Netherwood (59 page)

Serve with butter and homemade jam.

Ingredients

A pound and a half of best Bramley apples

4oz sugar

lemon juice

4oz butter, softened

4oz caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten

4oz plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Method

Peel and core the apples, then slice them thinly. Put them in a pie dish with a splash of cold water, the sugar and some lemon juice. Bake in a moderate oven until the apple slices begin to soften and break down.

Cream together the butter and the sugar until soft and pale. Gradually add the beaten eggs to the mixture, little by little, then sift the flour and baking powder and fold it in.

Spoon the sponge batter over the top of the baked apple mixture, and put in the oven for about fifty minutes, or until the top has risen and is pale golden. Sprinkle with sugar to finish.

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(Penguin Books, 2008).

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Not in Front of the Servants
(Century, 1989).

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(Sutton Publishing, 2000).

Elliott, Brian,
Yorkshire Miners
(This History Press, 2004).

Elliott, Brian,
South Yorkshire Mining Disasters,
volumes I and II (Wharncliffe Books, 2009).

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(Sutton Publishing, 1989).

Mulvagh, Jane,
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(Black Swan, 2009).

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(Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 1994).

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(Persephone Books, 1999).

Netherwood
draws heavily on class distinctions in early twentieth-century Britain – did you find the attitudes discussed surprising or shocking?

How would you compare and contrast Eve and Henrietta?

What is the central theme of the book and how did it resonate with you?

There is much food imagery in this novel. Can you explain why imagery is so important in the story and how effective it is?

How are relationships between the classes portrayed in the book?

Who is your favourite/least favourite character and how true did each of them feel?

What do you think will happen in the next book in the series?

There are a number of significant – and very different – male characters in this book. In what ways did each of them help or hinder Eve?

There are various different businesses described in this novel – how does working life differ from today?

What do you think Anna’s presence in Netherwood says about the political situation in the wider world?

The turn of the twentieth-century was a time of great political change in Britain too – how does
Netherwood
reflect the catalysts for that?

Do you think Eve, Henrietta and Anna are typical of their era and class?

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes, and I’ve always written to one extent or another, though for many years it was as a journalist and not as a writer of fiction. When I was eleven, though, I wrote an extremely emotional and heartfelt piece about the lives of pit ponies at my dad’s old colliery – perhaps that was the beginning of
Netherwood …

How did you research
Netherwood
?

Well I’ve just mentioned my dad, Bob Sanderson: he was very much my chief mining consultant and he has the most amazing recall of authentic detail. His own working life started the day after his fourteenth birthday at the local colliery, and although it was the 1940s, not 1903, lots of his memories were still tremendously valuable to me. The food – all those pies and puddings – was what my Grandma, Nellie Sanderson, used to cook for me. Other than that it was books, books and more books – my desk and windowledge are piled high. I had a lovely view towards Hay Bluff when I began, and now I can barely see it!

What is your writing day like?

Ah, I wish I could say I wake with the larks and write until lunchtime every day. In fact, my writing days are never the same. Life in the country with three children, two holiday cottages and a small menagerie has a habit of filling up time, so basically I write whenever I can: some days are very productive, some are hopeless. I just have to go with the flow and make the most of my writing time when I find it. I should probably be more disciplined, but there we go. I find I can’t write if my head is full of other things that need doing.

What does it feel like to see your debut novel published?

Absolutely, completely, overwhelmingly wonderful.

What advice would you give to aspiring novelists?

I hardly feel qualified to say! But the best piece of advice I ever heard was, just make a start. Get something down, because you can always go back and improve on it, but you can’t edit a blank page. And don’t worry if you don’t know the ending, or even the middle. Start writing and you’ll find you’re going somewhere. Finally, I would say don’t stop reading other books when you’re writing one yourself – we all find our own voices by learning from others more experienced at the craft.

Where do your characters come from and how do they evolve?

My characters are a real mix of people I knew when I was growing up and people who exist only in my imagination. Eve Williams and Nellie Kay, for example, were both inspired by my Grandma, although she was only a starting point – there’s certainly nothing biographical about
Netherwood!
There’s a huge cast of characters so at times it felt like a bit of a juggle to keep them all going, but the main protagonists were very clear in my mind and that made the writing easier; they developed and grew very naturally and sometimes it felt as if it was in spite of me and not because of me. That sounds very odd, but honestly – they took on a life of their own. I always found that if I didn’t know what to write next, I could write about Anna and she would show me the way. Everyone should know an Anna Rabinovich.

Did the writing of
Netherwood throw up any surprises for you?

Not surprises exactly, but I learned a lot about the mining community I grew up in and its relationship at the turn of the twentieth-century with the local aristocratic family. The Earl and Countess of Netherwood are fictional, but were typical of the landed ruling class of the time. I also learned that the famous Yorkshire characteristic of dropping ‘the’ in favour of ‘t” is called a dental fricative – I’ve been doing it all my life and never knew what it was called!

Do you have a favourite character in
Netherwood
?

I grew to love all of the main characters. I was so sad to have to kill off Arthur! Eve, Anna and Henrietta are all women I would like to be friends with. Amos is wonderful – a composite of all the dry, dour but kind men who populate towns like Netherwood. And I have to confess I have a soft spot for Tobias: well, who wouldn’t?

Will there be a sequel?

Most definitely, and it will pick up precisely where
Netherwood
leaves off.

What do you think of TV period dramas? Who would you cast in the TV adaptation of
Netherwood
?

I’m a great fan of period dramas; they’re wonderfully escapist and gorgeous to look at – perfect Sunday evening viewing. I love those big, overpopulated nineteenth-century stories like
South Riding
or
Cranford,
where the main storylines intertwine with the small dramas of daily life. As for
Netherwood,
well … as long as they can pull off an authentic Yorkshire accent, I shall be happy!

You portray two strong women in Eve and Henrietta. How are they similar, despite the differences in their circumstance?

Eve and Henrietta are spirited, strong and capable – typical Yorkshire women in fact. They don’t suffer fools gladly, although from time to time they both have to. I feel a little sorry for Henrietta though; in spite of – or perhaps because of – her great wealth and privilege, she is less free than Eve to fulfill her potential. Henrietta admires Eve greatly and is also, I think, a little envious of her independence.

What do you enjoy reading?

A mix of classic and contemporary novels. I just finished
Wives and Daughters
by Elizabeth Gaskell, but before that I read and really loved
The Northern Clemency
by Philip Hensher. I like books that span a few years and encompass the lives of a lot of people. Every five years or so I revisit Jane Austen and read my way through the complete works as a special treat.

H
igh on the northern side of the mining town of Netherwood was a wind-blown swathe of common land – not vast, certainly not a wilderness, but wide and varied enough for a person who walked there to feel unfettered and alone. It wasn’t much to look at: coarse grass more yellow than green, pockets of unchecked scrub, spiteful, unruly gangs of hawthorn, the occasional jagged, craggy outcrop hinting at a wild and different geology before man roamed the earth, let alone farmed or mined it. According to a bill of commoners’ rights, the people of the town could put their livestock out to graze here, but in this community of miners it wasn’t much of an advantage. The grass was kept down by a small herd of retired pit ponies, stocky little Welsh breeds that had survived the rigours of their long, underground life and been given the freedom of the common in return. Once in a blue moon someone managed to acquire a pig but the common was unfenced, and while the ponies always managed to understand the boundaries, pigs seemed cursed by curiosity and wanderlust: a rudimentary pen built by Percy Medlicott a few years before had failed to contain his Tamworth sow. The pen, against everyone’s predictions, was still standing but the sow had met an early end on Turnpike
Lane in a collision with a coach-and-four. Percy had had to share the spoils with the driver, who had been unseated from the box by the accident; the man had travelled home to York the following day with a fractured collarbone, a half-leg pork joint and a packet of loin chops, by way of compensation.