THE ROYAL CLARENCE HOTEL, EXETER

This is a photograph showing some of the venerable and iconic buildings which form part of the Cathedral Green in Exeter. It was taken on a sunny summer's day in 2006. All of the old buildings visible in the picture, with the exception of the red-brick block behind the church, survived the Baedeker bombing raids during World War II. Who could have predicted that ten years later the Royal Clarence Hotel, dating back to 1769 and said to be the first hotel in England, would have been destroyed by fire in October, 2016?

 I worked in Exeter for many years and it's hard to count the number of times I have not only walked past but attended events at the hotel. It feels like a backdrop to my best memories of the city and Cathedral Green in particular. More importantly on a personal level it has inspired - and appeared in (under another guise) my writing.

By way of a little tribute to my memories of the place, here is an extract from my current work-in-progress 'Stopping Time' which takes place in a hotel similar to, and based on, the Royal Clarence. There is no need to introduce the characters - they speak for themselves...

GLIMPSES FROM 'STOPPING TIME' by P R Ford

They reached the hotel entrance where double doors opened into a cool shady lobby. Julia clearly knew exactly where she was, for she led Garamond down a passage and into the lounge bar which at this time of day was fairly quiet, with few customers. Those few were obviously business people, some with open laptops placed at angles on the dark wooden tables. Conversations were being conducted in low voices, and Garamond appreciated Julia’s discretion in bringing him here.

An impeccably attired young man, anticipating their needs, ushered them to a table which stood on its own in a secluded corner and asked them what they would like to drink.

“I’ll have a black coffee, please,” Julia told him. The man looked expectantly at Garamond, who was prepared for this and said:

“I would like water.”

“Still or carbonated, Sir?” he was asked, and threw an anxious glance at Julia who replied for him.

“Still, please. No ice.” She smiled up at the young man who thanked them and silently withdrew.

There was an awkward pause during which neither looked at the other. Then Garamond said,

“Thank you for meeting me here. I wish to ask you to do something for me. It is very important.”

“I suppose,” Julia replied coolly, “this is something to do with Helen?”

He nodded, and the uncomfortable silence which followed lasted for several minutes. Their drinks were served, and Julia quietly stirred her coffee as she considered how to react.

∞

  Garamond simply sat, with his hands on his knees, as he mulled over her words. Julia remembered that his people behaved like this, and also recalled how annoying it was. She drank some more of her coffee and waited for him to speak. Eventually he said, 

“I need to consider this. It would seem that all is not as we had supposed.”

“Well, while you consider it, I need to get back to the office!” Julia announced. She drank the rest of her coffee and prepared to leave, but as she was about to stand up a man who had been sitting in the obscurity of a nearby alcove rose to his feet and strode quietly across to their table.

“Hello Julia,” he said jovially, holding out his hand to her. They both looked up at him in surprise. He was middle-aged; a smartly dressed rather overweight man with thinning dark hair swept back off a round, kindly face. His skin glowed from the warmth.

“Titus!” Julia exclaimed, taking his hand and standing up as she did so. “How nice to see you!” And how opportune, she thought as she withdrew her hand and pulled her bag up on to her shoulder.

“Have you taken to entertaining your clients here, then?” he asked her with mock amusement, before turning his sharp gaze upon Garamond who had remained seated.

“Oh, of course!” she laughed back. She wondered whether or not to introduce Garamond, and the dilemma must have shown itself on her face, because the man immediately said,

“Don’t let me interrupt you. I just wanted to say ‘hello’ in passing.”

“No, no, I was just leaving,” Julia explained. “I am dreadfully busy, you know what it’s like.” She leaned down to Garamond and said in a low voice, almost threatening in its tone, “I will meet you back here in a couple of hours, alright? But then: that’s it.” She waited until he nodded his acceptance of her offer. Then she turned a bright gaze upon the other man saying, “I’ll see you again, Titus. Take care!”

Heedless of the dilemma in which she was leaving them both, she turned and strode over to the bar, where despite her annoyance she had the decency to pay for their refreshments.

The man called Titus turned towards Garamond and their eyes met in a flash of mutual understanding.

“Hello, Garamond,” said Titus as he sat down on the chair which Julia had just vacated.

“Greetings, Titus,” replied his brother-in-law. “I wondered if we would meet.”

∞

To any innocent observers within the hotel this could have been a meeting between two ordinary people: one a businessman, the other a tourist. Both of these people, however, were aware of the truly bizarre nature of their encounter. Titus was no more human than Garamond.

The two of them closed their eyes and attempted to make contact telepathically, but any kind of sensitive ambience in the atmosphere was at that moment dispelled by the barman switching on a loud burst of taped music. They both flinched, glancing up and around them, Garamond slightly unnerved but Titus driven to annoyance. This was clearly a feature of his new life on Earth which he did not enjoy. He threw Garamond a brief smile before focussing his attention on the barman. A few persuasive thoughts later the man rubbed at his short haircut and moved across to reduce the volume almost to silence.

Half an hour passed, during which time the barman was mentally persuaded to entirely ignore the two men who appeared to be asleep at one of the tables. A few customers came and went, and they also seemed not to notice this bizarre behaviour, although one much older man who had been reading a newspaper when they arrived found the atmosphere so relaxing that he also fell asleep...

Exeter Cathedral - front

'Stopping Time' will - I hope - be published in 2017, subject to the author having finished it by then!  I hope that there will be a future Royal Clarence, but the feeling of history engendered by such an old and beautiful building will never again be present on the site. My huge admiration for the brave people involved in fighting the fire and those who supported them (and continue to do so) is a tiny tribute here. As a county, Devon stands united in its sadness and determined in its pragmatism and hope to overcome such a blow and to rebuild for the future.

PUBLISHING THE PAPERBACK

Since writing the last blog post, several weeks have intervened and Summer has become Autumn.  Everything stopped for the misery of a head cold, and both my writing and the garden lost focus. Then something else took over: I decided to publish a paperback version of ‘Losing Time’ and the process began.

This has not been an easy project, and it thrust me into a world of which I knew nothing. Such an experience is somewhat akin to being pushed into a river! It wasn’t until I dragged myself back to sit on the sidelines and take stock that I realised I had it in my power to control every process if I took it slowly and stuck to my guns.

I could not have succeeded without the help of two people: my sponsor, and Alexa from Compass Publishing / The Book Refinery. My sponsor wishes to remain anonymous, so no more about him. But Alexa was a real find and if I hadn’t decided to purchase my own ISBN number I would not be writing this. 

I am a writer, not a publicist and selling a product is something new. My first task was to set up my author website, and fortunately this was an area where I had a little experience. It is also fairly easy to achieve these days, and there is a great deal of help online. Next, the manuscript of the book needed to be formatted for the printers. This was painstaking, headache-inducing stuff, but the sponsor helped at the final hurdle and the correct file was sent across to Alexa for the printers. Finally we needed to work on the cover, bringing together my efforts and Alexa's expertise to produce something which both reflects the mysterious aspects of the story and the importance of colour to the theme, as well as attracting a reader to purchase the book.

In three weeks' time I expect to be sitting in my study surrounded by copies of the paperback, and the most difficult task will begin: selling them. That will be for another blog post.

Here is a link to the new website: www.prfordauthor.com

Now... back to what I do best - continuing to write! 

TALISMANS MEMENTOES AND LUCKY CHARMS

Very few of us go through life without at some point picking up something which appears to attach itself to us. I’m referring of course to those odd little objects, pieces of jewellery or shells and stones which mean nothing to anyone else, but a great deal to their owners. They are usually small, easily tucked away – and equally easily lost! I suspect they are collected when we are young, particularly talismans which often have ‘powers’ of some sort attributed to them. Lucky charms may also appear to their owners to hold some kind of influence, magical or otherwise. 

 

I was about eleven years old when this funny little picture came into my life. Many of my school friends had small items which they were allowed to take with them into exams, and I was desperately searching for something which I could use when my mother suggested this. It was hers, and I must try and remember to ask her where it came from – although it must have belonged to one of her parents. It is a little spherical disk measuring just under an inch and a half (3.5 cm) in diameter. The glass top has a bevelled edge and covers a photograph labelled ‘Sandown Bay and Pier’. The back looks as though the picture was stuck on to a card or some kind of souvenir from the Isle of Wight, and research has indicated that the photo dates from the 1920s – so it’s almost 100 years old! But the appeal comes from two areas where, either through a fault in the glass or the insertion of early holographic strips, a pearly green glow shines out of the picture.

This picture accompanied me to every exam I ever took, right through school to my very last Chartered Accountancy exam. It took on a significance which belied its humble origins. Every time I sat down at a desk, out came the picture to be placed – together with pens, pencils and – later – slide rule and a packet of polo mints at the top of the desk. It travelled around my schools in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, up to North Wales for accountancy and back to London for my final exams. It has survived house moves, storage, relationship break-ups and being lost, only to turn up again when we moved here to Tavistock. I can’t claim to have been influenced in any way by this object, because I didn’t always pass the exams I sat, but it had to be there on my desk and it always returns to me, even after years of being mislaid.

Why do we attach so much importance to such items? I have listened to, and argued in, many debates about superstition and religion over the years, but I hold no conclusive opinions. I have also come across a multitude of different talismans owned by both men and women - all of whom refuse to let them go. The saddest ones are those which end up in charity shops and house clearance auctions, betraying their deceased or impoverished owners by continuing to exist. They have served their purpose and they move on, perhaps to become someone else’s lucky charm.

Whatever your opinion, you cannot deny the attraction of talismans, which have been around for thousands of years. Google the word, and you will come up with hundreds of the things, some incredibly valuable, others priceless – in every sense. Humans are sentimental beings, I conclude with a smile…

A small turquoise and gold brooch, another sentimental keepsake

1970

I have been writing about 1970. A whole chapter is set in that year, and nothing so much invokes the past as becoming immersed in it in this way. I was forced to research the weather, and the internet makes this such an easy task now. My chapter is set in March of that year, when it was cold after a hard winter. 

But my thoughts quickly moved on to the warm days of June and July, when the sun seemed to be shining endlessly and in the background to my last weeks at school Mungo Jerry was singing ‘In the Summertime’.

These memories shine with bright colours which time has failed to dim.  At eighteen I was full of joy and anticipation, longing for what the future might bring yet terrified of leaving behind everything which seemed so safe and secure. Rooms were familiar, daily haunts: the light-filled Art Room where I applied thick acrylic paint with a spatula to large pieces of manila paper; the Common Room in our Sixth Form house where we lounged in miniskirts whilst the room above became fugged with cigarette smoke. Rules began to be abandoned as we worked our way through our exams. The library…

At this point I have to face the awful memory of what also happened at that time. Tthe morning of my best friend’s Maths ‘A’ Level. Nothing prepared our other friend and me for what was about to transpire, as we turned out of the Sixth Form house and walked along the pavement to the point at which we usually crossed the main road to reach the school. I think we were chatting, I’m not sure, but I remember saying casually,

     “How’s your mother, E?” because her mother had been quite ill with something no-one was clear about.

E dropped the bombshell as though she was telling us the exam would be held in a different room.

     “Mum died last night. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I don’t remember crossing the road, but I do recall the sensation of the pavement almost falling away from my feet. After that the next memory is of sitting, stunned, in the library. I didn’t have any exams that day. E had walked straight into the Hall and was taking her exam – for which she subsequently received the highest grade. I will never know how she achieved it, but she was – and still is – clever, focussed and extraordinarily determined. I, by contrast, was deeply affected by the whole thing and did not do as well as I might have in my own exams – although who is to say I would have fared any better if E’s mother had not died?

Everything changed after that June day, but there are good memories as well as bad. In the long summer holidays I found a job at Boots the Chemist which I loved so much that it put me off going to Teacher Training College – which probably upset the whole balance of my life at that time, as I only lasted one term at the College. I spent days with E and her bereaved family, and other, more carefree times with my own. The photographs of my cousin's wedding in the September - all the talk of her wearing a hat rather than a veil - are full of laughter and well-remembered faces, many of whom are long dead now and sorely missed.

I feel as though I have been on a journey, not only to another place and time, but revisiting the scared, hopeful young person and her friends trying to make sense of everything being thrown at them by life at a most sensitive time in their lives. Would I go back? Ah, no. Those days are gone.

 

“In the Summertime

 when the weather is high

You can stretch right up

 and touch the sky…”

 

(If you really want to listen to the song, here is the link. I wouldn't advise watching - it's too painful!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvUQcnfwUUM

And yes, it's me in the middle of the school photo...