<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> T H E B O S U N ' S C H R O N I C L E The official Ezine of the Thomas Kydd Shipmates' network <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> VOL. 6, ISSUE 1, February 2006 Avast, Shipmates and anchors aweigh! 1 DISPATCHES 2 BOOKSHELF 3 FEATURE - In Canada 4 SALTY SAYINGS 5 CONTESTS 6 SCRAN 'N PROG 7 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE 8 NEW ON THE WEB ==================== 1 DISPATCHES + Online interviews Read George Jepson's article about Julian entitled: "A Writer's Muse", which ran in the January issue of "Quarterdeck". It's archived at http://www.tallshipsbooks.com/Authors/StockwinJulian/StockwinFeature8.html There's also an interview Julian gave to the Times of Malta at http://lifestyle.timesofmalta.com/article.php?id=4772 + The Kydd COllection Limited edition prints of QUARTERDECK and TENACIOUS covers, painted by Geoff Hunt RSMA, are now available. www.artmarine.co.uk/kydd/ + In with the new... We're introducing some special departments in the newsletter for 2006, starting with "Scran 'n Prog" and "Under the Microscope" this month. Watch out for "Maritime Britain" and "Nelson's Captains" in future issues. + Shipmates Album UK re-enactor Keri Tolhurst plays a Napoleonic soldier of the 50th Foot. He recently took part in the Military Odyssey at Detling, Kent, and sent us a photo of the event. If you'd also like to appear in the Shipmates' Album on the website, just send a .jpg in to the Bosun, along with a short description. + Mir Knigi Soon Tom Kydd will be coming to all good bookstores between the Urals and Vladivostok following the Russian publisher Mir Knigi's purchase of the rights to translate QUARTERDECK. It is expected that other titles will shortly follow. + The Fighting Top This journal of nautical literature and art was launched last month, and includes an article by Julian entitled, "My Debt to Maritime Art". Among the other features are an interview with Douglas Reeman, aka Alexander Kent, and an analysis of the legacy of Trafalgar by Richard Woodman. You can order a copy through www.tallshipsbooks.com $9.95 plus postage. We have one each to give away to the first two Shipmates out of the hat on February 25. Emails to Bosun@JulianStockwin.com - please include your postal address and put "Fighting Top" in the subject line. + Cornish research Kathy and Julian have returned from their two-week location research trip to Polperro and the Southwest for book eight. Julian has promised a report for Shipmates in the next issue. ==================== 2 BOOKSHELF Our recommended books this month celebrate two maritime artistic endeavours - in images and verse. Yachts on Canvas By James Taylor Conway Maritime. ISBN: 1 84486 020 5 A splendid tribute to the yacht, defined by one leading authority as "a craft of considerable dimensions, not plying for hire, and devoted to pleasure". Yachting as we know it today originated in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. One of our favourite paintings among the over 200 in this book is John Thomas Serres's "King George III Aboard the Royal Sovereign off Weymouth in 1806", a vessel no doubt Tom Kydd would have seen and admired. Ship-rigged, she was the largest and fastest yacht of her day. www.conwaymaritime.co.uk --- Sea Poems By Bob Crew Seafarer Books. ISBN 0 9547062 6 9 This delightful little anthology brings together sea poetry from both sides of the Atlantic - and is a celebration of the impact of Neptune's Realm on the human spirit. Selected by someone who has himself written poetry about the sea, there are works by Masefield, Tennyson, Whitman, Longfellow and many others. www.seafarerbooks.com ==================== 3 FEATURE - In Canada Canada ranks high on the list of countries where the Kydd series is selling especially well. Canadians are very interested in books, spending over 1.1 billion dollars yearly, and over 60 percent of the population reads at least one book a year. In Canada, McArthur & Company Publishing is the exclusive distributor for Hodder Headline, Julian's UK publisher, as well as a number of other leading houses. McArthur & Company is headed by the dynamic entrepreneur, Kim McArthur. Kim taught English and History for five years (part of the reason, she says, that she loves Julian's books). After that, Kim moved into the publishing world and ran Little, Brown Canada for eleven years. When Time Warner closed this division in 1998 she started her own publishing company! Kim says the Canadian segment in QUARTERDECK "went over very well here, particularly on the east and west coast", and is especially delighted with the series's reception at The Book Room in Halifax, Canada's oldest bookstore, where all the books were featured in a long-running major store display. http://www.mcarthur-co.com/index.html We asked three Canadian Shipmates who had emailed Julian recently what particularly attracts them to the books: + Paul Joyal is a 22-year old plumber from Edmonton, Alberta who admits he hadn't read a novel in five years but was so attracted to the covers that he just had to try one book... "I very much enjoyed KYDD and I went out and bought ARTEMIS even before I finished the first book. The realism of the dialogue is stunning. I also like the way Julian includes factual history in his stories to make very interesting fiction. It certainly is a spellbinding series. Rest assured I'll be reading all the books Julian writes!" + Margaret and Norman Hopkins are retirees living in British Columbia. Margaret bought a copy of QUARTERDECK in a Chapters bookstore for Norman and he raved about it so much that she determined to start at the beginning of the series - and they are both now avid fans! We wondered who gets first dibs on the books. Margaret explains: "No problem. I read them first as I am a faster reader than Norman. Both of us immensely enjoy the books, you can really visualise you are there with Kydd and Renzi. The interaction between these two is wonderful, especially when Renzi is teaching Kydd the ins and outs of being a gentleman in society." Norman adds: "We are both amazed that neither the BBC nor some film company has produced a movie or series on the Kydd novels!" Tom Kydd has a special relationship with Canada. He was taken with the wild grandeur that attracted his uncle Matthew - and it was in Halifax that he was fully accepted as an officer and a gentleman. In the first chapter of TENACIOUS, Kydd is still in the North American station and Captain Houghton is invited by the officers to dine with them. The highlight of the meal is a dish with a special connection to Lady Wentworth, a noted socialite of the time and wife of the Governor. See "Scran 'n Prog". ==================== 4 SALTY SAYINGS Hell to Pay (or The Devil to Pay) Today, if we say this, we mean we are in a situation with seriously bad consequences. The origins of this phrase are definitely salty. Aboard wooden sailing ships, caulking (or "paying") the seams on the hull with pitch to make them watertight was painstaking and difficult work. It was particularly challenging when the seam was "the devil", at the junction of the covering board that capped the ship's sides and the deck planking. The full saying among sailors, when given a formidable job for which they were ill prepared, was: "The devil to pay And no pitch hot!" ==================== 5 CONTESTS To win a copy of "Yachts on Canvas" email Bosun@JulianStockwin.com with the answer to this question by February 25:- Geoff Hunt's painting of Tristram Jones's yacht "The Outward Leg" is included in James Taylor's book. What was the name of the yacht Geoff sailed to the Med and back in? Please include your postal address. --- World Book Day Why not try your luck in the special World Book Day contest? There are six paperback sets of the series as prizes! Just email the Bosun saying in no more than 100 words what the world of books means to you. Deadline is midnight GMT March 2. --- Congratulations to all the winners in the Dec/Jan bumper issue contests - Ian Hobgen ("Nelson's Navy"); Rich Brayshaw ("Seamanship in the Age of Sail"); Paul Knight ("Mariner's Book of Days"); Greg Dermody ("Sea Songs and Shanties" CD). =================== 6 SCRAN 'N PROG Another new department launched this month, Scran 'n Prog, takes a look at some of the more interesting/unusual items of food and drink that Tom Kydd comes across in his travels, along with recipes. The terms "scran" and "prog" are sea slang for food on the lower deck and quarterdeck, respectively. + Lady Wentworth's Calf's Foot Jelly. Before the large-scale commercial production of gelatin the process of making anything jellied was very time consuming. In QUARTERDECK, while "Tenacious" is still stationed in Halifax, the ward room is treated to a delicious dessert - Calf's Foot Jelly. When Captain Houghton asks: "Who's responsible for this perfection?" he is told by his servant: "[It is] Lady Wentworth's own recipe, sir. She desires to indicate in some measure to His Majesty's ship Tenacious her sensibility of the honour Lieutenant Kydd bestowed on her by accepting her invitation to the levee." Here is the recipe the galley would have followed: +Take two pairs of calf's feet, clean them thoroughly and remove the large bones. Put these in a large pan with a gallon of water and let this boil until there is about two quarts of fluid left. Strain through a sieve and when cool remove the fat from the top. Put the jelly in a clean pan with the juice of 12 lemons, including the rind of two of them, and a pint and half of white sugar. Bring to the boil then cool slightly. Beat the whites of 12 eggs to a soft froth and add them to the liquid. Boil for a few minutes. Pour through muslin into a china basin. Using a silver spoon fill the serving glasses and leave to set. --- Next month it's Salmagundie. =================== 7 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE A special focus on some aspect of Julian's writing. This month, it's characterisation. Julian strongly believes that characterisation is +the+ crucial aspect of writing fiction. In an article for a writing magazine he said, "Character. Character. Character. For the novelist getting the central character right is absolutely crucial. The reader must really care about him/her. This central character is who the reader identifies with as the book progresses. Plot development comes very much after character, and is really only the stage for your character to show his colours." We caught up with Julian and put some further questions to him: Bosun: Where did the character of Tom Kydd come from? Julian: When I first started thinking about writing I wanted to have a central character that was in some way different from the norm in the genre. I have always had a huge respect for the common sailors before the mast - in many ways they were the real heroes in the age of fighting sail. So I decided my hero would follow in the path of the tiny handful of men who actually made their way from the lower deck to the quarterdeck, an incredible feat in the eighteenth century. We really know very little about them, not much more than the fact that they did exist. I have tried in my books to draw out just what qualities would be required in such a man. Bosun: A number of your readers felt you should not have killed off Joe Bowyer. How do you respond to this? Julian: I was saddened by this as Joe Bowyer had many resonances with a 'sea daddy' who befriended me when I first went to sea - but it was necessary for the development of the plot and to pave the way for Renzi's friendship. And, also, I felt it was important to show that the sea shows no favourites. Bosun: Where do you get the inspiration for your characters? Julian: I guess that comes from many sources - people I've met, my extensive library, my own experiences. Kathy and I feel so close to my characters now that they inhabit a sort of parallel universe. Bosun: How have your own life experiences influenced your characters? Julian: Yes, most certainly. For example I do think my friendships with Old Salts over the years have coloured the way I see people. And of course I have been helped in creating characters in a naval adventure series by having been to sea myself. Bosun: Kathy says you are half Kydd, half Renzi. Comments? Julian: I long ago learned that she is usually right... --- Recently, Julian received an email from Dr Christine Montgomery, an American psychologist based in Woodstock, Georgia. Christine is a great fan of Julian's books and made some very interesting comments on the characters in the Kydd series: "As a psychologist I am very intrigued by the relationship between people who live in such close proximity for long periods of time, isolated from the rest of the world, and particularly within the structure of the British Navy in the golden age of sail. I feel the sea is a powerful 'character' in the Kydd series because individuals enter into relationship with the sea, and the sea changes them. This is the same process that occurs in the most important relationships in our lives. The sea figures so consistently and beautifully as a central character in the books. When Kydd faces his great internal struggle after Dobbie's death there is a palpable absence of the sea and its powerful gift of perspective and equanimity that aided Kydd when he faced earlier plights. Like many fans of the genre, I find fascinating the man who is adrift on land but whose sense and knowledge of himself are firmly anchored when at sea. The last scenes in Acre [in Tenacious] illustrated this poignancy perfectly while not addressing it explicitly. The relationship between Kydd and Renzi defines and informs who they become as they transition from wandering, young adulthood to the strength and commitment they show as officers and leaders of men. There is a vitality and excitement to their friendship that is partially due to the age at which they meet and the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves - this collision of time, place and personality glows with authenticity and is as relevant today as it is in any period of history. My favourite character, other than Kydd and Renzi, is Kydd's sister. She is wise, witty and genuine. I keep thinking that if Renzi would marry her, she could run his estate and be the de facto earl, while he enjoys the sea life. [Julian refuses to be drawn on this...] Overall, the characters are impeccably drawn with a delicate balance of intimacy and restraint. I love them all. The characters are rich and layered and we meet them as one should: in bits and pieces they are revealed through their actions and shared thoughts. I love this kind of portrayal as opposed to a list of traits that is offered before one cares about the character." --- If you have any comments on the Kydd characters, we'd love to hear from you. --- In future issues we'll look at, among other topics, the special creative process Julian has developed for writing the books, and the interplay between the historical record and fiction in the Kydd series. =================== 8 NEW ON THE WEB We mentioned Kathy and Julian's Siamese kittens, Chi and Ling, in the last newsletter. In response to numerous requests a photo is now on the web in Julian's Album (towards the end). =================== Coming next month - The first feature in the new Maritime Britain department, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard; Julian talks about his latest research trip - and some tips for tracing those Salty ancestors! Yours aye, THE BOSUN ++ Download back issues from the WebSite ++ +++ To change your email address, just enter the new details on the Website by clicking on the newsletter link on the home page.