Author: Anthony Lawton

Chair, Sussex Dolphin, family company which looks after the work of eminent children’s & historical fiction author Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92). Formerly CEO, chair & trustee of various charity, cultural & educational enterprises in UK. Sometimes a consultant.

Rosemary Sutcliff’s distant relatives and chihuahuas

Anthony Lawton4 Comments

If anyone has noticed a slightly different blogging style, that’s because the editor of this Rosemary Sutcliff site has changed.
For a few weeks the blog is being looked after by myself, Dom Lawton, Anthony’s son. Rosemary Suctcliff was my Dad’s godmother and second cousin. I’m not quite sure what that makes me.. second cousin once removed? Maybe. Despite the distant family title, Rosemary was very close to my father and his family. Some of my earliest memories are of Rosemary’s house in Sussex. Behind the doors of her calm and beautiful english abode were two terrifying Chihuahuas, Sebastian and Sophie. Actually, Sophie was very sweet, but she wasn’t as confident as Sebastian and was led astray by his forceful personality (excuse the pun). I can remember Sebastian and Sophie growling ferociously in a miniscule manner at one end of the hall and my mum, sister and me (bear in mind I was only six!) at the other end, unable to move with fear of being attacked. When Rosemary died, we looked after Sophie (the sweet, unconfident one) and for years I would carry her around on my arm, pretending I was a James Bond villain.

Sophie looked a bit like this

I remember Rosemary sitting at her writing desk with pen in hand, telling me all about the Roman Empire. She was absolutely passionate about history and stories. She had a sense of magic about her, like she was the keeper of an amazing world of imagination, which she could channel through her words.
I also remember her showing me the collection of detailed miniatures she had made and painted. She was a gifted artist as well as writer. We still have her miniature nativity scene, which we place in our front hall at christmas. It’s beautiful.

All in all she was an incredible person and will be remembered for a very long time I’m sure. It is a pleasure and an honour to be the editor and collector for this blog for a few weeks.

Channing Tatum stars in The Eagle (of the Ninth) film

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Channing Tatum rides into town in another still taken from the upcoming film of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Eagle of the Ninth!

 

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Beowulf still enthrals modern readers, young and old | Rosemary Sutcliff Discovery of the Day

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Blogger Zornhau reads children’s writer and historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff’s classic retelling of Beowulf to his son Kurtzhau.

The two of us together live through the dragon fight, the flight of Beowulf’s thanes, all except Wiglaf who tips the balance in his lord’s favor. Now Beowulf lies dying, poisoned by dragon venom.

Kurtzhau and I both hold each other, sharing a blast of emotions from our ancestors’ cold Dark Ages.

Abruptly, Kurtzhau slips off the bed and rummages with his plastic figures.

“Oh well,” I think. “He’s done pretty well for a—”

He bounces back to join me and thrusts a Playmobil barbarian at me. “This guy can be Wiglaf from now on. Now read the end!”

Afterwards, he’s outraged that the story is so short, and we talk about how lucky we are to have the story at all, and about bards and praise singers, and the irony that the two episodes of Beowulf’s life to come down to us are the ones that emphatically did not happen.

“What happened to Wiglaf?”

I shrug. “Was there a theory he lead a Germanic tribe to Britain? Sorry – I can’t remember and we’ve no Internet access here. But if there were any poems about him, they’re lost.”

Kurtzhau considers. “Somebody ought to write a sequel.

Source: Zornhau’s blog

More about Beowulf on this site

VIIII not IX was ancient way of writing for The Ninth Legion

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

I was fascinated to learn from a comment on a post yesterday that the use of ‘IX’ to write nine as in ninth legion is a “modernism”, and that the ancient use of the number would have been VIIII . Rosemary (Sutcliff) would have known this, but I did not!

What happened to the Roman Ninth Legion? Rosemary Sutcliff may have been right! Or not wrong …

Anthony Lawton4 Comments

I learned yesterday from some history documentary makers who were interested in Rosemary Sutcliff, her life and ideas, that more evidence may be coming to light about the Ninth Legion’s fate. Recall this is an element of The Eagle of the Ninth story. Rosemary’s instincts for a great story as told in The Eagle of the Ninth were based on (then) contemporary historical research. I find it especially pleasing (as a non-specialist and perhaps biased relative) to learn this – after in recent years some commentators have, in the eyes of others only on limited evidence and to limited dissent –  disputed the idea of the ninth legion disappearing in Britain at all. A new TV programme next year purports, its makers tell me,  to “reveal how Rosemary and fans of the book and her take on history can look forward to complete vindication”. She needs no vindication; but it would be pleasing and to me not at all surprising to find her imaginative leap once again in line with where the ‘evidence’ and (some) historians’ interpretations may be taking us!

(Post slightly amended, twice,  from original in light of most interesting comment below from Robert Vermaat, to be a little more measured! But I write as a relative not an academic or other specialist, so hope I am allowed a little licence for passion! This I am sure will run and run, here and elsewhere?)