The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton Find!
I have previously written about Graham Sutton's novel, Shepherd's Warning, and Ann has written about the sequel, Smoke across the Fell. We now know that between 1947 and 1955 Graham Sutton wrote 4 novels about the Fleming family spanning the years from 1745 to 1878. The last two books are North Star and Fleming of Honister and we look forward to reading them.
Mr Sutton was born in 1892 in Scotby near Carlisle and was educated at St Bees School and Queen's College, Oxford. For a time he acted with a repertory company and then taught English at Edinburgh Academy and then in Hammersmith. He started his literary career while still a schoolmaster writing under his own name and also writing detective fiction under the pen name of Anthony Marsden. He broadcast on 'country matters' and then reading some of his own pieces and he wrote many plays for the BBC. Eventually, he was able to return to his native Cumberland where he bought an old school under Skiddaw and converted it into a house. He was a keen fellwalker and climber and a member of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club. He loved Cumberland and was an authority on Lakeland customs and dialects as is evident in his novels. He died in 1959 and is buried in Scotby
29 September 2009 from ChrisS
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Finds
- On Lindale Hill
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
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I am a Fleming family member, by gradmother was Elsie Fleming, my great Uncle Jack Fleming from Hare Hall Broughton
I know Fleming family history mapped by Jack during the 2ndWW is in Kendal records office.
Fleming Family novels sound interesting. Tell me more please.
Dear Jane,
Thank you for your very interesting email. As I said, Graham Sutton was a Cumbrian novelist. The Cumbria Reading Detectives group found out about his first two books via the library's local authors section. We had not heard of him before but we enjoyed the books and tried to find out more about him. The local studies librarian found a copy of his obituary in the Cumberland News of 1959 and two newspaper articles on his books. These are now at Grange library and will be on show at our public event in the library on Oct 20th. As far as we knew the works were fictional, although with lots of real historical facts, but of course he may have been aware of the papers in the records office. It would be interesting to compare them with the novels. At present I am reading the 3rd novel, Northern Star, about Ewan Fleming who is an actor. The previous Flemings were all sheep farmers.
Hi
I'm Graham Sutton's granddaughter, and found your website whilst trying to check a reference.
I'm so glad there are still readers of his books. They went out of print more by design than necessity - complicated jealously matters within the family.
Thank you for doing your own bit to 'keep him alive'!
Lucy Baker (nee Sutton)
Thanks for your comments Lucy. It is nice to know that the website is still being read so long after us finishing the project. Our reading group really enjoyed the Fleming novels and thought they rivalled Rogue Herries. It would be nice to know more about Graham Sutton if you can give us any further info. Most of what we were able to learn came from his obituary in the local paper
Hi
I have just been loaned a copy of 'shepherds warning' which I understand is based on Catgill Hall Nr Egremont, Cumbria. The lady who loaned me the book was informed that the description of the loft to hide the grey hen's was the same as in Catgill Hall and that proved to be the case.
I just wondered if you could help me on this matter. btw I have yet to read the book, I am trying to buy my own copy.
best regards
Marianne
I found out about Graham Sutton's books via
Cumbria magazine and would like to know who has r
the publishing rights and film & Tv rights can you help please.
The book are a wonderful read if you are a Cumbria fan and went to St Bees School as i did
The blog is quiet at the moment ---But to all the readers - have a very Happy Christmas and New Year
Hello
I have just started reading Smoke Across The Fell - and what a lovely little book seems to be! Quite different from anything else I've read in a long time.
Two months ago I went to Aspatria to buy photographs from someone I'd met on Facebook - she had a copy of the book on her coffee table. I was intrigued as I have just written my own novel set in the Lake District - I'm always interested in how others describe fellside scenes. Another friend, who was with me at the time, bought a copy for me for Christmas and that is how I've come to be here, wanting to know a little about the author. By the way... my friend said it was very difficult to get hold of a copy.
Thanks for the information, I look forward to reading more.
Ps I hope to have the editing finished on my book, The Parting Stone, by April,then after that I'll be looking for an agent.
Dear Jeanette,
I look forward to your book - i am not an agent - but would bevery interested any way.
To find GS's books go onto Amazon.co.uk /books and i am sure you will find them - not cheap but they are there.
Dear Lucy
Have the film rights been passed onto anybody?
our home was in Haile and in Nether Wadale. with help from Mr Linley,antiquarian bookseller Gosforth,we have small collection og Graham suttons booksand plays.. We are now 92 and live permanently abroad with ou son. We are reading his books to one another, aloud. Soke acrossthe Fells stilldifficult to get though we rread it in he 1950's. GS was S Bees and Queens? Did he play for the universith in the war although they didnt award war time Blues? brilliant writer.
The Graham Sutton books are my favourite novels. My homefor the first 25 years was in in Windermere, wartime holidays in Seascale and family roots in the Eden Valley (Armathwaite).The tales are very good, real page turners and written in very attractive style, The Cumbrian dialect is so good. I am reading them for the fourth time! What happened to Yottenfews? I am sure when I visited it in the early 60s, it approximated to the description in 'Shepherd's Warning', but a recent visit seems to be a very different house. My memory of the early 60s visit tells me that a Hewetson was living there. Am I right or completely wrong? I would love to know. Christopher Hewetson
Hello Lucy,
I'm writing a book about Irish Travelling shows in the last century, and in the course of research, I came across a wonderful book of short stories by your grandfather, called FISH AND ACTORS. It's set in the Irish repertory theatre world around 1915 I think. And it's brilliant! Did he act in rep theatre in Ireland? I would be really surprised if he didn't! I'd love to hear anything you know about ths and also about copyright re perhaps quoting him a little in my book and in a documentary I'm making next year on the same world of travelling shows.
Yvonne Cullen
DUBLIN
I was born and brought up in Calderbridge, and many of the locations are familiar from my childhood. Yottenfews is now within the factory fence of the Sellafield Nuclear Site. My mothers family were Hail's a family with a long history in the area. My grandmother, Nora Hail kept the villge shop in Calderbridge, and Graham Sutton used to come in to buy sweets when out on a bike ride from St. Bees scool. I now live within 100yds. of St.Bees school, although I attended Whitehaven Grammar school. I have two books which I bought from Michael Moon in Whitehaven. They are both I think first editions, complete with dust jackets. Smoke Across the Fells has a publication date of 8s.6p and is signed by the Author on 18 July 1947. It is dedicated to Ethel Brook of Darwen Lancashire.
Shepherds Warning has a publication date of 1946 and a price of 9s.6p The name Dorothy Watson is written on the flyleaf.
I am a great fan of Sutton's books and know that there is interest in re-publishing them. I have been asked to find out about the copywrite situation. Does Lucy know if there is still a problem?