own history and I’ve been lucky to see some of it first hand; black and ochre pictographs on cliff and canyon walls, dinosaur remains, glacial erratics and First Nations teepee rings, hunting grounds and totem poles. I’ve visited restored forts and trading posts and learnt that the Hudson’s Bay Company, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1670, extended every bit as far and wide as did the East India Company, established earlier in 1600 also by Royal Charter.

I’ve had a trail guide point to a stretch of prairie and tell me to close my eyes and picture it not green but brown, a veritable tsunami of thousands of snorting, bawling buffalo. He also told me about the African-American cowboy, John Ware, commemorated here on a postage stamp. Renowned for his ability to ride and train horses, Ware was also known for his strength and work ethic. He drove cattle from Texas to Montana and then, in 1882, further north into what is now Alberta where he and his wife settled.

Who knew that in 1789 Britain and Spain nearly came to blows after disputing their settlements in Nootka Sound? Or that one thousand years ago the Vikings settled L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland and Labrador? Or that in 1857 Queen Victoria chose Ottowa (formerly known as Bytown) as the capital of the Province of Canada?

 

More recently I have dug a little deeper into Alberta's history, that of Banff to be exact. I've discovered so much that I'm spoiled for choice as to what to include in my next book and what to leave out. I've met some interesting characters and heard some great tales, and I still have some loose ends I need to tie up. How tough is it to do research in such a beautiful place as Banff?  Famous for its hot springs and hotel, it has much more to offer, not least its peaceful walks along the Bow River.

What happened yesterday, an hour or a minute ago becomes history and we all have our own. 

 /

Find out more about me and my books at:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/chatham-victoria/

www.facebook.com/AuthorVictoriaChatham

How to time-travel without a star ship... by Sheila Claydon

Click here to purchase

What do you see? Is this just a derelict building gradually falling apart in a piece of forgotten woodland, or is it history?

Visiting Anglesey in north Wales recently, I came upon this tiny stone building while I was walking my dog.  It was at the bottom of a steep hillside, its roof long gone and its doors and windows shored up by wooden struts. My companion walked on without really noticing it but the dog and I stayed behind and did some exploring. Eventually we found a small notice hidden by an overhanging branch. It said The Old Mill 1325.

1325! That really is history.

I immediately went into a typical writer's research mode and discovered that the mill is situated in what, in the fourteenth century, was the village of Llanmaes. Located on the shore of the eastern entrance to the Menai Strait, it was an important medieval port that was briefly the capital of the kingdom of Gwynedd. 

By the end of the 13th century the village had become such an important trading center that it was renowned for its ale, wine, wool and hides. It also held two annual fairs and maintained a busy herring fishery. I could go on and tell you how it was eventually conquered by the English King Edward I, who moved the villagers to the opposite coast of the island, built a castle and a new town, and took over the port, but this post is not about the history written in books, it's about imagining what life was like in the days when the mill was busy grinding the corn into flour for the local population.

Nowadays the derelict mill is the only relic of the original village and the river is long gone, although I suspect the shallow, leaf-clogged ditch beside it will still have a trickle of water in a long, wet winter. There is absolutely nothing else left to show how it might have looked, however. The surrounding land has been turned into a golf course and the local buildings are mainly holiday apartments. Even the carefully managed woodland is more recent.

It has atmosphere though, and because of this the writer in me can see a young girl of about thirteen years old carefully carrying her father's lunch to the mill. She's barefoot and her long, brown hair is blowing around her face. The miller is hot and sweaty and covered in white dust and she can hear him shouting to her brother to hurry up and finish loading the flour. He grins at his sister as he hoists a heavy sack onto the cart while a stout welsh pony waits patiently between the shafts?

That's the beauty of being a writer. I can travel back nearly seven hundred years and populate the village of Llanmaes with villagers, reshape the countryside to fit my imaginings, and create a history that might have a vestige of truth...and if it doesn't, well who will know. 

One day I will write that story. Until then, those long ago villagers will live as characters in my imagination, long forgotten and yet somehow still alive.

A writer can time-travel whenever they want to; backwards or forwards. I did this in my book Reluctant Date. It is set in a place where I once had such a magical holiday that I never forgot it, and when I eventually wrote about it I populated it with my own cast of characters, reliving a wonderful memory.  To do this I had to time-travel forwards a few years in order to imagine what it might be like now and yet also time-travel backwards so I could remember. That's the magic of writing.

Click here to purchase

Sheila's books can be found at:

Books We Love

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

She also has a website and can be found on facebook

This Day in History ~ October 5 ~ by Jamie Hill

It's October, and everyone's thoughts immediately go to Halloween, especially if you're a kid of 'trick or treating' age. For the rest of us, October means different things. Fall weather, the World Series in baseball, football season, pumpkins, sweatshirts, and the holidays just around the corner.  

But what does October 5 mean? What happened this day in history? If you were born today, then that's obviously the highlight. Here are a few other tidbits.

1877 Chief Joseph surrendered to the U.S. Army.

1910 King Manuel II was overthrown in a revolution and Portugal became a republic.

1921 The World Series was broadcast on the radio for the first time.

1930 Great Britons largest dirigible the R-101 Airship crashes in Beauvais, France, killing all on board. 

 

1933 Machine Gun Kelly has pleaded not guilty to charges of a being a co conspirator in the Urschel kidnapping. 

1947 In the first televised White House address, President Truman urged Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Sundays to help starving people in other countries.

1953 Earl Warren was sworn in as the 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1962 The Beatles released their first hit, "Love Me Do," in Britain.

1969  Monty Python's Flying Circus makes its debut on BBC Television, there were only 45 episodes aired over four seasons featuring the zany comedy sketches with John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle.

1990 Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center and its director were acquitted of obscenity charges resulting from an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs.

2001 Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire's record of 71 home runs in one season when he hit his 71st and 72nd homers.  

2011 Visionary co-founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs, died after battling pancreatic cancer for several years. The 56-year-old former CEO had resigned prior to his death leading to speculation that his health had made a turn for the worse. Fans of him and his company immediately set up memorials and tributes at Apple stores and on the internet upon hearing the news.  

And just because they're interesting, here are two Oct. 2 facts: Elvis Presley performed only once on Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry stage, on Oct. 2, 1954.

The first “Peanuts” comic strip written by Charles Schulz was published on Oct. 2, 1950.

Some general trivia:  University of Chicago researchers have found that people born in the fall have the highest chance of living to be 100 years old.

And finally, according to a national survey done by the US Social Security Administration of 12,000 Americans the most common date of birth was Oct. 5.

There, now doesn't that make today feel so much more special?

Indulge in a fall splurge- all four of my Blame Game books in one boxed set for a low price. Find them at your favorite online retailer or our Books We Love store where you can use Paypal and purchase in your choice of formats:  

http://store.payloadz.com/details/2376872-ebooks-romance-the-blame-game-boxed-set.html 

Until next time, have a great October!

 http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/

 

NASA & Apollo 11 by Katherine Pym

The Eagle has landed

 In 1965, my dad started work at NASA in Houston. Of course, the area wasn’t Houston at the start of the space program, just a flat plain with a few trees loaded with Spanish moss. It was a backwater near Clear Lake almost on the Galveston County line. Most of the streets weren’t even paved.

My dad said the site was constructed like a college campus. If the space program failed, it would rise from the ashes as an accredited university.

I don’t know the politics behind the selection of the site for NASA (Some say the land was owned by Lady Bird Johnson & her husband was vice president at the time.) but it transformed the area into a bustling group of suburbs where everyone was smart, even the children—brain wise and street wise. I learned a lot when there. My parents would be shocked.

My family is not Texan. We are from Milwaukee. The most south I’d ever been was St. Louis. While still in grade school, a friend informed me she and her family were going to Texas on vacation. I stood on the playground and envisioned a flat landscape with steer skulls and Saguaro cacti all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. When she returned from her vacation, I asked her how it was. She said, “It was hot and the tops of my feet got sunburned. I didn’t see any water or lakes, but everyone has a boat in their driveway." She couldn't have been near Houston where there is a lot of water.

When the airplane door opened at Hobby Airport, the heat and humidity rushed in, taking my breath away. Once in the car, the top and trunk loaded with our luggage, all the windows opened because we didn’t have air conditioning, we headed to our new home in Clear Lake City. While driving down the freeway lined with palm trees, I knew my life would never be the same. I was in a new land and had entered a new culture.

Back in Wisconsin I had watched John Glenn’s earth orbits but that was nothing compared to meeting the astronauts in the grocery store or lunching in the school cafeteria with their kids.

The LEM on the moon's surface

My dad was an electrical engineer who worked on a couple of panels (Nos 16 & 32, I think) in the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). It was the unit that released from the Service Module and landed on the moon. It’s the same unit where the Apollo 13 astronauts took refuge after the explosion that compromised their Service Module.

At the time of Apollo 11, the toggle switches in the LEM were not protected by metal bracings. When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were fitted into their spacesuits ready to drop down to the lunar surface, one of their backpacks swiped along some panels and knocked off several toggle switches. Some of them came off my dad’s panels.

Toggle Switch

While everyone sat before their TV’s glued to the drama of the lunar landing, my dad got a phone call to come in immediately to the space center. Sitting around a table, the engineers and scientists conferred on what to do. Those toggles were important for the LEM to reignite and take the guys off the moon. 

Several looked at my dad. The astronauts had pencils up there because they had to follow the instructions, make notes in the procedures. They needed pencils to calculate numbers for processes. My dad said, “Have them insert a pencil tip into the hole and use it as the toggle.”

Problem solved. It was after this, though, that metal braces were installed on each side of the toggle switches.

Up until the space program, no one really knew what our world looked like from space. I mean, have you ever seen those 1950's Sci-Fi B-movies? Producers and directors had no idea. They never consulted aeronautical scientists, either.

Apollo 11

After the Command Module splashdown in the Pacific, the astronauts were shuttled off to a quarantine chamber. For everyone else it was time to party. After tense days and nights, people of all ages, the news media, and anyone else who could, descended onto an area only a few square miles. NASA Boulevard was gridlocked, everyone cheering, honking their horns. Every motel and hotel was packed. Alcohol flowed freely. No one checked ID. Minors got all they could drink. In one hotel, women threw their room keys into the pool. Men dived in and whichever key they got, they also got that woman.

There was a newsmen duo who appeared on NBC every week night at 5:30 PM. Apparently they enjoyed the splashdown parties to the fullest. Within a year, they were both retired. Now, I am not suggesting the splashdown parties brought this on, but I found it peculiar they were gone from the news scene so quickly.

As everyone rode high on the success of Apollo 11; 12 proceeded forward and was also successful, but by 13 fanfare had waned. We were deeper into the Vietnam War, and a tired President Johnson refused to run for another term. People looked elsewhere for excitement. I was in high school and had a boyfriend. Life moved on. 

Here are some links for better viewing, but more than like copyrighted. Check this one out. And this one.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Buy