Leeds - An Occupied City

In the Civil War, Leeds was an occupied city. It changed hands several times in the fighting, finally being taken by Parliament forces in 1644 and a garrison station there under the leadership of Major (or Major-General) Carter.

The Scots troops who’d helped finally take the city did cause some destruction, with houses burnt, and in the wake Leeds was a depressed place, the wool trade that was its lifeblood in tatters for a few years. It would come back, of course, but not all would thrive. Several wealthy merchants who’d aided the Royalist cause received heavy fines, including John Harrison, one of the city’s great benefactors who gave Leeds St. John’s Church, the original grammar school (located more or less where the Grand Theatre stands today) and the Market Cross (which was at the top of Briggate by the Headrow).

To top it all off, early in 1645 there was an outbreak of plague that lasted most of the year, with the poor areas of Vicar Lane and the Calls the worst hit. The first victim was a little girl named Alice Musgrave.

As a novelist, not a historian, I’m not going to go into all the facts. Instead I offer an excerpt from a work-in-progress set in Leeds at the time that – I hope – sets the scene of despair and desperation.

He rode across the bridge and into Leeds, his uniform covered in dust and mud, the shine worn off his long boots. The sword at his waist tapped gently against the horse’s flanks as the animal moved.

He looked around at the place as the animal trotted. Several houses had been burned, with only a few, fragile blackened timbers remaining, lakes of dark water and slush where floors had once been. One of them must have been a fine place once, a rich man’s mansion, proud and bold. Now it would give shelter to no one.

The troopers on the street saluted him, but he only spotted a few local folk, scuttling quickly and quietly about their business, trying to remain unnoticed. The town seemed hushed, dead, as if a pall had descended and wouldn’t lift. It was hard to believe this had once been a bustling place, starting to grow fat on the wool trade. Since then it had been fought over, taken, lost, recaptured, and each time its fortunes had fallen a little further. Now it looked as though they’d reached their lowest ebb.

The biggest building stood right the middle of the street, cart tracks in the muddy road on either side. He dismounted, gave the reins to a soldier and entered. A clerk looked at him, then snapped upright in his chair.

“I’m Captain Eyre,” he said. “Here to report to Major Carter.”

That had been a week before, at the end of February 1645. He’d been seconded from Hull to serve as adjutant with the garrison of Parliament troops here. They’d stormed Leeds for the final time the year before, led by the Scotsmen who’d had their vengeance for the resistance in the burning and hangings, the looting and rape.

At least they were long since gone, praise God, sent back north of the border in disgrace. The commandant was trying to bring order here, to return Leeds to what it had once been.

The captain looked out of the mullioned windows and along Briggate. It was Tuesday morning, so the twice-weekly cloth market would be held on the bridge. The weavers would display their cloth on the parapets and the merchants would go around, deciding what to buy.

He’d been there on Saturday, dismayed by the poor turnout. No more than ten clothiers and just a handful of merchants, the deals that conducted in whispers. Orders were low, he’d been told, with men preferring to take their trade to Bradford and Wakefield, anywhere that hadn’t been torn apart by battle.

He’d walked the streets and seen the looks on the faces. Whether rich or poor, they all carried fear in their eyes. The world they understood had vanished. Instead of the Corporation there was martial law, the commandant issuing edicts and enforcing them with troops who patrolled or stood guard on the corners, the dull light glinting off their pikes. Men had to be off the street by nine, women had to dress with due modesty. Sunday worship could only be at St. John’s, and there could be no trade on the Sabbath. Whether it wanted to be or not, Leeds was becoming a city of God.

All the merchants and aldermen who’d supported the king were being assessed. They’d have their day in court, make their cases and receive fines. A few had already left, like lawyer Benson, with nothing left to his name after his house was torched to its bones.

Officially the Captain was adjutant to the garrison, but his true job was gathering intelligence, to learn of any Royalist plots and stop them. By itself that would be difficult enough in a place where he knew no one and all the citizens distrusted the soldiers, but he also had to uphold the laws. Already he’d ordered a whore whipped through the streets for plying her trade and a baker in the stocks after he sold adulterated bread.

This could be a good place, he decided. Trade could be rebuilt, normality return, the sound of laughter heard in the air again. With time and God’s good grace.

He turned at the knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, hearing the familiar limp of Wilson, the pikeman who was his clerk. The soldier had been injured at York, a musket ball breaking the bone in his thigh, but he could write and do his sums, more valuable at a desk than on any battlefield. He was better doing this than begging on a corner somewhere.

The man had his hands pushed together in front of him, his face full of terror.

“What is it?” Eyre asked.

“There’s plague, sir, down on Vicar Lane. A little girl.”

The Early Days of Running Water

A chance remark on Twitter left me thinking about the early days of water supply in Leeds. In my second novel set in the city, Cold Cruel Winter, I have a scene set in the pumping station by below Leeds Bridge (as it’s shown in the 1725 Cossens map).

Some houses in Leeds – the wealthier ones, obviously, received running water from the end of the 17th century. Engineers George Sorocold and Henry Gilbert undertook work todrawn water from the river Aire and pump it through a network of pipes to a reservoir on Wade Lane, above St. John’s church. From there pipes were laid to the houses of subscribers (there’s also mention of hydrants for fire engines; how true this is, I’m not sure). However, although they might have had running water, the ways of hot water on tap were still a long way off.

A water wheel, it would seem, was attached to the bridge (the third span, evidently), and, once lead pipe had been laid under the streets, a total of 2.5 kilometres, or a little over a mile, it reach the reservoir or cistern. Historian Ralph Thoresby recalled the pipe being laid under Kirkgate. The process began in 1694, with Sorocold, an engineer who’d work in Derby, among other places, evidently in charge of th4e project; certainly it’s his name that’s most associated with it.

The lead pipes for pushing the water, which was pumped by early steam engines through the system, were of lead, 75mm in diameter, and possibly some were bored trunks from elm trees, which were commonly used for pipes in the early days of water and sewage.

It’s perhaps surprising that the rich folk of Leeds had running water so early, one of the first cities in England to offer this. But it was a subscriber service, and likely not cheap. In a place with a population of between 6-7,000, only a few would have been able to afford it so it might well have been a while before there was a good return on investment. But within 60 years there was a need for a new pumping works, and a century after the system was built, three new cisterns were added, close to where Albion St. stands today – by then Leeds had around 17,000 residents and was, to some degree, fat off the wool trade.

The Launch Party

The last few weeks have been stressful. It’s not just the holiday cover in the part-time job I do, more than doubling my hours and taking away from writing work (novels and unpaid), it’s the preparation for the launch of Come the Fear.

It went off very smoothly in the end, thanks to those who participated and Blackwell’s Leeds who arrived with copies of the book to sell. And great kudos to everyone at Arts@Trinity (the old Holy Trinity Church), who did a great, unruffled job most professionally and provided the perfect venue, a church built in 1727, right in the period of the books. As I reflect there, the real Richard Nottingham – and there was a real one, the Constable of Leeds – would have walked in that place, probably many times. I was in his footsteps, something that truly gave me pause.

But making sure everything was in place, at a distance of 80 miles, could be fraught at times. The phone calls and emails began in the summer, setting the date, letting people know, working with others, like the fabulous Leeds Book Club and Leeds Libraries in order to involve them (and thankfully they wanted to be part of it). It’s been an interesting and rewarding trip.

The night was all I’d hoped it would be, in its own ways quite magical. It took a good 48 hours to recover fully. The book had come out a fortnight before the launch party, but that saw it well and truly christened. But I will say that I’m not planning a launch for the next one (due in February). It’s not even the work involved. The question is – how do I top that?

Finishing a Draft

I’ve completed the first draft of my new novel and I feel drained. There’s been no huge rush to it, no deadline, it’s not even under contract, but it’s left me completely drained, more than the ones that have gone before it.

Why, I wondered last night? What was so different about this? It had been very hard to write in parts, quite emotional, and trying to convey what my characters were thinking without going over the top was a challenge. That was part of it, certainly. But more than that, it’s a book that’s taken me into some very dark places inside myself and forced me to explore them. I’m told that my novels are quite dark, although I’m not sure I’ve always seen it. This time, however, I wanted to look into the shadows, and it appears I’ve succeeded. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There can be plenty of truth in those places. And without truth there’s no point to a novel.

Now I’ve put the book aside for a month. There are plenty of things that need to be changed in it, and small additions, changes to language, and all the other things a revision does. I’ll have a better idea of how well it all works when I read it through. For now, my brain is pretty much on empty. And I’m glad.

Some Thoughts About Leeds

Two nights ago I thoroughly enjoyed the official launch of my new novel, The Constant Lovers, at Leeds Central Library. After from the cock-up – the booksellers actually only had two copies of the book for sale – it was a great event, and as close as I’ve come (geographically at least) to appearing on the stage at Leeds Town Hall.

It made me think about my relationship with my hometown. I haven’t lived there since 1976, and I’ve actually spent more time in another place (Seattle). But Leeds has a claim on me, and exerts a hold, that no other place can ever match. In part it might be genetic. My family’s been there since the end of the 18th century. The place is in my DNA. My father grew up in Hunslet, and spent his summers in the relative countryside of Sheepscar, where a relative ran the Victoria – much bigger in the 1920s that it became later, and with a huge garden and supposedly renowned rhubarb garden. For him, above all, it had a piano he could play. My mother’s family was decidedly more middle-class, out in Alwoodley, with a maid and a chauffeur.

Each time I return to Leeds, which is several times a year now, it renews me. Yet, curiously, I see a place that isn’t that. Several places that aren’t there, really. In my mind I see the place from my books, the jail at the top of Kirkgate, the Moot Hall in the middle of Briggate, close to where Harvey Nick’s is (and I know which I’d prefer), Garroway’s Coffee House on the Headrow. In truth, there’s very little of those days left; about the only private residence of that time is now Nash’s, just off New Briggate.

I also see the Leeds of my childhood. The magical toy shop that was the Doll’s Hospital in the County Arcade, Fuller’s where my other and I would meet my grandmother for tea every week, and the department store Marshall’s, which had a uniformed doorman, and where I, a very innocent four-year-old in 1959, saw my first black person in 1959 and asked my mother why the woman was made from chocolate. My mother apologised to the woman, but I truly had never seen a person of colour before. It was a very, very different time, and not a better one. Then there was the music shop at the corner of County Arcade and Cross Arcade where I went with my father when I was seven. Ostensibly we went in to buy a harmonica for me and came out with a baby grand piano, which appeared a few days later in our front room. And I did get my harmonica.

And then I see the Leeds of my youth, the great bookshop opposite Leeds Poly, sorry, Leeds Met, where I discovered Hamsun, the small, two-storey Virgin shop on King Edward Street (I believe), the head shops close buy, the discos at the Poly, gigs at the Town Hall and the 100 Club not far away where I saw Taste and the Nice. On Saturday mornings I’d go into town (before I had a Saturday job), get off at the ABC, cross the street and go down to the basement coffee bar for a frothy coffee before spending the morning mooching around, and maybe buying a record at Virgin or Vallance’s.

Before this descends into mawkish reminiscence, let me say this is simply a small sampling of memories that tie me irrevocably to Leeds. The city formed me much more than I was willing to admit for many years. It took a long time, and many miles, for me to really understand that, and give me the desire to start studying the city’s history.

Out of that have come my books. Apart from being mysteries with (hopefully) good characters, they stand as love letters to Leeds. The city of the 1730s that I describe might not be a beautiful place. The people, many of them, anyway, a degradingly poor, the place stinks. But it’s mine as much as it’s Richard Nottingham’s, and I love it then as I love it now.

Another Book Finished

The fourth book in the Richard Nottingham series, Come The Fear, is now finished and with the publisher, so it’s breath-holding time as I wait to see if they like it. It’s always a good feeling to complete something, especially when I feel good about it (and I certainly do with this one).
Equally interesting, at least to me, is the process that went into it. When I wrote The Broken Token, I more or less blundered my way through it. I had a story I wanted to tell, but equally, I wanted to evoke the Leeds of the 1730s, in feel if not always absolutely historically accurate; my idea was that if a reader emerged thinking they’d experienced the period, I was successful, and it seems many did. I had my characters, and that was about it. I hadn’t even considered it in terms of a series.
But a series it’s become, and I’d like to think my professionalism as a writer has increased with each book. A series is an odd duck. Characters recur. Some leave, some die, new ones enter, but there must be development, and character has always been a central facet. I’ve come to love Richard Nottingham and those around him. When someone important leaves or dies, I actually grieve a little. I feel I know these people intimately, and their lives expand (or contract) as the books develop.
There’s more planning these days. I still essentially have just a starting point and an ending, and the characters dictate what happens, as if I’m watching a movie, but I’ve come to take on the role of director a little more. I sketch out ideas, which may or may not be used, and I approach each book with a much stronger idea of the focus (For Come The Fear that’s very much the poor and dispossessed, even more than in previous books) and how I want to approach it.
These books have their own tone, often poetic among the dirt and debris and an 18th century city, and I’m not even sure how that came about, but it’s part of the book’s landscape, and something I actively consider as I’m writer. I make note of phrases, which either come to me or are inspired by reading others, and these will be inserted, often during the revision phase.
So, publisher willing, Richard Nottingham will be back (book three is due out early 2012). Meanwhile, I’m working on a couple of other projects, a mystery set in the Seattle music scene of the late 1980s (I spent 20 years in the city, quite a few of them making my living writing about music’; for once I’m writing what I know!) and another mystery, a Leeds setting again, but during the Civil War, in 1645. Quite a while ago I knew I wanted to write novels that covered the history of Leeds, and this is the first step outside my comfort zone, so we’ll see how it pans out…

That Library Appearance...

There can be nothing quite so lovely, or so daunting, for an author as to talk to a group about his book. I felt flattered that Chapel Allerton library in Leeds had had all the tickets for my appearance there snapped up, and it was a good crowd sitting there. I talked. They asked questions (after an initial hesitation). Some of them, in the reading group there, had already read The Broken Token. Others hadn’t, so it was a no spoilers situation.

Two members of the library staff remembered my mother, an avid library user until her death, and one even recalled my father. That, perhaps, was the most gratifying thing of all for me, that sense of continuation. Plus the chance to walk around the old neighbourhood (even with blisters on my heels on aching feet from a pair of Doc Marten shoes that didn’t fit as well as they should). Old home week – or afternoon, at least.

As the icing on a delicious cake, a woman arrived bearing a tipstaff or cudgel from the period. It’s a lovely object, dated (apparently) 1719. It might be ceremonial, no one knows. She doesn’t even know how it ended up in her family, but having the chance to hold it gave me a real connection to Richard Nottingham. That was a magical moment for me.

There were great questions that required long answers, even if my voice was giving out towards the end. And, once it was over, they descended on me to buy copies. I’d taken 12 and could have sold more. Always nice, and it more than paid for my train fare and dinner (with a friend and her daughter) beforehand.

The only downside was time spent in the old St. Matthew’s graveyard, now a neglected and overgrown tangle. I know there are some fantastic old graves there, it just seems such a pity when, with a little effort, they could be on show to everyone, and people remembered.

On Libraries...And More

It’s been a little while since I blogged, partly because of hard work and partly because of a much-needed break in sunny Devon (and it was gloriously sunny, too, with the sea right at our door. Well, 30 yards away).

Cold Cruel Winter appears later this month. The first two chapters are up on ScribD, there’s an audio excerpt, my website (www.chrisnickson.co.uk) has been revamped – you can find the links there – and I’m all set.

I’m not doing many events to coincide with the book’s release, but I will be talking to a group in Nottingham that’s read The Broken Token, which should be real fun. The other event, next Wednesday, is in Leeds, and it’s given me pause to reflect on how special these events can be.

It’s at Chapel Allerton library. Until I left home at 18 I never lived further than a mile from that library. I first went there when I was three, it was my treasure house of books. At primary school my class would go there every week. I discovered so many authors there, Henry Treece, Jack Kerouac, probably an endless list. It was my mother’s local library until she died. We might have had very different taste in literature, but she used the library regularly. So, for me, it’s a real return to my roots, and that strikes as me a lovely, beautiful thing.

Under the cuts being proposed by the coalition in government, many future writers might not have the chance to write the words I just wrote. That’s robbing them of a future, and of an education they can’t get anywhere else. That’s not just a sin, it’s a crime, and we all need to do everything we can to prevent it happening. Not just for ourselves – I’m still an avid user of the library – but for the future.

The other part to this comes from an email I received from someone researching family history who came across The Broken Token. She evidently doesn’t have the real Richard Nottingham as an ancestor, but she does have a tipstaff – cudgel, truncheon – from the period that’s been handed down in her family. I has two brass badges, one the emblem of George 1, the other the hanging sheep of Leeds with the date 1719. How it relates to her family she’s not sure, but she’s hoping to attend next week’s event and bring it with her. The thought that I might be handling something that could have been touched by the original Richard Nottingham is aweful, in the very best sense. That’s what you call a connection with your character. If it happens, there will be pictures. There have to be.

On Finishing That Final Edit

And so the edit for my second novel, called Cold Cruel Winter, seems to be over. At least, it’s gone back to the editor, although there might still be a few minor points to discuss.

Am I happier with it? Well, happier than with my first, given that I approached the book with more knowledge of my shortcomings and attempted to correct them. The proof, however, will be in the pudding, which is what readers and reviews think when it appears in May. But I do believe it’s a 100 per cent improvement on the first novel.

The map of Leeds has been drawn by a very talented artist and looks very good indeed. Given that the book revolves around the streets and landmarks of the city, I think a map helps place and ground it for those who don’t know the place, and aids them in finding their bearings. I want the Leeds of 1732 to live for people reading it.

Finishing that edit, saving the file and sending it back is a little like seeing a child leave home – or at least going to school. There will still be the proofs to read through, of course, but the real work is all done.

And meanwhile I’m more than halfway through the third book in the series ( currently known as The Constant Lovers), which is a bit of a surprise. The Broken Token - the first novel - feels like the work of someone else now, in many ways. The characters of Richard Nottingham and John Sedgwick have grown, but I’ve grown even more. This playing God thing is quite fun, as long as I don’t let it get out of hand.

Why Leeds?

One question I’ve often been asked is why do I set my books in Leeds? After all, I haven’t lived there since 1975 and marginally spent more time in Seattle than in Leeds itself.
There might not be a simple answer, but as close as I can come is that Leeds is in my heart and my genes. My family has been there since around 1800. I feel it in my blood. Every time I’m there my blood moves faster, there’s a sense of home in the place.
Today, sadly, much of Leeds is a generic city. Those that governed the place during the 20th century gave little thought to history. No one thought to conserve the Red House (although I’m told that some of the layout of it was preserved in Schofield’s), for instance, or hold on to the heritage of the few ancient houses that remained off Lower Briggate. That’s shameful, but it’s happened, it can’t be changed. Leeds wanted to be the city of the future, and did it by largely turning its back on the past.
Small fragments of the history do remain, but they’re few and fair between. The most obvious examples are Holy Trinity and St. John’s churches (the Parish Church was rebuilt in the 1800s).
But this is by the bye. Leeds is in me in a way no other city could be. I’ve written about other places in (thankfully) unpublished novels. But once I began writing about Leeds, it all clicked, it felt right. In The Broken Token, Leeds is as much a character as any person. The same is true in the new one, currently being revised, called Drive the Cruel Winter Away.
I’m toying with the subtitle “A Leeds Novel,” even if it sounds pretentious. The main characters will come and go, but Leeds will be the constant. There are other books I have in my head, set in different time periods, but all in Leeds. In other words, Leeds is essentially the main character.
None of which answers the question, why Leeds? The answer, maybe, is that deep down inside it can’t be anywhere else than the place that shaped and formed me.