Titanic – I Walk Alone

Who was Tommy Lewis?

Seventh Daughter, the third book in my historic fiction series, is currently being prepared for publication and should be available shortly. The story is set in the summer of 1931 when helping a neighbour unleashes a chain of events that threatens to tear the close-knit but impoverished Northam Street community apart. A few of the characters will be familiar to anyone who has read Plagued and Land Fit For Heroes. One new character is mentioned several times, although he doesn’t make an appearance. Most residents of Southampton will recognise his name, Thomas Lewis, but how many know his story? I think it is about time I got round to telling it.

Mostly boats and a ghost

On 19 January 2022, I had been writing about boats and boatyards, so I had boats on my mind. I’d also been thinking about the maritime history of my city. In the days when I travelled the world, whenever I mentioned my home town, people would smile and talk about cruise ships and containers. In Malta, I was told, ‘Everything we have here comes on a ship from Southampton.’ Although I’ve never been a sailor or taken a cruise, I have lived with the sound of seagulls and foghorns all my life, and I can’t imagine not having the sea on my doorstep.

St Denys roots

When I set out for a walk on 11 April 2022, St Denys was my aim. It was warmer than it had been and the sky was pleasantly blue, but the colour really capturing my attention was pink. In part, this was down to blossom bursting out on many of the trees I passed, but there was also an intriguing pink shop I wanted a closer look at. We’d passed it in the car on our way to the supermarket a few times and the bright pink made it stand out. The sign said, The Whimsical Kitchen, but, from the car, it was hard to see what it actually sold.

The art of conversation and great escapes

What did people talk about in 1918? This was a question very much on my mind when I began writing Plagued. Dialogue is a key element in any work of fiction, what the characters say, or don’t say, often tells the story. When it comes to historic fiction, the conversations also help set the scene, and the tone and content needs to be right. If it isn’t, readers will notice, or at least they will find it increasingly difficult to suspend their disbelief. Obviously, modern terms and phrases have to be avoided, and I spent a great deal of time Googling the origins of certain words and phrases (like Heath Robinson) to make sure I didn’t let any anachronisms slip in. Reading works written at the time helped with vocabulary too, but the content was another matter.

A hint of normality

On 14 March 2020 when we all said goodbye at the end of the four hundred and first Southampton parkrun none of us could have guessed that it would be more than sixteen months before we’d see parkrun number 402. In those sixteen months, the world had changed. We had all become conditioned to wearing masks, keeping our distance, touching nothing and disinfecting everything. The logistics of organising an event with hundreds of people running in close proximity, queueing for tokens and handing over barcodes was a nightmare.

Not parkrun and difficult decisions

One of the things both Commando and I had been missing since the world closed down was parkrun. Obviously, Commando missed his Saturday morning 5k run, along with all his parkrun friends. Running has never been my thing. I tried it years ago, long before Commando started running actually. I downloaded the couch to 5k app to my phone and I did most of it. What it taught me was that I could run, I just didn’t like it at all. Running made me miss all the interesting things I see when I’m walking. It also made me hot and bothered. Even so, I missed the camaraderie of parkrun, all the people I chatted to before and after the run and the lovely quiet walks I took when the mad people were all running.

Bridges, engines and boilers

14 September 2019

With the ship now turning for home it seemed like a good time to go and see the things we’d missed out of our earlier walk around. First on the list was the bridge. This is where all the exciting things like navigation happen and, normally, it’s somewhere passengers don’t get to go.

The final Titanic tales from Portswood part two

Titanic leaving Belfast from Wikimedia Commons

25 July 2019

Finding houses on Portswood Road was never going to be easy. For a start, quite a few are shops and don’t have house numbers. There are also many gaps where houses used to be but have disappeared, either through modernisation, bombing or a combination of the two. To compound the issue we soon realised that if 368 was opposite 535 we were going to have to concentrate hard. We had four houses to find but it was clear from the outset we would be lucky to find any still standing.

The final Titanic tales from Portswood part one

Poster Advertising Vinolia Otto Soap for the ca. 1900

25 July 2019

This morning we finally set out to find the last of the Portswood Titanic crew houses. It was yet another stupidly hot muggy day, not a cloud in the sky or a hint of wind, probably not the best for walking the streets looking for houses. We only had eleven to find though and a fairly small area to cover. Roadworks on the corner near Bitterne Park Triangle meant a short detour and a walk on the park side of the bridge rather than the railway side. It made no real difference to distance but gave us different views to admire. The little houseboats moored on the bank seemed especially appealing in the searing heat of the morning.

Titanic tales from Portswood part 2

*The wreckage of the Titanic lying From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration*

11 July 2019

In the end, after much dithering and discussion, we decided to find the last of the houses in the southern half of Portswood before finding somewhere to have a coffee and a rest. There were just seven of them and three were in one street so it didn’t seem like it would take too long or mean too much walking in the baking sun.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30