Friday, January 4, 2019

More Dirt and Foulness in 17th Century London by Katherine Pym




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Later model of Coach with Seat-Box higher & safer

Riding in a coach sounds romantic. I certainly would like to climb into a 17th century ‘chariot’ as Pepys says on occasion. It would be cool. 

I’ve read a few historical fiction novels where the hero seduces the heroine in a carriage as it rolls down a neat cobblestone lane, the coach lanterns slightly swaying. The visual is pretty. It is clean. Flowers scent the air. Unfortunately, some things in these novels aren’t quite correct. 

Most of the middling sort of society did not own horses and until the latter half of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, my sources say there were no coaches (carts, yes). Everyday folk  foot-slogged wherever they wanted to go. When they finally came onto the scene, you had to be rich to own one

Coaches of the late 16th & early 17th centuries were not like what we see in movies and television. They were heavy, cumbersome boxes attached to solid frames with wheels. They made for a teeth rattling trip.  


Sometimes leather flaps covered the windows. When doors were attached, they were generally ill-fitted. Cold, rain and dirt found their way inside. Travel was uncomfortable and unwieldy. Eventually, the heavy coach was suspended by great leather straps but the swaying this produced caused terrible motion sickness.  

17th century Coachman
During most of the 17th century, the coach had no box-seat. The coachman was forced to sit or stand on a low platform attached to the coach pole. If he sat, there was no place to rest his feet. This put his head very close to the horses’ hooves where a coachman could easily be kicked or splattered with mud and waste. The coachman’s foot could snag a root or an object and be pulled under the chassis, breaking a leg.

If you think of a coachman and postilions in plush livery with lace and shiny boots as they jaunt down a country lane, don’t. They would be mud splattered, the lace, their faces, hats and clothes fouled by the time they reached their destination.

The old Roman roads were in disrepair. Other highways were mud tracks or scratched paths. In springtime, farmers plowed across roads then people, carts and horses brazenly trod over this, crushing seed and new growth. Wheel ruts were deep. Great holes pockmarked thoroughfares that could break a horse’s leg, do irreparable damage to a cart or coach. 
Coach with low, unsafe seat-box


The actual city of London resided within its walls, an area of approximately one square mile. Everything beyond was considered the Liberties or suburbs. City lanes were narrow. As years went by coaches were built taller, wider. (Seat boxes were placed higher, equipped with foot rests.)Their sides and roofs scraped along cantilever houses, destroyed the edges of jutting eaves, knocked off butchers’ displays of hanging meats, pushed over vegetable stands. In London, iron clad wheels were outlawed due to the ear splitting noise and road destruction, but for the most part, this law was ignored.

By 1636, it is suggested upwards to 6,000 coaches rumbled up and down the lanes of London, (which seems excessively over the mark). Gridlock! Another source stated 300-700, which is still pretty darn crowded.  

Coaches fought with pedestrians, merchants with loaded carts, sedan chairs and men and women on horses. They rolled down lanes that were a combination of pavers, cobblestones and dirt, piles of muck and filthy mud running down center kennels. [Men were allowed to urinate on fires and empty their bladders in the street.] Cattle and sheep were herded through town. There were no fenders on the coach wheels. This allowed mud and other foul substances to wash onto the coachman and passengers.

Waterman plying his trade on the Thames
Another mode of dirty travel:
Watermen plied their boats for hire up and down the River Thames. They had a strong guild. They were tough and ornery. You never wanted to cross a wherriman. When they were pressed into service during the 2nd Anglo/Dutch war, soldiers were sent to keep them subdued. Considering the crush of coaches in London, taking a wherry where you wanted to go probably proved to be much faster.

But there were issues. The Thames is a tidal river. When the tide was out, oftentimes you had to walk to the boat on planks of wood spread over mud that held centuries of filth.  London Bridge on the Southwark side of the river held heads of beheaded traitors on pikes. Once the flesh was eaten away, the caretaker would fling the skulls off the Bridge where they sank into river mud.  

The river was used for suicides. Men and women jumped off the Bridge to land willy-nilly on anything flowing beneath. Bodies would bloat up and float for days before the city scavengers could retrieve them. Dogs and rats had a tendency to find their way there, too, where they’d be left to rot.  

The Thames was also a dumping ground, from the Fleet River that was a sewer to anyone who wanted to get rid of something. Your wherriman guided the boat through this sludge to your destination.

Then there was the sedan chair.
Like a fly or a gnat, these little guys buzzed underfoot and added to the congestion. Cramped and closed in, it was a cleaner way to travel once you got into the chair.

Attached by two hefty poles, men at each end of the chair carried you to where you wanted to go. They were the ones who got dirty during the journey, not you, unless somehow a man tripped and the whole chair fell to the ground. I don’t want to go into all the hazards this would cause especially if it had been raining. 

Sedan Chair carried by mules. Nifty way to go.
So, no matter what you did in the 17th century, where you went in London, prepare to get dirty. If you go back in time, go with an open mind.

You’ll find yourself in a rollicking loud place, filled with all sorts of people. Your mind will stagger from the myriad of visuals and powerful scents. Just hope you can safely return to the present where you can take a bath in warm, clean water.


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Many thanks to:
Wikicommons, public domain for sedan chairs
Other pictures taken from the book Travel in England, 1925

Travel in England in the 17th century by Joan Parkes, Oxford University Press, London 1925

Old and New London: Westminster and the western suburbs By Walter Thornbury, Edward Walford, Vol IV, London 1891




Thursday, January 3, 2019

Setting Goals





A few years ago when I trained karate, part of the first class of the New Year was 
time to setting goals.We would write one karate goal, one career or school goal, and one personal goal. Since I'm no longer in karate, I now start with a writing goal.

My writing goal:   To write one new novel in 2019

Currently, I have two jobs. I work at a live-stage theatre and am also an author.

My author goal:  To publish two new novels this year - ambitious maybe, but doable!

Personally, I have one goal for the New Year that is starting to come together. I had an MRI on my knee December 23 and got the results December 27. Right now, I'm waiting for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to have my knee fixed. 

My personal goal:  To be able to walk five kilometres again in 2019 without pain!

Do any of you set goals for the upcoming year?
What sort of goals do you set?
Do you accomplish them or forget about them by February?

Please check out my newest release:

  
 Diane Bator, Author

Wild Blue Mysteries Book 4: The Painted Lady

The pieces of Christina Davidson's life have built up into place over the past few months, despite the one last secret she's trying hard to hide. When Leo Blue returns to town, then people from her past turn up, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble and the only people who can help her now are the men of the Wild Blue Detective Agency.
Leo Blue can't escape Packham nor the life of a private detective no matter how hard he tries. Six months after the murder of artist DJ Gage, the prices of Gage's paintings soar. When a woman winds up dead and a forgery is discovered in the local art gallery, Leo has to find a murderer and a forger.

You can find my books at:   Diane Bator, Author






Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Settings - Attention to details by J. S. Marlo


A new year begins and a new story unravels in my head. The first thing I ask myself when an idea takes flight is Where am I going to set that story? To be honest, I'm partial to Canada. First, because I'm Canadian, and second, because of the its changing landscape, cultural diversity, and extreme weather.


There are oceans, beaches, lakes, forests, prairies, mountains, snowy mountains, tundra...but no volcanoes. I like to create fictive small towns within two, or five, or eight hours from an existing real city. That way I can pretend there is an hospital (or no hospital) in my little town, or I can set a charming café next to a library. I can imagine whatever fits the needs of my story instead of relying on an existing town where many of the facilities are set in stone. The Calgary airport is located in the northeast of the city. I can't just pretend it's in the southwest because it's more convenient for my characters. I would get email from my Calgary readers saying "Hey, I live in Calgary. You got the airport wrong". But I can write that my character is driving three hours to catch a flight from the Calgary airport.

For me, a good story blends fiction and reality in such a way that readers can't easily tell where one stops and the other begins.

Once I chose out the Where?, I need to figure out the When? I can play with four seasons, from scorching heat to biting cold. Now depending where or when I set the story, I can add either thunderstorms, snowstorms, northern lights, gentle rain, blizzard, fog, tornadoes, earthquake, mud slides, sinkholes, glaciers, icebergs... Again, I can brew any storms I want, but it should also be realistic. In my little corner of the world, I can't possibly see northern lights at 11pm at the end of June because the sun hasn't set yet, but I could see them around suppertime in December assuming the sky is clear. I'll grant you it's a detail, but it's the kind of details a reader from a northern community will catch.

If you set a story in a real town or a country you've never visited, make sure you get the details (language, customs, time zones, weather, money, distance, etc...) right. Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, and American dollars aren't the same. Canada and Australia have one-dollar and two-dollar coins, but unlike Australians, we called them loonies and toonies. If in a story, a homeless person stops the hero on the sidewalk and asks if he has a toonie to spare for a coffee, the story doesn't take place Down Under. It takes place in Canada!

Over the summer, I was editing my romantic suspense taking place in a nursing home in Northern Ontario. At one point, my editor (who's not Canadian) commented that I needed to be consistent in my units of measurement, that I couldn't switch back and forth between inches, feet, and kilometres. A long conversation followed during which I explained that even though we converted to the metric system in the mid-1970s, we still use both systems in different circumstances. We measure long distances in kilometers but short distances in inches and feet. My son lives 800 kms away but my guestroom is 10'2" x 12'8". We weigh our food in kilograms but people and pets in lbs. My Chrismas turkey was 5.6kg but my granddaughter is 33lbs and my granddoggie is 14lbs 5oz. The indoor and outdoor temperatures are in Celsius but I set my oven in Fahrenheit. It was -33C on Christmas morning (that was cold!) but I cooked my turkey at 325F. Milk comes 1-litre, 2-litre, and 4-litre cartons but when I make a recipe I measure in cups, tablespoons, or teaspoons. It may not make sense, it may not be consistent (actually it is not consistent), but this is an authentic Canadian setting...and this is so much fun to write, so in the end, the inches, the feet, and the kilometres...they all stayed in the final version of my story.

Be creative and have fun writing, but don't forget to pay attention to details.

Happy 2019!
JS

Correction: A dear reader pointed out that we do have volcanoes in Canada, and the last eruption took place about 150 years ago at Lava Fork in northwestern British Columbia. I should have written we do not have any "active" volcanoes. So I stand corrected. My apology!


Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Happy 2019 Everyone

BWL Publishing is proud to introduce our monthly Genre feature page.  January is contemporary romance month and featured below is the book cover of one of the books written by BWL's fantastic group of contemporary romance authors.  Our authors have been writing for decades and they are all experienced professionals who tell fantastic stories.  We invite you to visit our BWL Publishing website where this display is linked to each individual author's display page.  There you will be able to read more information about the book as well as choose to purchase from your favorite bookseller by clicking on the convenient book covers links to multiple book sellers.

http://bookswelove.net 





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