Posts on the rosemarysutcliff.com weblog about the life and thoughts of Rosemary Sutcliff, including what she wrote and said about writing and her own craft.
Rosemary Sutcliff was the subject of a fascinating, insightful article (‘Of The Minstrel Kind’) in the children’s literature magazine Books for Keeps. First published only in print form, it has for some time been reproduced online.
Margaret Meak was paying tribute to a seventy-year-old Rosemary.
I met Rosemary Sutcliff for the first time thirty years ago in a London hospital where she was recovering from an operation. Read More »
I have tracked down a long-out-of-print, brief story by Rosemary Sutcliff which is new to me. In a 1967 Bodley Head collection The House of the Nightmare and Other Eerie Tales, chosen by Kathleen Lines, The Man Who Died at Sea is a story about Rosemary Sutcliff’s mother (my great-aunt) and her Second Sight. I am going to re-produce it here on the blog over several posts. It starts:
My mother was not quite like most people’s mothers. She came, as far as anybody knew, of good hard-headed North Country Saxon on both sides, but should by rights have been Irish or Highland Scots. She had what people called the ‘Celtic temperament’, up one instant and down the next, and making sure that my father and I were up and down with her. When she was down, it was as though a brown fog hung over the whole house, and when she started going up again, it was as though the sun had come out and the birds started singing. Living with her had never a dull moment, but it could be rather unnerving, for she had, unquestionably, a touch of the Second Sight, another thing one expects of a Celt more than a Saxon.
She saw our beloved old dog lying in his accustomed lace before the hall fire, six or so weeks after he died; and she heard things—the same old dog padding around the house, even years later; footsteps and voices that weren’t there for other people; and occasionally she knew that certain things were going to happen, but they happened often enough for my father and I not to like it very much when she predicted something bad. (It generally seems to be future trouble and not rejoicings, that shows itself to the person with Second Sight.)
To be continued…..
Rosemary Sutcliff, author of The Eagle of the Ninth, drew on a ‘large lump of unlived childhood’ as she tried to show in her children’s books that good beats evil, and satisfaction can come from doing ‘right. Because of Still’s Disease she missed much usual childhood activity with long bouts of illness and many lengthy hospital stays.
I was trained at art school, but then the desire to scribble came over me. I got my interest in history from my mother who had a sort of minstrel’s, rather than historian’s knowedge. Inaccurate, but full of colourful legend. I disliked history at school.
They do say that to be a successful children’s writer one has to have a large lump of unlived childhood in one. I certainly think I have that.
You have to show children that good does overcome evil, but that does not necessarily mean that the old lady you helped then paid for your ballet lessons. The satisfaction should just be coming from the fact that you have done right.
(Posted again, original two years ago; comments kept)
April 20th Wednesday. Jane arrived at 10.30 and we set off. A lovely day and would have had a lovely run, but I still haven’t got rid of the car sickness after all, so felt wretched from Petersfield onward. We called for lunch with James C at the Quaker place, lovely old home, much of it 15th & 16th Cent., but myself lunched on brown bread an a cup of tea. Had a rest and then did the remaining dozen miles with no problem and felt alright from then on. Got to the G’s at tea time & watched Magdalene having her indian dance lesson (enchanting) while we had tea.
Went off (driven by Jane) to the Rawlinson dinner. This in full cherished evening dress and in my new Posh Frock, which I am not altogether happy with. Dinner by candlelight surrounded by dons and fellows with their ground down dinner jackets and their guests (mostly more dons and fellows). After the Loving Cup had been around, Tim took me for the ten minute break into the chapel around the Canterbury Quad, which was cold but lovely, with sky full of stars & a new moon to bow to, and then back to finish dessert and port for another hour and a half, sitting in different positions and with different partners. Talked Greece most of the time with the Chaplain on my left & the Classics man on my right, both of whom were very nice to me. Oh, I mustn’t forget the scent of rain battered hyacinths of window boxes in Dolphin Quad.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
This will have been a formal dinner at an Oxford University college – note the ‘dons and fellows’. Reference to Canterbury and Dolphin Quads suggests this will have been St John’s College. According to Wikipedia, Canterbury Quad is the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford. It was completed in 1636.
This is news to me, although it is probably originally in her memoir Blue Remembered Hills: the name Esca for the slave in Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth comes from Victorian novelist Whyte-Melville’s The Gladiators. Rosemary’s mother used to read her this aloud.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 