Skip to main content

Silver Sound 26 August 2016: Bad Girls and Dromomania



Today’s guest was Bristol novelist Jean Burnett, a self-confessed dromomaniac (someone addicted to travelling), who talked to us about the travels which inspired her book Vagabond Shoes. Jean has always been fascinated by the memoirs of Victorian women travellers and so she decided to follow in their footsteps. The book includes quotes and advice from some of the doughty women who went before her – ladies, never take more than one carpet bag! Jean talked about some of her own hair-raising adventures which included staying in a haunted museum in France and travelling with a bodyguard in Georgia.

In addition, Jean has written two novels about Lydia Bennett, the “bad Miss Bennett” of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. They are Who Needs Mr Darcy and The Bad Miss Bennett Abroad.

Jean also told us about creative writing classes she’s running for the over 55s with Link Age – Write with a Bite – the classes start at 12.30 on 23 September 2016 at Henbury Library. No need to book, just come along – and don’t forget your sandwich!  

Find out more about Jean Burnett and her books here - http://www.jeanburnett.co.uk/

Penny presented the show as usual, and George Moss was in the studio to read out some “good news” stories as an antidote to the doom and gloom that usually dominates the news.

You can listen to the show here


Silver Sound is broadcast by BCfm between 10 am and mid day on Thursdays and Fridays. I’ll be back on the show on 9 September 2016 with another fabulous guest!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

'We will have a fire': arson during eighteenth-century enclosures

Join our Winter Solstice Blog Hop! Thirty writers throw light on a dazzling range of topics . Follow the links at the end of this article to be enlightened and brightened by our blogs...  “Inclosure came and trampled on the grave Of labours rights and left the poor a slave And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow Is both the shadow and the substance now.”    John Clare, The Mores     On 1 May 1794, the writer Hester (Thrale) Piozzi of Streatham Park recorded in her diary that the furze on the common had been set on fire in protest at the enclosure of land “which really & of just Right belonged to the poor of the Parish”. Yet even while she acknowledged that the protesters had justice on their side, she criticised them for not “going to Law like wise fellows” and concluded: “So senseless are Le Peuple , & so unfitted to be souverain”. The senseless poor of Streatham were not unique. During the eighteenth centu...

My blog has moved to https://lucienneboyce.com/blog/

My blog has moved to my new website and is now at https://lucienneboyce.com/blog/  I'm no longer posting blogs on this site, but you can still read the old blogs on this site, or you can find them at the new location.     

From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth Century Britain, Fiona Haslam, (Liverpool University Press, 1996)

I’m often asked about how I go about doing the research for my historical novels. One of the sources I usually mention is visual art. I’ve always found that looking at contemporary paintings, prints, sketches, sculpture and so on reveals a wealth of information about how people of the past lived – what they wore, what sort of houses they lived in, how they spent their time, the towns and villages they inhabited. Going to an art gallery is one of my favourite research trips – especially if there’s a decent café with tea and cake at the end of an afternoon’s study! Of course, you don’t always have to take artistic representations literally. It’s obvious that whatever you’re looking at is an interpretation of the reality: it’s how the artist saw it. In fact, this subjectivity can be a real advantage if you’re looking for ideas about how people lived and thought. Often the most exaggerated representations, such as satirical prints or caricature, are the most revealing, telling us thi...