Battenberg, Bats & Bright Romance

 I've always rather liked Battenberg cake, a peculiarly British confection made from alternating squares in pink and yellow, the whole surrounded by yellow marzipan. Heart attack on a plate? Perhaps, but like all treats it's a jolly splendid one, in moderation. 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

From my writer's notebook I see that Battenberg cake was created for a royal wedding over a century ago, when the late Duke of Edinburgh's grandmother married Prince Louis of Battenberg. Apparently the sponge featured 9 panels at that time, but was simplified to four panels in the 1930s when bakeries began mass-production.

It's had a sudden resurgence in popularity of late, with stylish versions in pink and green, posh-looking slices in lemon and poppy seed and even a Blue Battenberg 'just because'. My own favourites are  the batty Halloween offerings, the more lurid the better. 

What a strange nation we are.

Glorious Halloween Battenberg by Sprinklebakes.com

I've a voracious appetite for reading. I read books on London history, baking, wildlife, oddities, peculiarities, health and spirituality of every kind. In our family the wide-ranging spirituality section of the bookshop has, for some inexplicable reason, been known simply as 'Shamanism' for years. When we enter a large bookshop and split up for our individual fave rave shelves, we've always agreed to 'meet you in Shamanism'. 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

My mother was, famously, once propositioned by a ritual magician in 'Shamanism'.  He offered to take her, without benefit of either of their physical bodies, back to his seminar in South London, just to show that he could. She refused, apparently, not so much because she doubted she could do it (intrepid sort of woman, my mother), but because, she said, 'it would have meant 'going south of the river' which as a North Londoner, would have been quite out of the question.

Photo by Shutterstock.com

 In addition to non-fiction I devour fiction books. All types of fiction book. Not without discrimination, but without prejudice against any particular genre. This week the Sunday Times published its much-awaited 'Best Books of 2021, in every genre' list. Amazingly, it excluded the genre 'Romantic Fiction'. Apparently, in the year 2021 it's still acceptable to enjoy, even venerate, books that examine, depict and delight in murder or despair but not those that depict a love story. 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

I just don't understand it. Milly Johnson sold 7000+ books in the week her genre was not featured at all by the Sunday Times, yet the British Heart Foundation has a 'Romance Stand' prominently displayed in every bookshop. The manager of my local shop told me: 'People like it - so it makes money. You have to know what sells when you run a charity shop.'

The fact is, best-sellers remain the financial backbone of the publishing industry. Learned dictionaries on Jazz Music do not bring in sufficiently large revenues, nor does the latest, beautifully written bildunsgroman - at least not on its own. I know this, having worked in publishing, and been a proud member of the editorial team on both. 

Well, in a few short days now the Winter Solstice will be with us and with that moment of stillness, celebrations of Yule, of Christmas and other winter festivals of choice. 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

Wishing all of you the very best winter festival in these troubled times.

Count your age by friends, not years

Count your life by smiles, not tears

John Lennon 1940-1980

Fancy a little love story set in WWII? To download a copy of my best-selling Christmas tale, 'I Remember Very Well'  - set in London's East End - and a dozen other Christmas stories set in WWII, please go here 

'I Remember Very Well'

(free on Amazon until 6 January 2022):

'I Remember Very Well'

The Bug From Hell - June 2020

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

Masks on Public Transport, June 2020

So early in February I spent a weekend with my father, who had recently been in hospital with a strange virus that we came to know as 'The Bug From Hell.' Like a kind of influenza, it seemed to have no runny nose or other cold symptoms, but jumped straight from high temperature, via loss of taste and sense of smell, to a barking cough and the most severe chest infection within 10 days. After a short, concerning period in hospital, he threw off the bronchitis. Feeling well but with an ominous scratchy cough, I left him and flew to Belfast for a long court case.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam
My Last 'Normal' Picture before Lockdown

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

The River Lagan, Belfast - View from my Bedroom Window

How strange it seems, 12 weeks later in #Lockdown, to be working as a Clerk of the Court from my front room in London, hearing bail applications on Zoom instead of travelling all over the British Isles for work. How utterly indescribable that as I write, 41,000 British lives have been lost (that we know of) to a virus no-one had heard of before the Christmas holiday.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

Snowdrops Emerge During my Long Court Case

My trip to Belfast was long and drawn out because that was the nature of the court case. The days when court rose early, allowed me, at first, to seek my bed as I grew more and more sick, merged into those when, still untested but gradually recovering, I explored that beautiful city.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam
The Murals ~ A Feature of Belfast City

From the day, several years ago, that I started work as a Clerk of the Court and knew that my specific role would take me all over Britain, I resolved that I would not look back on that period remembering airports, train stations, hotel bedrooms and nothing else. As soon as I check in I always ask for recommendations, things to do, places to see.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam
Depict or Conceal ~ A City's History & Grief

 In Belfast I discovered an app on my phone - 'every visitor's guide' which mentioned the Botanical Gardens, the City Hall and the Titanic Exhibition. After that, it suggested, I should 'take a wander' through the streets to look at the City's famous murals.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam
The 'Irish Language' Mural

It was certainly a privilege to wander first around the obvious tourist spots but the murals? Barely 40 years ago, Belfast was a city engulfed by a brutal civil war. That's only half as long ago as World War II. Like many Londoners I have only to go back three generations to reach my immigrant Irish, Scots and Welsh ancestors. I have the stories my grandparents told me, passed to them by their own grandparents. Practically within living memory then. Making a sideshow out of the misery of others, especially when I have the family stories for added poignancy, does not sit well with me at the best of times.

Photo by Jennifer Pittam
The Loyalist 

Still, with advice and directions from a kindly  and knowledgeable court transcriber, I did take camera and writers' notebook and go, respectfully I trust, to see some of the pictures - stunning, heart-breaking, beautifully executed. 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

The Crown Bar ~ Once at the Centre of the Troubles

Which brings me to the artwork that's been springing up all over Britain during the Corona Virus Pandemic - the ubiquitous rainbow.  Rainbow pictures originated in Italy, the first country outside China to be hit, in a most devastating way, by the virus. A spontaneous sign of hope, they were accompanied by the slogan 'andra tutto benne' (everything will be all right). For whatever reason, the idea caught on, and spread to the US, Canada, Spain and here in Britain with amazing speed. They're everywhere now, and very pretty they are. But the scars of Covid19 are likely to be deep, and wide. Will the rainbows be enough? 

Photo by Jennifer Pittam

The Ubiquitous 'Stay Well, Stay Safe' Motto 

It's great to stay positive, but who knows what the hidden casualties of the Corona Virus pandemic will be.  JoJo Thomas drew this to our attention in one of her superb creative writing workshops this Sunday (Zoom, naturally).  She finished with this great quote , which I've been using as my creative mantra all week:

Don't bend;

Don't water it down; 

Don't try to make it logical; 

Don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. 

Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Franz Kafka 1883-1924

To find out more about JoJo Thomas's Creative Writing Workshops go here:

https://www.facebook.com/lessthinkingmorewriting/

Jennifer Pittam has been published in: Aquarist & Pondkeeper, Astrology Monthly, Cosmopolitan, Ether Books, People's Friend, Prediction Magazine, Romany Routes, The Lady.

Competitions won: Coast to Coast Short Story Competition, 2nd Prize; Writers' Village Flash Fiction Competition, 1st Prize.

Down by the Lost River Effra

Kennington's Gorgeous Bats

It's been a glorious week in London, just as late spring 'should' be. By contrast, there are ghastly things looming large in the world, and a fair percentage rock up in my courtroom. The  lunch break is my sanity check, and I  head to Kennington Park bearing salad box and writer's notebook. Stress  falls away - thank the Lord for riotous flower beds, sculpted lawns and centuries-old London Plane trees.

The Sculpted Lawns and Ancient Trees
Photo by Jennifer Pittam

Kennington Park  was common land for hundreds of years. It's first recorded officially in the 1600s. There were village settlements, semi-wild forest and the River Effra, a proud Celtic tributary of the River Thames. The first Queen Elizabeth sailed her barge down the River Effra to Sir Walter Raleigh's Brixton home, but now, like both of them, the River Effra's six feet under the ground.

The Lost River Effra

I wonder whether Sarah Elston walked on the banks of the River Effra. Sarah was the last poor woman to be burned at the stake, in England.  She had murdered her husband and they consigned her to the flames, here in my beautiful park, charged with witchcraft and treason. History does not record what the husband had done to provoke her, but whatever it was, they wouldn't have burned him for it, of that we can be sure.

Sarah Elston's Memorial Garden
Photo by Jennifer Pittam

I'm lucky to live in the 21st century - albeit in a country where I won't be pilloried or burned at the stake, where my body is my own and my choice of religion likewise. I work on my novel, drafting a few plot points before I have to return to the world of witnesses, legal bundles and oath statements.  Very often I'm joined by a chittering squirrel or, in late afternoon, a family of bats who circle me with eery accuracy and total silence before returning to their roost. Perhaps they too are haunted by London's Lost River Effra.

When the wind blows

The quiet things speak

Some whisper, some clang 

Some squeak.

When the wind goes - 

suddenly

then,

the quiet things 

are quiet again.

Lilian Moore 1909 - 2004

Jennifer Pittam has been published in: Aquarist & Pondkeeper, Astrology Monthly, Cosmopolitan,  Ether Books, People's Friend, Prediction Magazine, Romany Routes, The Lady. 

Competitions won: Coast to Coast Short Story Competition, 2nd Prize; Writers' Village Flash Fiction Competition, 1st Prize.