Reading the earlier blogs, it seems to me
migrants to the U.S.A. and Canada all have exciting historical stories to tell,
whereas that of someone like myself with a family history rooted in one area
for millennia – okay, that’s an exaggeration, but only slight – appears dull by
comparison.
There again, maybe not.
Island of Storms is the title of my historical fiction in
the making. Actually, it would be more accurate to describe it as in the
makeover. It deals with an American teenager over in Britain with her school.
Her Irish grandmother enables her to remain in the U.K. after the other kids
return to the States. In the beginning, our heroine is full of romantic
notions, and also of misconceptions. She finds the romance, the fun, and also
herself caught up in a terrorist plot. In the end, her perception has changed
considerably. Her adventures there cast clearer, light on the complexities of that small island's people.
Some years ago I wrote the above-titled
historical fiction novel, about the resurgence of the Irish Republican Army in
the late fifties. I had the book all ready to go, honed, hopeful of finding a
home, and then two unfortunate incidents put it on the back burner.
My husband had recently purchased a book.
‘LOUISA, LADY IN WAITING’ is Elizabeth Longford’s compilation of Louisa, Countess
of Antrim’s diaries. Louisa was a lady in waiting to both Queen Victoria and
Queen Alexandra.
I had taken just a cursory glance of this
book, the cover, and the many pictures in it, but had not read
it.
My time was too taken up in preparing for my eldest sister's visit from Scotland. Since the maternal branch of my family, and my
husband’s family on both sides, have Irish roots, Sister got talking to my
husband of the times she and my aunt – who was about the same age – would
vacation in Ireland in the years before the Second World War. I wasn’t present
at this discussion so was totally unprepared for what was to come.
A
good deal of this book is centred on Lady Louisa’s home in Ireland, so of
course it was trotted out for my sister’s inspection.
“Oh!” cried Sister in pleased surprise,
“we stayed at this estate many times when we visited the farm in Carnlough.”
I hurried over for a look. What a shock!
The name of the village in my novel had one letter different from that of the
estate. Not only that, so many of the names, even nicknames, I had chosen for
my fictional characters appeared in the book.
Old sins cast long shadows, it’s said. And
old villagers have long memories; tales of their childhood have been passed
along to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren with the inevitable
omissions, additions, and embroideries along the way. There was no way I could
send that book out without extensive alterations. I shelved it.
Here we are, several years later, it is
time to resuscitate what is now a work-in-progress. It was timely when I wrote
it, and is just as timely now, though I will keep the setting in the late 50s –
early 60s.
