Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Research More Research: The Dukeries, Cheese, A Flycatcher, and Cows

Updated on November 17, 2022 by carolyn

I’m busy working on a historical novella for an anthology that will be out this June. I have no idea what my story will be titled yet, but the anthology title is Dancing in The Duke’s Arms. It’s a spin off, if you will, from the Christmas anthology Christmas in The Duke’s Arms. The same authors are participating: Grace Burrowes, Miranda Neville, Shana Galen, and me.

We chose Nottinghamshire as the location for our first anthology, and as we were discussing the follow up, we decided we would set the stories in the in real life location of The Dukeries, so called because there are four ducal estates located here, and they are more or less contiguous.

Wikipedia has a sufficient explanation. But The Dukeries – Sherwood Forest has a more picturesque one. Not one, not two, but FOUR ducal estates. And so, our anthology will have a surfeit of dukes and ducal estates.

Every book has its own ethos that requires research. For me, with my uniquely Carolyn style of writing, it works like this: Huh. Everyone is sitting around having tea and this is kind of boring. I wonder what local specialty they’re eating? The answer to that turned out to be Colwick Cheese. This cheese was long a specialty of Nottinghamshire. There were websites that implied this was a newer cheese not from our period, but Google and Advanced Google Book Search demonstrated that this was incorrect. British regulations around the turn of the 20th century did result in the disappearance of this cheese. But recently, it’s had a revival. Originally, the cheese was made by pouring spoiled milk into cheesecloth and letting it hang outside until all the water dripped out. The cheese formed a kind of bowl. It was often served with cream, fruit, or preserves in the bowl, and, though I can’t confirm the period part of this, sometimes the additions were savory.

And so, I had my interesting addition to tea. You’ll notice, on that website, a link called Red Poll. This is a kind of cow. It is, not surprisingly, red. This breed of cow is a good milk producer and I found a great deal of information praising this local cow. Why, since it turns out my heroine loves estate management, she could have Red Polls! However, it did not take long to discover that this breed was established well after the Regency, and so it was not possible for my story. But, it turns out she could have another red cow, the Red Leicester. Well, OK! I have learned some very interesting things about cows that I did not know before.

From there, I needed to describe the heroine’s house. I knew (don’t ask why, I just knew, OK?) that she lived in a house with lots of trees shading it and that there was a vine on the house. All right then. What kind of vines do they have in Nottinghamshire? Because, what if it’s not just ivy? More searches and before long I had found the Nottingham Flycatcher. This was perfect because it was known for growing on the walls of Nottingham Castle. Nottingham Flycatcher has a fragrant scent and attracts lots of moths and insects to the nectar. Perfect! This, too, could grow on my heroine’s house, and when the windows were open in the summer, rooms would surely smell lovely. I know this is true because right now this minute there is jasmine blooming on our deck and when the windows are open and a breeze comes along, the kitchen smells faintly of jasmine. I was saddened to learn that Nottingham Flycatcher is now extinct in Nottinghamshire. In the 1930’s the Flycatcher was removed from Nottingham Castle during renovations. It doesn’t appear to be entirely extinct, but I also learned that fully 98% of Britain’s wildflower habitat is gone. That is tragic.

As I’ve continued to write, the story no longer opens at the heroine’s house, and now I have to decide whether to move the Nottingham Flycatcher to my duke’s estate. Then it turned out that my heroine, while visiting the duke’s estate, is going to walk along the driveway and count trees. (Really, don’t ask. Maybe that won’t even stick. It’s too early to tell.) So, what kind of trees? I knew that lime trees are a common tree. Many period descriptions of estate reference driveways lined with lime trees. So. What do these lime trees look like? Somehow, I didn’t think they were the kind of lime trees that grow limes, and indeed, they are not. British Lime trees are very tall and beautiful and give loads of shade. There are lots of images of magical lime tree avenues. Like this one at Clumber Park. This is especially awesome because Clumber Park is one of the four estates of the Dukeries. It doesn’t even matter that those lime trees weren’t planted until 1840. My duke planted his way earlier. It’s called fiction for a reason.

And so, here I am madly writing a novella and having the best time ever researching cheese, and cows, and lime trees, and flycatchers. There will be more moments like this as I write because that’s just how I roll.

Posted in Former Riskies, Research, Writing | Tagged Colwick Cheese, I love this story, Lime Tree Avenues, Nottingham Flycatcher, Red Poll Cows, The Dukeries | 7 Replies

Songs of the Regency

Updated on November 17, 2022 by carolyn

My novella for the June historical romance anthology Dancing in the Duke’s Arms (with Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, and Miranda Neville) is done and off to beta reading, editing, and copy-editing. My story is An Unsuitable Duchess. I posted last time about some research results. Most of that research survived in some form or another in the penultimate version. (Cue applause!!)

While I was ~~madly fixing~~ ::KoffKoff:: revising, I needed some additional research on what songs might have been sung in 1819. This turned out to be slightly harder than I wanted it to be, mainly because what seemed like the most likely on-point resource was a 1794 text that was a Google Books listing only. There was no text available.

I’ve seen this happen when someone, sorry, but often an academic press, has an annotated version of the text on sale, as with The Regency Epicure. There is no defensible reason, in my opinion, for the removal of a public domain title from Google Books just because there’s an annotated version available for purchase. To be clear, of course the annotated version is different and shouldn’t be freely available as to the copyrighted annotations. But the original remains in the public domain and should therefore remain available to the public.

But I digress. The 1794 songbook was not available and I did not have time to see if I could get it on Interlibrary loan. The book is listed in WorldCat, so there are libraries that have it. Nevertheless, I found something that answered the need well enough, and that was The British Melodist or National Song Book, containing English, Scottish, and Irish songs With a Selection of More than Four Hundred Choice Posts and Sentiments. There are several versions, with the earliest available text dated 1822. A similar book from 1813 is not available because some [ expletive ] is selling a paper copy on Amazon. And that someone just grabbed the book from Google and claims to have cleaned up the OCR text. I hate this. It pisses me off. It should not be permitted. It’s selling for $18.00. S0 eff you, dude. Right. HE got the benefit of a book in the public domain and now the actual public is screwed. You’re darn right I’m mad. We should all be angry!

I’m in danger of digressing again. Sorry.

The British Melodist of 1822 is recent enough for me to be confident that I’m not far off base in having my characters mention the titles of songs, and a few lines from one, in 1819.

Some of the songs and their titles surprised me. Here are a few examples.

Black-eyed Susan

All in the downs the fleet was moor’d,
The streamers waving in the wind,
when black-ey’d Susan came on board:
Oh! where shall I my true-love find?
Tell me ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
if my sweet William sails among the crew!
(first verse only)

Here’s another interesting one:

The Soldier’s Widow; or Return from Waterloo.

Sad was the plaint of the wand’ring stranger,
Hungry and pale was the infant she bore;
Return’d from the land of misfortune & danger,
She hop’d to find peace on her dear native shore.

O neat was her cottage, and great was her treasure,
A treasure to her more than diamonds or pearl
In the smiles of her William consisted her pleasure,
And the fond caresses of her little girl.

Duty commanded, her William attended,
And she could not bear with her soldier to part
She roam’d oe’r the field when the battle was ended,
She kiss’d his pale lip, & she pressed his cold heart.

They bore her away, of all comfort bereft her,
Affliction her dart at her bosom did hurl;
Oh no, little darling, one comfort is left her,
The sweet smiling kiss of her dear little girl.

Below is a song title I used in my story. I include the lyrics since they’re culturally significant. Talk about a message, eh? But there’s fascinating subtext there. The warning and moral wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t young ladies who felt just that way.

No One Shall Govern Me.

When young and thoughtless, Laura said,
No one shall win my heart;
But little dreamt the simple maid,
Of love’s delusive art.
At ball or play,
She flirt away,
And ever giddy be;
But always said,
I ne’er will wed,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no, no, no, no,
No one shall govern me.

But time on airy pinions flew,
And Laura’s charms decay’d;
Too soon alas! The damsel grew
A pettish pert old maid.
At ball or play,
No longer gay,
Poor Laura now you’ll see;
Nor does she cry,
For reasons why,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.

A lesson learned, ye ladies fair,
From Laura’s wretched fate;
Lest you, like her, should in despair
Repent alas! Back too late.

Let me advise –
While young, be wise,
Nor coy and silly be;
I’m certain I
Would never cry,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.
I’d gladly govern’d be.

Here’s another from the last few pages:

Drown it in the Bowl.

The glossy sparkle on the board,
The wine is ruby bright,
The reign of pleasure is restor’d,
Of ease and fond delight.
The day is gone, the night’s our own,
Then let us feast the soul;
If any care or pain remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

This world they say’s a world of woe,
That I do deny;
Can sorrow from the goblet flow?
Or pain from beauty’s eye?
The wise are fools, with all their rules,
When they would joys controul:
If life’s a pain, I say again,
Let’s drown it in the bowl.

That time flies fast the poets sing;
Then surely it is wise,
In rosy wine to dip his wings,
And seize him as he flies.
This night is ours; then strew with flowers
The moments as they roll:
If any pain or care remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

Possibly Interesting End Note

Normally, I would have done a copy and paste of the lyrics text or used an embedded image because, wow. LOTS OF TYPING!!!

But while I was doing my revisions and found myself behind because ::hand waving, a tissue, sobs omgwtf!:: I lost five chapters of revisions and had to completely redo them from paper edits. ::horrible flashbacks::

I became desperate to find a way to go faster where I had long chunks of new text. So, I hooked up my microphone and turned on the Mac dictation feature and dictated those sections. And danged if it didn’t work pretty damned well. And that includes the dictation working in my Windows 7 Parallels virtual machine. I honestly didn’t think Mac dictation would work across the virtual machine, but as long as I clicked in my WordPerfect document, my dictated words appeared.

And so, I dictated these lyrics into this post, and while there were a few hilarious interpretations, the dictation was remarkably accurate, all things considered. It was very quick to go a line at a time for these lyrics and fix the mostly minor issues.

I’m converted now to using dictation for work where I have longer blocks of text to transfer. I always do paper read throughs of my manuscripts so this is a regular occurrence for me. I redid my five chapters of edits in two days — working on my lunch hour (on the laptop) and then at home on the iMac, and let me represent to you that many of those chapters were a sea of ink and paragraphs written on the back of the pages.

A win, over all, I’d say because now there’s less of a barrier to posts like this one.

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Research | Tagged Dictation, songbooks, Songs | 5 Replies

The Bodleian Goes Digital and A Ship That Sank in 1744

Updated on November 17, 2022 by carolyn

I’m coming down to the line on finishing my novella for the upcoming anthology Christmas in Duke Street. Despite being madly writing, I have great sites I came across recently.

The Bodleian Library Goes Digital

When I was in grad school and researching a Regency era author named Eleanor Sleath, I was also frequently side-tracked into other fascinating areas of research that was quite handy for writing Regency Historical Romance. One of the most tantalizing things I came across was the Ephemera collection at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. At the time, a handful of images had been made available. It happened that their server was misconfigured and I was able to get to a directory listing of the ephemera collection and could see that they had playbills, and I was searching for performances of a certain play. I wanted to look at those playbills so badly …. A trip to the UK was out of the question. Well, the Bodleian has put this collection on line and searchable along with other collections: Digital Bodleian.

Here’s some playbills in the Ephemera collection: Playbills (None are the play I was looking for, alas.)

Here’s a ticket for a ball given by the Lord Mayor: ticket

Then there’s this letter to the Editor:

(Hopefully that lands you at the enlarged image. If not, click on the magnifying glass.)

To the Printer of the DIARY.
SIR,
My attention being roused by the claims of different countries to the Artist who produced the Exhibition of Edinburgh in the Haymarket, I went to see a work, which, from the contention, promises to have so much merit. I expected to have seen a model like that of Rome, or London; for transparent painting, such as I’ve seen before; but was agreeably surprised to see, I will venture to say, the greatest curiosity ever exhibited in painting, without any deception but that of the pencil, laying nature fairly open to my view, in a manner entirely new.
I ever wish to see the arts flourish; I hope this extraordinary effort of ingenuity will meet its reward: to doubt it would be an insult to publick taste.
Yours, &c.

LIBERALITY.

I had to (digitally) go to a library in Australia to find out what this letter was about. Here’s the link. I’m sorry, it’s a pdf and I sure hope the link works.

The letter first refers to an exhibition in the Haymarket of a panorama of Edinburgh by Irish painter Robert Barker. (Thus, the artist referred to is Robert Barker) This was something of a sensation. No one (according to these sources) had ever painted a panorama before, nor lit and placed it as Barker did. The panorama was 7.5 meters long and was exhibited in London in March of 1789. It stayed on view until 1790. Barker then prepared a panorama of London.

Indeed, this source claims that Barker’s friends coined the word “panorama” to describe this ability to walk around a painting as if one were actually at that location in the world. From this, Barker, and after his patent expired, other artists, produced panoramas of other cities and countries. This letter seems to be referring to a subsequent exhibition of other countries. Barker, having succeeded wildly, built an exhibition hall behind his home at 28 Castle Street Leiscester Square. A larger structure was built at another location, also in Leiscester Square by 1793. The Royal family visited and was much impressed. Panoramas were a popular entertainment through the 1850s.

Ships! The HMS Victory

The Independent has a fascinating article about why the HMS Victory sank. It sure wasn’t what I thought. This article is a great overview of the ship and its history, with a dose of climate, bureaucracy, and bad design thrown in.

The tragedy was not caused by dangerous rocks and the failure of the Alderney lighthouse keeper to keep the fire burning as believed at the time. The reasons for the Victory’s loss were almost certainly poor ship design, top-heavy weight, instability caused by heavy guns and possibly rotting timbers. victory1744.org

For more about this ship, there’s a website dedicated to it: victory1744.org. The photos of the wreck in-situ are stunning.

While I was putting together this post, one of my searches led to a site about pens, which I clicked on because pens! I’m addicted to fountain pens. When I was done, I went to the pen site and discovered that this company sells pens made with wood from the hull of the HMS Victory. Here’s the page about that. And here are the HMS Victory pens they sell.

Posted in Former Riskies, History, Research | Tagged Ephemera, HMS Victory, panorama, Pens, Robert Barker, shipwrecks, The Bodleian | 2 Replies

Regency Boxer Bill Richmond: Interview with his Biographer

Updated on November 17, 2022 by carolyn

A book I’ve been waiting for is out! Naturally I bought it immediately. The author, Luke Williams, and I got in contact, and he graciously agreed to be interviewed here at the Riskies. I’m giving away a copy of his book to one commenter, rules below.

The book is Richmond Unchained, the Biography of The World’s First Black Sporting Superstar. Richmond was a boxer from the Regency era whose name would be encountered by any author doing research into boxing of the era. This is one of the most interesting, engaging biographies I’ve read in some time and I highly recommended it to anyone and everyone.

I’m not kidding you here, I stayed up late three nights running because I had to find out what happened. This is a well-written, meticulously documented, and completely engaging story of a man who deserves to be better known. With its wealth of historical and social detail, this book should be on every historical author’s shelf.

You can increase your chances of winning because over at my blog I have a guest post by Williams which is also fascinating reading and I’m giving away a copy there, too.

Richmond Unchained takes an unflinching look at the history of American slavery and Britain’s own in the slave trade and slavery. It places the racism of the time squarely in the middle of a compelling story of a man who lived with the consequences. It’s not possible to read this book and see that not enough has changed.

Richmond’s life is compelling and riveting. As you’ll see in the interview, it took Williams 12 years to complete the book, and his care and attention to detail and chronology shows. From slavery to a position of honor at the coronation of George IV — Richmond is a man who lived an extraordinary life.

About Luke G. Williams

Author Luke Wiliams holding a drink by a pool and wearing a hat totally chilling out

Luke G. Williams, chilling

Luke G. Williams has been a journalist and writer for 16 years. He has worked as a full-time staff writer for uefa.com, sportal.com and euro2000.com, while his freelance work has been published in various outlets including The Guardian, Sunday Express, Snooker Scene, The Independent and 007 Magazine. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio channels, including ITV London, and BBC Radio Five Live. His first book, Masters of the Baize (co-authored with Paul Gadsby) was published in 2005, and was named Book of the Week by The Sunday Times newspaper. He edited the boxing writing anthology Boxiana: Volume 1 (2014) and is the author of Richmond Unchained: The Biography of the World’s First Black Sporting Superstar (2015). Luke lives in London and is the assistant headteacher of a successful secondary school.

About Richmond Unchained

Cover of Richmond Unchained

Today Bill Richmond is largely unknown to the wider public, but he was one of the most significant sportsmen in history and one of the most prominent celebrities of Georgian times. Born into slavery in Staten Island, Richmond won his freedom as a young boy and carved a new life for himself in England as a cabinet maker and then a renowned prizefighter and trainer. His amazing life encompassed encounters and relationships with some of the most prominent men of the age, including Earl Percy, William Hazlitt, Lord Byron, the Prince Regent and Lord Camelford. His fame was such that he fulfilled an official role at the coronation celebrations of King George IV in 1821. The story of Bill Richmond is an incredible tale of personal advancement, as well as the story of a life informed and influenced by a series of turbulent historical events, including the American War of Independence, the fight for black emancipation and Britain’s long-running conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte.

(You see??? You see!!! If you write Regency Romance, you need this book. If you love the history, you should read this book.)

Get Richmond Unchained

What They’re Saying

Over many years of dogged research, Luke Williams has assembled a wonderful array of new sources to flesh out the fascinating life of a man famed in his own era, but who is only recently being rediscovered by historians. Williams challenges the fanciful Wikipedia myths, and instead reveals the truth to be far more compelling. Richmond was a complex man living in complex times, and has long deserved a biography. It’s heartening, then, that the life of Britain’s first Black sports star is carefully examined by a writer with an obvious passion for his subject.
Greg Jenner, historical consultant CBBC’s Horrible Histories, author A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life

Richmond Unchained is an accomplished and absorbing study of life and sport in Georgian Britain … A fascinating, and deeply researched, account of one man’s trials and triumphs as he breaches the prizefighting citadel that was Georgian London … A compelling blend of sporting and socio-cultural history, chronicling Richmond’s remarkable journey and eventual recognition as one of prizefighting’s foremost ambassadors … An enthralling odyssey, recounting Richmond’s stellar achievements fought for against the intriguing backdrop of the Georgian prizefighting world … An engrossing biography, and cultural evaluation, that accurately captures the essence of the conflicting qualities of Georgian London’s prizefighting scene.
David Snowdon, author Writing the Prizefight, Winner 2014 Lord Aberdare Prize

This modern biography of Bill Richmond, Britain’s first black boxing superstar, is in my opinion quite simply the most well written, thoroughly researched and historically accurate work of its kind ever produced. Not only does the author touch upon and explore many of the known and lesser known mysteries and themes of Richmond’s life, he also manages to successfully explain the often complicated background history of his times, and does so in a highly readable and fascinating way. If you are interested in sport, or in British social history, or in reading about an icon and trailblazer for black athletes of today, then this book should be top of your current reading list. I think this book is also going to be an inspiration for many people for a long time into the future, and all credit to the author for bringing this boxing legend out of his current state of relative obscurity and putting him back in his rightful place as the founding father of black boxing, not just in Britain, but also the world.
Alex Joanides, boxing historian, Romevillemedia.co.uk, editor Memoirs of the Life of Daniel Mendoza (2011 edition)

The Interview!

First, thank you so much, Luke, for agreeing to be interviewed! I loved your book and I’m really excited to have you here!

Q: In your book, you mentioned that your father gave you a copy of the book Black Ajax. Was that an out-of-the-blue gift or did your father have some specific reason to believe you’d enjoy that book?
A: I was incredibly lucky growing up to have a mother and father who really encouraged me to read and develop a love of books. My dad was obsessed with books, in fact I can’t remember a single birthday or Christmas gift from him that wasn’t a book! His other obsessions were betting on horse races (not large amounts I hasten to add), Buddhism and pretty much all sports. An eclectic set of interests! Boxing was one of the many sports we watched together and I developed a real interest in the sport’s rich history, particularly its importance socially and culturally. My dad knew this and when he saw a copy of Black Ajax in a bookshop in central London he guessed I would enjoy it and, boy, was he right! It’s a wonderful novel.

Q: I’ve read a lot of books about historical periods or events that are pretty thin on crucial information like dates. Your book almost always uses specific dates with month, day and year (or for you folks over the pond, day, month, year) and you note when documentation is unclear as to date. Naturally that involves some painstaking documentation and note taking. Did you have a system? How did you keep all the chronologies straight?

A: I’m so glad you picked up on this and asked about it. I realised when researching the book that a lot of information already out there about Bill Richmond was either wrong, exaggerated or had been misinterpreted. Mainly this is because boxing historians who have written about him have solely relied on Boxiana by Pierce Egan, and books such as Miles’ Pugilistica and Fleischer’s Black Dynamite which simply aren’t written with any historical rigour whatsoever or reference to any primary sources. One of my principal aims with Richmond Unchained was to assemble the most complete factual account of Bill’s life that I could so that the real facts were on record somewhere. That meant returning to birth records, marriage records, tax records etc and original newspaper reports, rather than later recycled accounts. This depth of research explains why the book took about 12 years to complete from conception to publication! I used a pretty straightforward system – I filed all my paper research by month and year in chronologically ordered folders and, once my research graduated online as the Internet took off, I did the same thing with scans of material I assembled. It was a huge undertaking, but I couldn’t even start writing the book until this volume of research had been completed.

Q: When I was looking around the web I came across your author photo. After careful examination, on the left side of the picture by your shoulder, there is clearly an aquatic creature in attack mode. Is that a Great White or the Loch Ness Monster? Which would you rather face in a duel? In a battle to the death between the shark and Nessie, who wins and why?

A: LOL! You know what? I can resolve the mystery for you of this sea creature. That mysterious shadow is actually a result of my incredibly poor photo-shopping skills. This photo was taken by the pool of a hotel in Los Angeles and originally the shadow was a female swimmer who had a rather pained expression on her face so I tried to remove her! As for Nessie versus a shark, I see Nessie as an elusive Bill Richmond type, whereas the shark would just plough forward relentlessly like Jack Holmes or Tom Shelton. Nessie / Richmond would use superior stealth and movement to tire the shark out and win with ease.

Q: Set aside for the moment the need to draw conclusions only from documented facts. Given everything you’ve read, what do you believe happened in the first Cribbs vs. Molineaux fight. How much of what happened do you think Richmond probably anticipated or was prepared for?

A: That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? In a nutshell, I believe that Molineaux was cheated, although I don’t think we can ever prove this beyond doubt. I think there was a ‘long count’ of some sort at some stage as well as a ring invasion, which helped tip the balance in Cribb’s favour. I think that in the back of his mind, and based on his experiences in the ring and growing up in England, Richmond knew that such shenanigans were possible. However optimistically, and perhaps naively, I think he believed these obstacles could be overcome. I know one thing for sure – if time travel is ever invented the first place I am going is Copthall Common on 18 December 1810 because I am desperate to know what actually happened!

Q: My guess is you might be a fan of boxing in general. If Richmond were transported from the past to now, what you do think he’d make of the current state of boxing? Which fighters might he admire? My impression from reading your book was that Richmond was something of a technical innovator in the sport. Do you agree?

A: Yes, I’m still a fan of boxing. I’ll admit that I’ve had my moments where I have fallen out of love with the sport, but I always seem to return to it. I don’t think Bill would be particularly impressed with the state of boxing today. I think he would admire Floyd Mayweather on a technical level, but not on a personal level, as he is pretty far removed from the concept of the gentleman pugilist epitomised by Bill Richmond! Bernard Hopkins would also win Bill’s admiration for the way that, like Bill, he has led an abstemious and disciplined existence, allowing him to box well beyond an age which conventional wisdom holds is advisable. I do believe that Richmond was something of a pugilistic innovator as well as one of the earliest and most effective trainers and fight promoters. Bill probably didn’t originate the concept of ‘boxing on the retreat’, but certainly it was an art that he perfected and succeeded in winning praise for, putting paid to accusations that such a style was ‘unmanly’.

Q: I was intrigued by the photo of you and Earl George Percy unveiling the long overdue tribute to Bill Richmond. Has the connection between the Percy family and Richmond been family lore for them (if you know) or was it something they learned of later? If there were to be a more substantial memorial of Richmond, what form would you like to see that take?

A: It was incredibly gracious and generous of George to unveil the tribute. I managed to meet him through a mutual friend who has a great interest in Georgian boxing. George told me that he only found out about the connection between his family and Bill a couple of years ago, so I think it was a piece of family folklore that had become somewhat lost in the mists of time. Once he found out, he was intrigued and looked through the archives at his family residence Alnwick for more information, but there is very little there. When my friend informed George about my book he was very excited and intrigued and kindly agreed to act as guest of honour at our event. I’m really pleased with the memorial and the kindness displayed by Shepherd Neame brewery in arranging it after I suggested the idea to them. If another memorial was to appear to Bill I would love it to be a statue on a plinth in Trafalgar Square – close to where his Horse and Dolphin pub once stood. (Hey, I can dream, right?)

Q: I would love to see a movie or BBC production about Richmond. Idris Elba could play Richmond. Who would you cast in such a production?

A: This is one my dream scenarios as I think that Bill’s life story is crying out for a multi-part BBC or HBO mini-series! I’m a huge admirer of Idris Elba, ever since I first saw him in The Wire (incidentally the best TV series ever made IMO), however he doesn’t quite fit my mental image of Bill, largely because of his build, which is larger and more imposing than Bill’s. If Idris was a little younger then I think he’d be a great Tom Molineaux. I’d cast Chiwetel Ejiofor as Bill – I think he is one of the best actors working today. His build is right for Bill, and he would be equally comfortable with the urbane and erudite side of Bill’s personality, as well as the physical challenges. He is such a versatile performer, who possesses such depth of dramatic power. Funnily enough, I went to high school with Chiwetel and had the pleasure of acting with him in a several productions. If we needed a younger actor as Bill, perhaps to play him in his late teens or twenties, then Michael B. Jordan, based on the charming mixture of vulnerability and strength he displayed in the brilliant Friday Night Lights, would be a good choice, if he could master the English accent which I’m sure Bill possessed.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: Fatherhood! My wife is expecting our first child any week now, which is incredibly thrilling. In terms of my writing and research, I want to continue to spread the word about Bill Richmond. I’ve lived with his story for so long and have such admiration for him that I want as many people as possible to know about his life. I would love it if my book resulted in more information about Bill emerging, particularly in terms of tracing any descendants. If that’s the case then I would love to produce a revised edition of Richmond Unchained in the future. I’d also like to have an expanded edition published which includes all the references and sources which couldn’t fit in with the page restrictions I was working with.

(I’ve made a start posting these on my blog at billrichmond.blogspot.co.uk). I have a couple of other ideas for books I’d like to write, which would also connect with Georgian boxing, however the process of research is so painstaking that I think any further book is a long way off. Above all, I’m looking forward to spending time with my wonderful wife and baby, and continuing in my role as assistant head-teacher of a fantastic school in south London where I have now worked for 11 years.

The Giveaway

I’m giving a copy of the book to one commenter. It’s out in digital format now, print forthcoming. So I can send you your choice. If you’re in the US, it should be pretty easy. If you’re outside the US, it’s a little trickier, but we’ll work it out. I might not be able to get you a digital copy.

Rules: Must be 18 to enter. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. Prize will be awarded to an alternate winner if the winner does not respond to notifications from me.

To enter, leave a comment to this blog post. If you have questions for Luke, ask away! It would be awesome if you comment about the post, but telling me what color breeches you think Richmond should be wearing is fine. (It’s yellow on the book cover.) Leave your comment by 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time Thursday September 10, 2015.
GO.

Posted in Former Riskies, Giveaways, History, Interviews, Research | Tagged Bill Richmond, Biography, Boxing, Great reading, research | 7 Replies

Happy New Year! Guess What I DID!!!?!

Updated on November 17, 2022 by carolyn

OK, you’ll never guess. I began Operation New (to me) Desk!

This project entailed cleaning, discarding, and organizing. Three things I’m not good at. Phase One is complete. The old desk is out. The new desk is in.

The new desk is a standing/treadmill desk with no drawers so … problem, right? Because where do I put the stuff I did not discard?

Answer: In the file cabinet that arrived today — well ahead of schedule. My printer is on it right now!

Phase Three will be putting stuff in the drawers and deciding what to do with the left overs…

There is a Phase 3.5 now because I discovered my 20+ year old chair is no longer able to be height adjusted and it’s not the right height any more.

Phase 3.6 is installing the keyboard tray.

I even have writing news. Which is I have officially started Book 3 of my Sinclair Sisters Series and have some research to do, which will be the subject of future posts, I’m sure.

How about you? Do you have any successes to report? Or challenges underway? Let me know in the comments. We can cheer each other on!