Novel places - South East England

The South East coastline is revered by many authors and is as a place like no other. Brighton a cosmopolitan hub of life is central to MM Smith’s novel The Servants and almost becomes a character in the book. Full of history the South East has also always had royal connections best illustrated in Phillipa Gregory’s Tudor series.

The Firemaster's Mistress, The Principessa by Christie Dickasen

The long, straight coast from Shoreham, west of Brighthelmstone, to Newhaven on the river Ouse to the east, offered few havens and lees. The wind attacked unchecked and brought water to his eyes.

Most of the beach was shingle, punctuated by muddy salt marshes where springs seeped and chalk streams emptied into the sea. A ribbon of fine, firm shingle ran along the water’s edge at low tide. In places this was worn to sand. When Boomer spied them, the advancing tide had already begun to blur the ribbon of hoofprints that punched black shadows into the dark, wet sand. The tide would wash them away before daylight.

If these prints tonight had not held water to reflect the dim light, Boomer might have missed them.

He lifted his head to listen. Then, with a glance up and down the beach, he slipped into a crumbly fissure in the cliffs.

Shortly, the riders returned along the beach. They passed Boomer in his cave and headed up a zigzag path to Pangdean Place. When they were well out of sight, he came out of his cave. He had taken a good look at the horses as they passed.

Why did the new tenant of Pangdean have need of twelve warhorses?  (Extract from The Firemaster's Mistress)

Christie Dickasen writes...

It was a semi-accident, I thought, finding the setting for my novel ‘The Firemaster’s Mistress’. Choosing that place of soul-calming beauty and potential danger, the edgy meeting of land and sea, where the Channel washes the sensuous, feminine curves of the South Downs near Brighton. I loved the place and seized the excuse to spend more time there in research. But the writer’s subconscious is sneaky.  The ‘accident’ proved to be a perfect fit between landscape, people and story. My heroine, Kate, finds both beauty and danger when she flees there for refuge, near the 17th century fishing village of Brighthelmstone. Francis Quoynt and his father, Boomer, are as attractive, but potentially dangerous, as the cliffs and sea.

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The Servants by MM Smith

Mark had been to Brighton before, on long weekends with his mother and proper dad. He knew the seafront fairly well. There was a promenade along the beach, about forty feet lower than the level of the road. This had long stretches where you could walk and ride bikes and roller-blade – almost as if to make up for the fact that there was no sand on the beach, only pebbles, and so you couldn’t do much there except sit and look out at the waves and the piers, adjusting your position once in a while to stop it from being too uncomfortable. There were cafes and bars dotted along it – together with a big paddling pool and a play area. (Extract from The Servants)

MM Smith writes...

Keith Waterhouse once described Brighton as a town that felt like it should be helping the police with its enquiries, and that’s right on the nail. It’s not just the decades of being seen as the acme of the dirty weekend: there’s something fundamentally ropey about the place. Brighton’s a town where students and locals mix with tourists and hen parties and the gay community and everyone gets to do pretty much what they want.

It doesn’t matter who you are, in Brighton you’ll find something to like, and something to hate, and that’s what real places are like. Most important of all, it’s the seaside, with a fully-functioning pier on which to drink beer and eat chips and lose money; and right alongside there are the rusting remains of the old West Pier, a stark reminder of mortality amidst all the ice cream and fun. Not for this town the easy sell of fripperies like ‘sand’ - here it’s a load of pebbles - or an azure sea: Brighton favours more of a gunmetal grey. It can be sunny (I’ve seen it), but when it’s not the wind whips down the front like you won’t believe.

The seagulls are the hardened corner boys of the avian world, who’ll have it away with your sandwich whatever the weather. Whatever Brighton may be, it’s never boring, or predictable, and two days down there will recharge your batteries like nowhere else in the UK. You’ll walk, and spend money, and have fun, and may end up with one of the most memorable hangovers of your life. Or maybe that’s just me.
Either way, when you’re tired of life, head down to Brighton.

It will sort you out.

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The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

The king kept his court at Greenwich for Christmas and for twelve days and nights there was nothing but the most extravagant and beautiful parties and feastings. There was a Christmas master of the revels and it was his task to dream up something new for every day. His daily programme followed a delightful pattern of something for us to do out of doors in the morning – a boat race to watch, jousting, or an archery competition, bear baiting, a dog fight, a cocking match, or a travelling show with tumblers and fire-eaters, followed by a great dinner in the hall with fine wine and ale and small beer and every day some enchanting pudding made of sculpted marchpane as fine as a piece of art. In the afternoon there would be a diversion: a play or a talk, some dancing or a masque. We all had parts to play, we all had costumes to wear, we all had to be as merry as we could be, for the king was always laughing this winter and the queen never stopped smiling. (Extract from The Other Boleyn Girl)

Phillipa Gregory writes...

It’s hard not to be an historical novelist in England, the place is impregnated with history. The Tower of London, has been fortress royal palace, prison and tragic site of execution for a thousand years, and today you can still almost see the ghosts.

Upriver, Hampton Court tells the story of the Tudors at peace, and the pleasure that subsequent rulers of England took in their gardens and sports. 

And just outside London almost every country house has a story to tell. My favourites are Hever castle, where you can still see George Boleyn’s bedroom almost as he left it, and Penshurst Place, one of the great Elizabethan country houses.

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