"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
Winter 2003
Volume I,
issue 3
|
"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." | Winter 2003 |
| Ron
Nicholson is writing a collection of detective short stories involving
Detective Inspector George Jarrold and Constable Mann, in his home town
of Great Yarmouth in the late 18880's and early 1890's. He notes: "With
forensic science in its infancy, my charactors rely on their wits and basic
detection methods to bring their culprits to justice."
An artist, Mr. Nicholson's pen & ink drawings of Anglia and Scotland may be seen here. Direct correspondence to Ron Nicholson or to editor@lifeloom.com. |
 |
Good Research Leads to Better Stories
Any other day, I could easily have missed it.
It was a small piece of no more than two or three hundred words and was tucked away at the bottom of the page in our local weekly newspaper. The headline read something like JACK THE RIPPER AND GT YARMOUTH.
It caught my eye.
What
possible connection could London’s most notorious mass murderer have with Great
Yarmouth? Well, apparently the Chief Constable at the time was sent a letter
purporting to have come from Jack himself, threatening to "rip" two
Norwich ladies on the seafront between 9pm and closing time (elevenish) and challenging
the local police to do better in catching him than had the Metropolitan police.
The letter arrived on November 17th, 1888, one week after the seventh and last
murder. This article was published about fifteen years ago but the story has
haunted me to such an extent that I needed to know what happened next.
I wrote to the local paper but all they could tell me was that the original
story was still available to view on their computer. The Police public
relations people seemed to have no idea of the letter’s existence. The
County Records office in Norwich were unable to help me and reminded me
that many valuable records had been lost in a disastrous fire about ten
years earlier. It seemed that nobody was able to tell me what happened
after the letter had been received. It was like a ghost that haunted me
over the years, and that ghost had to be exorcised. I had to supply my
own ending. The result was a short story of about five thousand words that
I called "Jarrold
and the Red Letter Day."
You don’t just sit down at the word processor and write about a period of history
that you know little or nothing about. You need information -- research. I had the story mapped out in my mind but, in order to make it believable, I needed detail.
I had to know how the town has changed over the years. Luckily, the internet came up with several old maps of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk on the east coast of England. I could see that Hitler’s bombers and the Borough Council had demolished the greater part of that part of town called "The Rows." These
were a hundred and thirty little streets of dwellings, all facing east in an
area perhaps half a mile long and many of them so narrow the two people could
not walk shoulder to shoulder down them. Today, few of them remain intact.
Jack the Ripper would have felt as much at home in these dark alleyways as
he would in the back streets of Whitechapel.
Being
a seaside resort, there have been hundreds of picture postcards published over
the years. Many of these find themselves being republished in book form. It
was one of these books that lead me to my most valuable finds. One was a picture
of workmen and builders posing next to a building under progress and dated
1887. A sign on the building states that it is the new Police and Fire Station.
Another shows prisoners being loaded into a horse drawn carriage on their way
to the local magistrates court. It even gave me the address of the Police Station.
I now knew where my Detective worked. I searched out the address and was overjoyed
to discover that the building still exists as an annex of the Town Hall.
I have several of these books of old postcards and photographs in my possession now and refer to them regularly if I need, for instance, a hotel or theatre name. Our local library carries many books by local historians. I suppose that I am lucky in that the period of history that I write about was so well documented. Photography was very fashionable and it was a great era for science and invention. My character will be able to get to grips with new inventions such as telephones, typewriters, and eventually the horseless carriage. Will he take to them? Wait and see. If I tell you that I personally refuse flatly to own a mobile/cell phone, it may give a clue to Jarrold’s
opinion on new-fangled things. My research possibilities seem endless and I'm
looking forward to many adventures for my heroes in the future.
Why
do I go to so much bother? My one dread is that when my stories are published,
someone will write to the local paper pointing out embarrassing errors. I
want my stories to be believable and dropping little gems along the way only
helps the reader to stay anchored to the period of which I write.
If
you are going to write about historic places or characters, you must spend
as much of your non-writing time in putting in the research as you can. There
is always somebody who knows more than you, and that person may someday read
your book.
Copyright 2003 by Ron Nicholson
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
The Web Mystery Magazine is an on-line quarterly journal dedicated to investigating the mysterious genre in print, in film, and in real-life. The Web welcomes well-researched, well-written
articles and reviews. Writers are invited to send letters and inquiries to editor@lifeloom.com.
Sir Walter Scott