I’ve become so familiar with the seafront in Penarth that I’ve never ventured from the main path. Contented with the changes in the light, I found comfort in the same view. On Boxing Day, crowds of people in Penarth forced me to walk a new path above the seafront.
An unfamiliar perspective of Penarth pier that allows me to look at the bigger picture
As I looked down on a familiar view from a new perspective, I released some of the characters in my work in progress. Maybe these characters will remain forever lost or appear in another story. Who knows? I’ve worked in my tiny writing room, with my cast of characters, for many months. In the new year, I will print out my work in progress, read it aloud and look at it from a fresh perspective.
I realised that I needed to release some of the characters
It’s certain I will remain with Pearl and Jim who will also need to digress from their familiar paths. Alas, they can’t text each other, connect via social media or email each other. When the characters are a distance apart, they must physically travel to meet up or write a proper letter. They can’t even use a landline as they don’t have telephones.
As the sun sets on another year, I wish you and my characters some happy and new destinations.
Attitudes and beliefs in this era continue to shock me. My twenty first century perspective means I can support my characters a little yet cannot control their anxiety. The girls in the factory are currently on strike and they can’t google the legislation to find out more. It would’ve helped if they could connect with the Dagenham strikers in a Facebook Group, but social media is decades away. Of course, they’ve seen the headlines and the world seems to have gone on strike. And I’m in despair because some of the women have been tempted to parade in a fashion show of clothes for the bosses. In future, they will learn about the Miss World protests. I know these destinations are ahead of them but how can I navigate them and force them to take new paths?
Like me the characters are facing January, but the January of 1970 was a harsh one. I have twenty ideas for the title of my next novel and all suggestions include the word ‘love’. Love will guide my characters. In the words of Dylan Thomas. ‘Though lovers be lost, love shall not…’
As the sun sets on another year, I wish you and my characters some happy and new destinations.
Judith Barrow’s ‘One Hundred Tiny Threads’ reawakened my reading addiction. I stretched on a Devon beach, during a heatwave, but sat in Lancashire during 1911. Vivid figurative language moved me from the colours of a Monet painting to a Lowry painting.
One Hundred Tiny Threads is the prequel to Judith’s Howarth family saga but was the perfect book to begin with. Bill was trapped down the mine and the explosion deafened me. I stood in the dark, grimy streets as the ‘knocker-upper’ tapped on the Winifred’s window. I forgot the heat of the sun as ‘frost patterns covered the panes of the windows’. ‘The clatter of clogs’ on the cobbles turned my head to the dark streets and ‘the feeling there was a shadow lurking around the corners’.
A life beyond the grocer’s shop counter ruled over by Winifred’s domineering mother.
Despite shivering with Winifred, I found warmth in her friendship. Winifred presented me with an honest account of a woman’s plight during the beginning of the last century. Her rebellion against her dominant mother placed me firmly on Winifred’s side. I was driven mad to discover Winifred’s mother’s secret; I could not fathom her bitterness. Barrow demonstrates why Winifred needs to befriend Honora, a suffragette, and why she finds comfort in Conal’s arms. Every strand of the characters’ backgrounds is woven into their actions and responses.
I stretched on a Devon beach, during a heatwave, but sat in Lancashire during 1911. ‘The clatter of clogs’ on the cobbles…
I felt for Winifred. Her naivety and love for Conal present tender moments. How I ached for Winifred’s happy ending. The narrative wrenches the heartstrings and punches your senses, but the strands of the plot are taught and well structured. But there is no time to mollycoddle the characters: there’s ‘nowt’ you can do as the characters face life, love and loss. I advise you set time aside and listen to the characters’ voices and let the gritty drama unfold. The dulcet tones of the Lancashire people rattle your emotions with the powerful dialogue. Be aware of Ethel who makes the ‘air seem rancid with hostility.’
The artfully woven narrative is populated with real folk: ‘good Northern stock’. I couldn’t abide the hardship yet couldn’t stop reading. I found myself thinking about the characters when not reading. The folk got under my skin. Barrow is not afraid to introduce some horrible people and conflict. I loathed Bill because he is a hard-faced, rotten man. Yet, I was forced to explore the motivation for his character. It was most annoying to feel empathy for Bill. I wanted to banish him from the book and leave him to rot in a dark alley. Barrow made me understand the motivation for this bloke’s actions.
‘…all they wanted was equality in voting’
Winifred was isolated from her mother Ethel and inhibited by the era but wanted to shake off the corset of stifling expectations. Ironically, Winifred’s mother inhibits her more than her father. Barrow demonstrates how women like Ethel were trapped by their own boundaries and expectations: fear of society’s rejection isolates those who have dared to follow their hearts. Women such as Winifred who dared to articulate the inequalities of women in normal settings:
Women such as Winifred paved the way for the birth of the modern woman.
‘…all they wanted was equality in voting; to be able to have as much as their husbands, their brothers, their fathers.’
The Suffragette Movement, World War One and the Irish War of Independence are threaded into the fabric of the novel.
Barrow squeezes every drop of empathy from her reader, because she explores the complex psychological motivations of the characters. It is testimony to Judith Barrow that she creates such powerful characters. The rhythms of the characters’ words are combined with the ebb and flow of the narrative to produce a phenomenal drama of epic proportions. I am delighted there are more books to read in this family saga. However, I am fearful for Winifred’s plight in the remaining novels. shh – don’t tell me what happens. I am not sure Winifred has made a good choice of husband, but he does believe Winifred ‘was the one woman to keep him on the straight and narrow.’ Narrative perspectives of Winifred and Bill provide clever contrast in life experiences. The basis for their relationship is dynamic, yet I sense some threads will fray in the other books. Florence said, ‘men will have their way’; I hope this is not an omen.
The Suffragette Movement, World War One and the Irish War of Independence are threaded into the fabric of the novel. Hard times exasperate the loneliness suffered by the characters. I urge you to read One Hundred Tiny Threads to find out more about the texture of these characters’ lives – you won’t be disappointed.
