Finds / Hampshire Reading Detectives

The team

Other teams

Finds

A Daughter of Winchester

December 1, 2009 10:51 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | A neighbour recently loaned me a book which she thought would interest me because of a local history project I am working on. Actually the book turned out to have nothing at all about my part of Winchester but it... Read more

And here is one we missed

November 6, 2009 1:46 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Reading through book reviews on the net recently I discovered 120 1152x882 Normal 0 Timothy's Book: Notes of an English Country TortoiseThe reviewer obviously enjoyed this book which has obviously only been recently published as 'an elegant little hardback' 'This... Read more

And, finally, one for Hallowe'en

October 31, 2009 7:01 PM from Rachel the editor | Running a quick search for Hampshire ghosts and ghouls, I came across one of our most infamous murders -- that of "Sweet Fanny Adams" in Alton on August 24, 1867. This song commemorates the execution of her murderer later that... Read more

How did we miss this one?

October 31, 2009 6:46 PM from Rachel the editor | The Forest, by Edward Rutherfurd, is set -- as one might expect -- in the New Forest, one of Hampshire's most notable landscapes. This is a saga that starts in Norman times and continues on down through the centuries, following... Read more

John Wyndham's Hampshire connection

October 31, 2009 6:25 PM from Rachel the editor | Steep may be a small village but it has several rich literary connections. It counts among its residents not only Edward Thomas but also John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903-1969) -- better known by his first two names, under... Read more

Reading the countryside

October 31, 2009 12:35 AM from Madelaine - the book thief | It seems strange to be highlighting for Reading Detectives some books with few words, but the cartoon books of Norman Thelwell grew so much out of the Hampshire Countryside that I feel they need to be included here. Although Thelwell... Read more

New Milton's new Milton

October 30, 2009 11:37 AM from Angela Hicken | I've just been contacted by Dr A J Risdon, reminding me about the poet John Heath-Stubbs. He grew up in New Milton, Hampshire, and was blind. Even though he settled in London John never forgot Hampshire. He was partially sighted... Read more

Heywood Sumner in South Gorley

October 29, 2009 12:03 PM from Penny | I've just been re-reading the most beautiful and delightful book - Heywood Sumner's "Cuckoo Hill - the Book of Gorley". Heywood Sumner (1853 - 1940) was a major figure in the Arts and Crafts movement in the 1880's and 90's,... Read more

PG Wodehouse in Emsworth

October 27, 2009 5:01 PM from Penny | Any fan of P.G. Wodehouse has probably come across his Lord Emsworth character in the Blandings novels, but I wonder how many people realise that "Plum" actually lived in Emsworth as a young man, before he was well known. He was... Read more

Walking In My Sleep

October 25, 2009 3:01 PM from Cordelia Gray | A Hampshire childhood in Peace and War: 1938-1942, written by Jane Chichester and published by Red'n'Ritten Ltd: Steyning. I noticed the advert for this book in this Saturday's Telegraph (24/10/09) and have since found the Ebookmall website where an electronic copy can be purchased... Read more

Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries

October 22, 2009 5:13 PM from Angela Hicken | Nicola Slade is a writer from Winchester. Her first book for adults was 'Scuba Dancing' and was followed by a departure in style with 'Murder Most Welcome', described as a cosy mystery. Her next book is due in December, published by... Read more

England's Lost Eden

October 21, 2009 6:06 PM from Angela Hicken | A superb book from our local 'Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction' Winner Philip Hoare. "This is a terrific idiosyncratic piece of popular history" Sunday Times 'England's Lost Eden: Adventures in Victorian Utopia' is about the history of the Girlingites, a bizarre... Read more

June Tate

October 21, 2009 5:49 PM from Angela Hicken | This afternoon I attended a packed house at Hythe Library to listen to a writer who was born and raised in Southampton and uses the area as a setting in her popular saga novels. June Tate is currently writng her... Read more

Bullington

October 20, 2009 3:18 PM from Angela Hicken | Bullington is a parish about 9 miles south east of Andover, in the Test Valley. In the 2001 census its population was 101. Bullington by Cicely Fox Smith, 1917 It was in the high midsummer, and the sun was shining... Read more

Speed The Plough: A Country Song

October 20, 2009 3:12 PM from Angela Hicken | This poem was passed to me by an archivist at Hampshire Records Office Speed The Plough: A Country Song by Cicely Fox Smith, 1916 As I was a-walking on Chilbolton Down,I saw an old farmer there driving to town,A-jogging... Read more

A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge

October 20, 2009 1:55 PM from Rachel the editor | Perusing this excellent film map of Hampshire, I spotted that the 1979 TV adaptation of the Worzel Gummidge stories was filmed in the Hampshire villages of Stockbridge, Kings Somborne, and Braishfield. Wondering whether there was a Hampshire connection with these... Read more

Queens Arms

October 15, 2009 4:26 PM from Angela Hicken | I've lifted this from Rob Illingworth's fantastic pub literary link - thanks for guiding us to a great site fellow Detective... Josephine Tozier, the American travel writer made visit a in 1904 to the Queen's Arms, Selborne. Arriving at Alton station after telegraphing... Read more

Haslar Hospital Memories

October 15, 2009 4:07 PM from Angela Hicken | Yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to Lilian Harry talk to a group of eager and loyal readers about her writing, research and the roots of her stories in local places. She spoke about how researching often took her... Read more

Magical writing for children

September 30, 2009 9:49 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Judith Heneghan wrote her first book The Magician's Apprentice as her dissertation piece for the MA Writing for Children run at the University of Winchester. Later renamed Stonecipher this adventure story has in it everything I loved in stories as a... Read more

Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant

September 30, 2009 8:35 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Last night I attended a talk in Winchester's Pilgrims' School hall by author Robert Goddard. Although I knew that Robert was born in Fareham and had at one time lived near Winchester I hadn't really considered that any of his... Read more

Gypsy Girl Trilogy

September 30, 2009 8:16 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Children's writer Elizabeth Arnold has lived for a number of years in the New Forest and it was witnessing the lives of the Romany families, who travel through and camp in the Forest, that gave her the idea for her Gypsy... Read more

Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne

September 30, 2009 7:11 PM from Rachel the editor | I wondered whether this was yet another of those "Not quite a find" books, but then considered how I knew of this work. My first introduction was as a teenaged fan of the romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart; the... Read more

Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf

September 30, 2009 7:09 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | When I first met Elizabeth Bewick I didn't know that she was a poet. I was beginning an Oral History project about the area of Winchester where I live and Elizabeth was the first person to put herself forward as... Read more

The Play Room

September 30, 2009 6:18 PM from Angela Hicken | Olivia Manning (1908-1980) is best known for her Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy, produced for the BBC some years ago under its collective title The Fortunes of War, starring the young Branagh and Thompson. Olivia was born in Portsmouth where her father... Read more

Kipling's dislikes

September 30, 2009 6:10 PM from Angela Hicken | The great Victorian writer, born in India, was sent back to England in 1874. He stayed with guardians who resided in Campbell Road, Southsea. Rudyard's time was unhappy, often cruelly punished for his behaviour. Later he was sent to a Devon school... Read more

Deadman's Plack

September 30, 2009 4:55 PM from Angela Hicken | No it's not the dentistry dilemmas of the deceased (sorry, pitiful humour) it is a monument erected in the early nineteenth century by the then owner of land in Harewood Forest, west Hampshire. It commemorates the murder in 963 of... Read more

Netley Abbey Ruins

September 30, 2009 2:15 PM from Angela Hicken | These atmospheric ruins have inspired much writing and imaginative musings, including sightings of ghosts and romantic verse. The appeal of Gothic ruins was written about by Horace Walpole and poet Thomas Gray. Both visited Netley in 1755 and Walpole wrote:... Read more

Portsea Sagas

September 30, 2009 11:57 AM from Angela Hicken | Julia O' Sullivan was born in Portsmouth and was the wife of a submariner - both facts inform her writing. At the Winchester Writers Conference a decade ago Julia had a one-to-one session with a publisher, bringing along a synopsis and opening... Read more

Lilian Harry's Family Connections

September 30, 2009 11:40 AM from Angela Hicken | Lilian Harry is the pen name of romance writer Donna Baker - inspired by the first names of her grandparents. Under that name she has delighted readers of Portsmouth and further afield with her family sagas. Beginning in 1994 'Goodbye Sweetheart'... Read more

Crossing the Bar

September 29, 2009 10:54 PM from Friday Next | Still one of our finest and best-loved Poet Laureates, one of Alfred Tennyson's best-loved poems, and coincidentally among his shorter ones, is Crossing the Bar, published in 1889 and written in 20 minutes after setting out from Lymington on the... Read more

John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier

September 29, 2009 3:02 PM from Cordelia Gray | Although Hampshire can't lay claim to John Betjeman, it does has a strong link through Bevis Hillier, his biographer. I bumped into Bevis the other day at St Cross Hospital (the almshouse of noble poverty) where he is one of... Read more

Growing up in Portsmouth

September 29, 2009 2:29 PM from Friday Next | Is growing up in Portsmouth more frustrating than growing up anywhere else? It certainly seems to be for 13-year-old Jake as he struggles to make sense of the urban domesticity of 1980s Portsmouth. Read more in 'Glasshopper' (Myriad Press 2009),... Read more

More Edward Thomas

September 28, 2009 9:17 PM from Friday Next | Edward Thomas's classic account of a year spent wandering across the south of England naturally embraces Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire. However, this treasured book is more about his beloved Hampshire than any other part of the south. Not surprisingly,... Read more

Two blokes and a shed

September 28, 2009 8:44 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | On a walk this morning my companions and I stopped to look across at the local allotments - pick out the best, see who wasn't working on theirs, and check out who had covered their leeks.While discussing the various advantages... Read more

In the shadow of the Cathedral

September 28, 2009 1:46 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | By the very nature of a residency, a writer will be influenced by the place in which that residency is situated. I have read some wonderful collections of poetry created out of Writer in Residence Projects, notably Silk which resulted... Read more

Hampshire Days

September 27, 2009 10:02 PM from Friday Next | W H Hudson was an American naturalist who took readily to the English countryside, lived in Bournemouth, and wrote many popular books in the early part of the last century. Hampshire Days (1903) for the most part celebrates the New... Read more

Mr Hardy Writes a Poem

September 27, 2009 9:15 PM from Friday Next | In addition to the Winchester setting for the final scene of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy set a poem there following a real-life experience. On the pretext of showing the Hon. Florence Henniker the architectural delights of the cathedral,... Read more

"Steep" is apt

September 27, 2009 7:30 PM from Rachel the editor | If you're going to read the poems and stories of authors who are inspired by the countryside around you, they will eventually inspire you to get out into it. East Hampshire district council have, thankfully, recognized this and done all... Read more

Thackeray in Fareham

September 27, 2009 7:25 PM from Friday Next | During the 1850s, William Makepeace Thackeray was Charles Dickens' closest rival in terms of popularity and literary achievement. Born in India, he was sent to England to stay with his great-aunt in Fareham although the young Dickens had left Portsmouth by... Read more

Forgotten Favourite?

September 25, 2009 4:22 PM from Angela Hicken | When I've been speaking to people about the 'Reading Detectives' and our search a number have mentioned 'Children of the New Forest' by Frederick Marryat. It is one of those cases where if you live in a particular area you may... Read more

Daniel Clay's 'Broken'

September 25, 2009 3:55 PM from Angela Hicken | I've just started reading this gritty novel set in Hedge Edge, just outside Southampton. In his acknowledgements Daniel thanks members of the Chandlers Ford Writers for their support and also staff of the Southampton Library Service for feeding back on... Read more

Pell and Tess

September 23, 2009 1:43 PM from Angela Hicken | 'Nomansland' seems the perfect setting for the fiction writer, an imaginary location evoking isolation, even desolation. But it's not fictional, it is the real setting of Meg Rosoff's new title 'The Bride's Farewell'. The hamlet is situated at the northerly... Read more

Edward Thomas and Froxfield

September 21, 2009 5:55 PM from Rachel the editor | Holidaying in Wales a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of why I decided to take part in the Reading Detectives project. I'd watched Owen Sheers' programmes on poetry and place as part of the BBC's poetry series and... Read more

Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire

September 18, 2009 2:32 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | The name of John Betjeman is hardly expected in association with the county of Hampshire - that honour lies more with Oxfordshire (or of course Slough!) but in his collection of topographical and architectural writings First and Last Loves there... Read more

Rebecca Smith

September 17, 2009 4:28 PM from Angela Hicken | Rebecca Smith is a Southampton based novelist who has used the city as a key location in her three Bloomsbury published books: 'The Bluebird Café', 'Happy Birthday and all That' and 'Bit of Earth'. Her books are engaging, witty... Read more

Right of Access

September 15, 2009 2:14 PM from Angela Hicken | Alison Orlowska was appointed the Hampshire Poet for the National Year of Reading, winning a competition to be county laureate for 2008. Such was the success of the project that Alison continues to work alongside many council departments, showing... Read more

Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties

September 14, 2009 6:54 PM from Rachel the editor | A little bit of light Googling took me to this collection of Hampshire-inspired songs and poems. Many of them are anonymous; some are very simple -- traditional schoolyard chants or labourers' doggerel; but others are touching. My favourite is "Home... Read more

In this house

September 13, 2009 10:26 PM from Friday Next | One of Hampshire's literary heroines is the poet and novelist Julia Darling.She was born and brought up in Winchester but made her name with the Poetry Virgins in the North East. She then turned her hand to short stories and... Read more

Words & Walks

September 11, 2009 4:10 PM from Angela Hicken | Earlier this year Arts, Libraries and Countryside launched a writing competition, encouraging the public to gain inspiration from the Royal Victoria Country Park, its history and location, then put pen to paper to produce either a short story or poem. ... Read more

England, Their England

September 10, 2009 4:33 PM from Angela Hicken | I was telephoned by Bishop John Dennis who after reading about the project was keen to tell me about A.G. Macdonell's satirical comic novel from the 1920s. The book examines the changing nature of this interwar era with a style... Read more

An Ode to a Road

September 6, 2009 11:31 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | A272 An Ode to a Road, is a book about ... a road... the A272 ... which runs through Sussex and then Hampshire to Winchester and beyond. It isn't a travel book as such, or a book of topographical writing...... Read more

The story of a house

September 6, 2009 9:50 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | The village of Hinton Ampner Lies eight miles east of Winchester in an unspoilt sweep of chalk countryside. The village is tiny, just a cluster of houses a pub, a small but beautiful parish church and a manor house. Hinton... Read more

Crime Connections to the City

September 4, 2009 11:55 AM from Angela Hicken | Portsmouth was famously the one time home of Arthur Conan Doyle, the place where he created Sherlock Holmes. He also penned historical novels, his favourite 'The White Company' set in part of the New Forest, an area he loved, and... Read more

John Keat's Ode to Autumn

September 3, 2009 1:35 PM from Cordelia Gray | In the Spring of 1891 Keats travelled to the Isle of Wight where he spent a week and later that year he stayed in Winchester. Following the death of his mother in 1810, Keats was sent by his guardians to be... Read more

William Lisle Bowles, poet

August 31, 2009 4:00 PM from Rachel the editor | William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) was a clergyman, poet, and critic -- a writer both educated in and inspired by Hampshire. Although born in Northamptonshire, he attended Winchester College and held various clerical posts in Wiltshire. He was a prolific poet,... Read more

Future Princes of Winchester

August 30, 2009 3:29 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | I think I have always been aware that The Prince in Waiting trilogy by John Christopher (Samuel Youd) was set in and around a future Winchester, but as I am not a great Science Fiction fan I hadn't ever given... Read more

Spike Island by Philip Hoare

August 27, 2009 4:22 PM from Rose Ratcliffe | The subtitle of this book is The Memory of a Military Hospital and it is the story of the Royal Victoria Military Hospital at Netley.Philip Hoare's exploration of the military hospital is a fascinating read. Philip was born and grew... Read more

A travel diarist in Hampshire - John Byng

August 25, 2009 10:27 AM from Jane the Archivist | After Melesina Trench's poem about her uncomfortable experience in a Hampshire hostelry, I've now come across a travel diarist who spent much of his time lamenting the state of the inns he stayed in. John Byng (a nephew of the... Read more

Nevil Shute and Langstone connection

August 19, 2009 12:31 PM from Penny | I've just been re-reading Nevil Shute's novel "Requiem For A Wren" which is set in the Exbury and Beaulieu river area of Hampshire during WW11. He seems to have rather gone out of fashion these days but I can thoroughly recommend his books... Read more

The marriage of souls

August 18, 2009 6:44 PM from Rose Ratcliffe | Have just discovered this book by author Warwick Collins, who now lives in Lymington. Set in Lymington at the end of the eighteenth century it makes very interesting reading and I've already learnt a lot about the area.... Read more

Rural Rides: William Cobbett

August 18, 2009 12:29 PM from Cordelia Gray | William Cobbett was born in 1763, the son of a farmer and innkeeper. He began his career as a journalist in America, where he had fled after blowing the whistle on military corruption. He returned to England in 1800 and in... Read more

Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered

August 18, 2009 9:22 AM from Penny | Westbury Manor Museum in Fareham have found the following memory of Elinor Brent-Dyer in the August 1987 edition of Fareham Past & Present. It was contributed by J.O. Hall who wrote: "My mother was friendly with Mrs Baylis who mentioned that she... Read more

Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection

August 16, 2009 7:16 PM from Rachel the editor | I've spent the afternoon driving around the New Forest -- sometimes in a dog cart but mostly in a lovely Rolls. I've watched as my companions bought a stolen caravan, put one over on a jumped-up, nouveau landowner, and thwarted... Read more

The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset

August 14, 2009 6:44 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | The author Antonia Forest spent all of her writing career living in Bournemouth. Now I know Bournemouth isn't in Hampshire NOW, but it was until 1974, and as Antonia Forest wrote eleven of her 13 books before 1974 I am... Read more

Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse

August 11, 2009 11:06 AM from Cordelia Gray | Peter Hopewell's history of St Cross was published by Phillimore in 1995 as a limited edition, shortly before his sudden death. Peter was an Oxford history graduate, a former headmaster and Chief Examiner for the old 'O' level examinations. He was also... Read more

Winchester the whole day through

August 10, 2009 10:20 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Patrick Gale was born in 1962 on the Isle of Wight (which was once a part of Hampshire but is no longer) but grew up and was educated in Winchester; first at Pilgrims School and later at Winchester College. Gale's... Read more

HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON

August 10, 2009 6:46 PM from Cordelia Gray | 'How to be a better person' published in 2009, is Seb Hunter's fourth book, and follows his attempts to improve himself by signing up for as many different types of volunteering as possible. The book sets out firstly to entertain,... Read more

Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)

August 9, 2009 4:32 PM from Rachel the editor | One of the great appeals of the Reading Detectives project is the impetus it's given me to explore my new home. I moved to Otterbourne 18 months ago and, while quickly getting to know the local pubs and walks, have... Read more

Odo's Hanging is missing

August 7, 2009 2:15 PM from Madelaine - the book thief | Don't you just hate it when you go looking for a book on your shelves and it isn't there? It isn't where it should be and it isn't anywhere else either. I had been thinking about the book Odo's Hanging by... Read more

The Warden

August 7, 2009 10:53 AM from Cordelia Gray | The Warden was Anthony Trollope's fourth novel and the first in the series known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire published in 1855. Trollope, was briefly a scholar at Winchester College but was unhappy there. He was scruffy and a... Read more

Charles Kingsley's Letters

August 6, 2009 10:28 PM from Cordelia Gray | Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), author of the Water Babies plays a significant part in the history of the village of Eversley in North Hampshire. He was appointed as the curate in 1842 and from 1844 to 1875 was the rector and... Read more

Owslebury Bottom

August 6, 2009 7:08 PM from Cordelia Gray | Owslebury Bottom, published in 1991 by Peter Hewett, was brought to my notice by his niece, who has retired with her husband to Winchester. Although it is now out of print it can still be purchased from Amazon. In... Read more

See it My Way

August 6, 2009 2:16 PM from Cordelia Gray | Peter White MBE is a veteran broadcaster and was brought up in Winchester where he still lives. At weekends he can often be found watching Southampton when they play at home. The prologue to Peter's autobiography begins by taking the reader... Read more

Introduction to Melesina Trench

August 5, 2009 4:53 PM from Jane the Archivist | I was first introduced to Melesina Trench (1768-1827) when, as a volunteer at Hampshire Record Office, I was asked to précis some of her letters. I was instantly hooked to a life in archives! Her writing style was lively... Read more

Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country

August 5, 2009 10:52 AM from Madelaine - the book thief | I'm off to Chawton today to visit the Jane Austen House Museum, and here I have to come clean and mention that I have actually worked for the Museum for the last twelve months. July saw the 200th anniversary of... Read more

Flora Thompson: published poet

August 3, 2009 12:29 PM from Angela Hicken | Flora Thompson View image is the author of 'Lark Rise to Candleford', recently popularised through a major television series. She worked in the post office in Grayshott, east Hampshire just before 1900, alias the fictional 'Heatherley', aptly named for the... Read more

All blog posts

Finds

Help the team

Have you got something to contribute? You can contact us to report your clues and you can comment on our blog posts. It doesn't matter where in the world you are!

All blog posts

The team

Other teams

Finds

Finds

Help the team

See posts tagged with