northumberland smugglers

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Tea with a nephew

“Dear Lord, Rede,” said the Duchess of Haverford. “The whole village?”

“Not the entire village, nor all of the household. The thing was, Aunt Eleanor, they had no idea who they could trust–who was working for that scoundrel and who was secretly their friend,” said the Earl of Chirbury, known to family and friends as Rede.

Eleanor fanned herself with her hand. “As a principle, dear boy, I do not like to hear the end of a story before the middle, but please tell me that our darling Kitty and her little family are safe.”

“Thanks in no small part to Kitty herself,” Rede said, proudly. “When the smugglers attacked en masse after her husband was captured and imprisoned, she helped to organise the defence and…”

Eleanor halted him with an exclamation. “Rede! Stop right there!”

His eyes twinkled, as he raised a single eyebrow at her, which was an annoying affectation that her son had copied from his favourite cousin. “Something wrong, Aunt Eleanor?”

“I did not mean for you to skip the middle entirely. Now answer my question, you wicked man, and then go back and tell the story properly.”

See The Flavour of Our Deeds for Kitty’s story.

 

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Whisky stills, smugglers, and caves

My March release, Flavour of Our Deeds, is partially set in Northumbria.

I wanted my hero and heroine far away from their natural allies, faced on all sides by enemies and uncertain who to trust. Learning a bit about Northumbria introduced all sorts of new plot elements.

For example, did you know that the Coquetdale area of Northumbria was a whisky distilling area (whisky is the Irish, Scots and, as it happens, English borderlands spelling of what the US call whiskey). Coquetdale, in what as now the Northumberland National Park, was full of illegal stills that exported their product not just south into the rest of Northumbria, west into Cumbria, and further afield in the United Kingdom, but also by ship to the Lowlands. The distillers were supported and protected by the locals.

The smugglers carried whisky and wool overseas and brought back genever (Dutch gin) and luxury goods from the continent. They had havens in fishing villages like Boulmer, on which I have based my own fictional village, close to the shore. I’ve removed a few aristocratic families–in my story, the Earls of Grey and their home, Howick Hall, is not mentioned, and nor is Alnwick, Alnwick Castle, or the Duke of Northumberland whose residence the castle was. The sea caves are real, and were used by the smugglers. The excise men did, indeed, have a base at Berwick Upon Tweed, and another at Newcastle, and were too few in number to make much of a dent in the trade.

I would have loved to set the story closer to the Roman wall, but I needed limestone for a good caving system that could be improved by enthusiastic tunnelers. A vast maze of caves was once discovered under Alnwick Moor, and has now been lost again, but caving experts believe there may be many more tunnels and caves than those shallow hollows known to our modern cavers. I’ve invented some, putting it in limestone country to make it plausible.

I’d also have loved to include the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Maybe another time.