Not quite fictional monk Rahere has tomb in London, Smithfield

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Yesterday’s article by Imogen Russell Williams in The Guardian about monks in children’s fiction sent me back to my copy of Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Witch’s Brat, which features Imogen Russell’s favourite, Rahere.  I was reminded that the historical novel is dedicated to “Margaret” – my mother, I believe, who trained and work at Barts, the modern Saint Bartholomew’s hospital. Rosemary Sutcliff’s foreword points out that you can visit the tomb of Rahere in the Church of Saint Batholomew the Great, in Smithfield, London.

His figure lies there carved in stone, in the dress of an Austin Canon, and at his head and feet kneel two small figures in the same dress, reading from Latin Bibles: ‘For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Favourite not quite fictional monk | Imogen Russell Williams cites Rosemary Sutcliff’s Rahere in The Witch’s Brat

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

The Witch's Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff (Inside cover)In The Guardian today, Imogen Russell Williams writes about memorable holy men – both saintly and sinful – who ‘walk the hushed cloisters of children’s fiction’. Her favourite is from Rosemary Sutcliff‘s work. Rahere’s tomb is at the Church of Saint Bartholomew the Great, in Smithfield, London.

My favourite of all not-quite-fictional monks comes late to his calling – Rahere, Henry I’s one-time jongleur, who later became an Augustinian canon and founded St Bartholomew’s hospital. In The Witch’s Brat, Rosemary Sutcliff creates a seductive, imaginative portrait of a charismatic and difficult man, gifted in demanding the best from people even when it’s almost too painful to give. It’s Rahere who gives Lovel, the titular protagonist, hope that he may become a healer, rather than remaining an unwell burden on the priory that takes him in. He’s dark, slender, encountered first in motley and then in the sober canon’s habit … it dawns on me that perhaps my early monastic yearnings might have had something to do with a hopeless passion for a jester-turned-ascetic.

Other monks she cites include Brother Snail in Pate Walsh’s The Crowfield Curse; a monk in Thom Madley’s fantasy about  life in Glastonbury, Marco’s Pendulum; and the abbot in Terry Jones’s ‘gloriously surreal’ Nicobobinus.

Source: Force of habit: who are your favourite fictional monks?

Rosemary Sutcliff fused history, memory and imagination

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A speech by the David Miliband (former UK Foreign Secretary; current MP) to the Anne Frank Trust set me thinking about what makes Rosemary Sutcliff’s writing so powerful for so many readers. Perhaps it is the fusion of history (her research was meticulous), memory (she believed in re-incarnation), and imagination.

History and memory are not the same thing.  The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has written that history is someone else’s story – in other words it is information.  However, memory is one’s own story – it’s about identity.  But in Anne Frank’s diary memory and history are fused.
Source: Anne Frank | David Miliband website

Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction took author Geraldine McCaughrean time-travelling

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Geraldine McCaughreanThe prestigious Carnegie Medal was once won by Rosemary Sutcliff, as well as multiple award-winning Geraldine McCaughrean (who has written more than 160 books, from picture books to adult novels).  Interviewed at Red House, the web-based, self-styled ‘home of (buying) children’s books’, she spoke of the influence on her of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction.

Did you have any favourite children’s authors when you were a child and have they influenced your writing at all?

I loved Elyne Mitchell’s Brumby books because I loved all things horsey. One day I shall write a horse book and then all those pony and horse books I read as a child will come into their own.

I also loved Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction – The Eagle of the Ninth, Brother Dusty Feet … – They taught me how a book could take you time travelling to a different age.  That must be why I have written so many books set in the past.  Adventure is so much easier to come by there.

Source: Geraldine McCaughrean | My Red House.

Rosemary Sutcliff won the Carnegie Medal in 1959, not for either of the books mentioned by McCaughrean, but for The Lantern Bearers. She was runner-up in 1972 with Tristan and Iseult. The Medal is perhaps the UK’s most prestigious prize for writing for children, awarded every year in the UK to the writer of an outstanding book for children. The Library Association started to award the prize in 1936, in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), a great supporter of reading and libraries. The medal is now awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Rosemary Sutcliff also won the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award for Tristan and Iseult in 1972; was highly commended by the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1974; won The Other Award for Song for a Dark Queen in 1978; and won The Phoenix Children’s Book Award for The Mark of the Horse Lord in 1985, and The Shining Company in 2010

Historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff’s letter to Helen Hollick

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Helen Hollick blogged about historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff. She includes a photo of part of a letter Rosemary wrote to her. It contains Rosemary Sutcliff’s highly distinctive signature, and is written in her distinctive handwriting.

Part of a etter from Rosemary Sutcliff to Helen Hollick

Source: Helen Hollick’s blog on Rosemary Sutcliff