Sword and Song (35 page)

The summer musical party around which
Sword and Song
takes place is based on the house parties held by George Bowes of Gibside in County Durham. Bowes was rather more ambitious than
Edward Ayrton, and a great deal wealthier, and entertained his guests each year with an Italian violinist, who brought not only music with him but also macaroni and mineral water. The German sword
makers of Shotley Bridge also really existed, although their family connections with Philadelphia are fictional.

A number of real people fleetingly appear in Charles Patterson’s world. Solomon Strolger, organist of All Hallows for 53 years, is one, as is another organist, James Hesletine of Durham
Cathedral. Thomas Mountier, the bass singer in
Broken Harmony
, was a singing man at the Cathedral for a short while until drink intervened. The Jenisons and Ords were real families with a
particular interest in music but the specific individuals who appear in these books are fictional.

Charles Patterson is entirely fictional, but the impoverished situation in which he finds himself would have been entirely familiar to musicians of the time. If he has an alter ego, it would be
Charles Avison, a Newcastle-born musician and composer who was well-known in his time and who dragged himself up by his own efforts from obscurity to wealth and respect, even being invited by local
gentry to dine at their tables. If Patterson’s career follows the same path, he will be extremely happy.

CHARLES PATTERSON’S NEWCASTLE

Key

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