Tag Archives: writing

Part three ~ Inspirations behind The Great Western Railway (GWR) Girls ~ People, Places and Pictures

So, as happens sometimes, life events and health took over and the posts I had planned had to be pushed onto the back burner, but hopefully now I will have some time to write again.

As I said in my previous post, three of the things that lead me to ideas for books are people, places and pictures. Previously, I have told you about some of the people and one of the places, so let me carry on from where I left off and tell you about another place behind the GWR Girls series.  

Number two on my list of places I have already mentioned, that is the STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon, which was opened in the millennium year, 2000. It is positioned in the former GWR workshops. As I said in my last post, I visited the museum quite a few times. I took my daughter when she was small, and, when I worked for Swindon Borough Council who own the museum, I used to run training sessions and hold and attend meetings in the rooms in the museum. What I love about the set up there, is that there are lots of spaces where scenes of working life are recreated, in life size models, a captured moment in time, and not only that there are sounds. The museum plays the sounds appropriate to the scenes. Which means as a writer I have the opportunity to think, how would I describe that. Then there are the personal descriptions from the people who worked there, describing what they experienced. Also items that hint at the life of the people who worked there—the checking in pegs, the glass framed foremen’s offices on their stilts in the corners of the spaces. I love the life-size platform that is set up for the 1940s era, and I like sitting in the carriages.  

Of course, for anyone with an engineering and technical brain there are plenty of actual trains to look around. But for me, with my overactive imagination, I just love the storytelling style of the museum. It has really brought things to life for me and many of the things I describe in my book I can only describe because I saw them in the museum.  

There are more things I could say about inspirations I have gained from this museum but that would give away parts of the plot!

I would definitely recommend a visit, though.

Anne Hathaway’s Cottage is another fascinating place…

You can walk from the centre of Stratford on Avon out to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, in what was once the Hamlet of Shottery. It is a nice thing to do if you can, as it makes you realise how far William Shakespeare would have walked to court the woman who was much older than him. He had scarcely finished his schooling days in the guildhall, or perhaps they began their affair when he was still at the school. But he definitely made an effort to meet up with Anne, it was not a casual endeavour, and you can mull over of his potential feelings and intent as you walk. While most of the walk is now through housing estates the cottage itself still feels as though it’s in a village location.

The cottage, Anne’s family home, where she was born and raised until she left when she married William, is preserved in the state it first became a tourist destination in the 18th Century. This home for sheep farmers was originally called Hewlands Farm. Its first phase was built in the 1400s, a simple long hall like dwelling that was leased to farmers by the land owner (very much like the house I live in). Unlike the guildhall in the town, this humble dwelling did not survive with many of its original features. As someone’s home it would have been updated with new fashions, and was extended as ways of living changed over the centuries. However in the 1700s they were far from modern ways of living, which means many very old structures and furniture has survived in situ.

You’ll see on these boards how the cottage changed over time to look as it does now …

What I loved most about the cottage, though, was the stories the guides told, and the best story, was why this property is so well preserved.

When Stratford on Avon became a place of pilgrimage for the famous, wealthy and other literary tourists, as I explained in my blog about why we remember and celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthplace, Anne Hathaway’s descendants had fallen on hard times financially. With these travellers coming to see and touch anything that had anything to do with Shakespeare, they saw on opportunity to earn money from their deceased relative’s good fortune and opened the door of the cottage to tourists. Visitors were told tales about the love affair between Shakespeare and his then future wife Anne.

A letter from Samuel Ireland, the 18th Century author, to his friend John Jordan, explains how Susanna Taylor, nee Hathaway, had sold him the exact chair that Shakespeare had sat in to court Anne. Who knows if that ‘courting chair’ was really in the house at the time of Shakespeare. Perhaps even Susanna didn’t know if that was true or not… There were records in the house that recorded visits from many of the renowned Regency poets too. Lord Byron, Shelley, and great actors like George and David Garrick, spent hours at the cottage, visiting regularly because the setting gave them inspiration. Even though at the time it was still a simple small farm. The family were making so little the house was split into three properties so they could rent the two ends of it to others.

Then came a more wily woman. Mary Baker, Susanna’s great grand-daughter, was definitely what we would call an entrepreneur today.

Mary saw the numbers of people visiting the buildings connected to Shakespeare’s life in the town grow, and in comparison hardly anyone would walk out to Hewlands Farm in Shottery. So she had a genius money spinner of an idea, she renamed the farm Ann Hathaway’s Cottage to make sure people would know the connection. It worked, it brought an increase in visitors. She gave them tours of her home, and told tales of William’s and Anne’s love affair, even talking through where they would have made love before their wedding.

She charged for everything – for her time, to serve tea and a ‘Shakespearean pork-pie’ in the very sport where William would have made love to his Anne, and for people to drink from the well that he would have drunk from. She gave people a gift from the garden too, picking single flowers to give to visitors to keep as a memory or send to others, again supporting the sense of romantic living.

She kept a visitors book, and even Charles Dickens and Mark Twain are recorded as visiting.

Her best story/hustle that I discovered, though, were the pieces of wood she allowed her visitors to chisel off an old oak two seater settle where she claimed William Shakespeare sat beside Anne during they’re courtship. The current managers of the property, The Shakespeare Trust, know that the settle is no where near that old. It was complete nonsense and Mary Baker knew it.

It makes me wonder what other tales she made up to con these gullible visitors. Ha! Ha!

So, what is original to William Shakespeare’s days in the cottage? …

The floor! the flagstones on some of the floors, polished by so many feet, and the door frames Anne and he would have walked through.

As you can tell, this is another place I would definitely recommend you visit if you go to Stratford on Avon.