history

Sunday Salon – Meet The Author

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My guest today is one of our local authors, Greg Duncan.

J: Greg, you have recently published a historical novel with the intriguing title Champagne in a Broken Teacup. What’s the book about?

G: Without giving too much away, here’s a short summary I wrote for Amazon.

In the spring of 1940 recently married Marie-Claire is blissfully pursuing her career as a freelance artist in Paris. She has no idea that in early May Hitler’s armies will invade France and rip her life apart. In the book we follow her life as tragedies strike and she is forced to flee Paris to escape from the Gestapo. Using a false name and identity she begins a new life in the small provincial French town of Nevers. She finds unexpected inner strength as a resistance worker but her previous life in Paris catches up with her.

J: What inspired you to write it?

G: As a young boy growing up in Canada I was fascinated by the stories I was told about my French aunt. During WW2 she was an art teacher living in the small French town of Nevers where she became a document forger and fighter in the French resistance. As if that wasn’t fascinating enough for a young boy, even more exciting were some of the stories of her escape from the Germans.

Fast forward several decades to the time I retired and started to focus on my interest in writing and inevitably the stories of my aunt’s adventures came to mind. However, I realized I didn’t know enough detail about her life to turn it into a stand alone story and unfortunately she had passed away many years earlier. I decided I needed to find out more about the world she would have lived in and what life would have been like for her in occupied France.

Mare-Therese Pellissier 1949

Thanks to the internet and the digitization of many documents I was able to find out far more than I expected. I found it quite moving to be able to read the very newspapers my aunt would have been reading nearly a century ago. I was even able to look at copies of leaflets that the RAF dropped over France during the war – leaflets that my aunt would have picked up in the streets of Nevers and read. I was amazed to find out that the RAF dropped over 640 million such leaflets over France.

Like most of us I had been taught about the big battles and political aspects of the war but virtually nothing about the lives of the ordinary citizens. As my research progressed I became more and more fascinated reading about the things which affected people’s daily lives and the things they did to fight back against the German occupation. I decided that what I wanted to do was write a fictional novel that incorporated the stories I’d been told about my aunt interwoven with historical reality.

J: How much of the novel is true and how much is fiction?

G: That’s a good question. In one sense, being a fictional novel my characters are fictional. On the other hand some of the events included in the story are portrayals of events which involved my aunt – but obviously I can’t tell you what they are right now as that would give away too much of the plot. What I can say is that the picture on the back cover of the book, of German soldiers in the rain, was actually drawn by my aunt in Nevers in 1941 when she was a resistance forger. It is one of the few things I have of hers. It hangs on the wall beside my desk and helped inspire me to write the book.

The historical events mentioned in the book are real as I wanted my characters to react to the actual events of the time. Although a lot of what my characters experience and do may not have happened to my aunt they are based on my research and on true stories of what people actually did in the resistance at that time.

J: Did you spend a long time doing the research?

G: Yes, and I enjoyed the research almost as much as writing the book. I became engrossed in reading about such things as forging techniques, rat bombs and pencil detonators as well as more dramatic activities such as derailing trains and blowing up fuel dumps.

I was also fascinated by the small details I discovered during my research which I’ve never seen in a history book. For example, the fact that within six weeks of the fall of France the newspapers reported that it was now illegal for bakers to make croissant or brioche.

J: Illegal for the French to make croissant?

G: Yes, at first I thought the report might be some sort of joke by the newspaper, but thanks to the internet I was able to access and read the actual regulations issued by the Vichy government..

Also thanks to the internet I was able to research locations in Nevers. I even found a 1940’s picture of the steps of the Rue de Calvaire – a place which plays an important part in the story.

Nevers 1940 Rue de Calvaire

J: Tell me about the title. It’s so unusual.

G: The title is critical to the story so I can’t tell you too much about it. All I can say is I needed a title which would be unique and yet fit in the plot as plausible.

J: I enjoyed reading your novel and gave it a five star review on Amazon as a ‘cracking good read’. What have other people said?

G: I’ve had a lot of positive feedback. In fact several people have said the whole story would make a great film.

J: I agree. And before you go, that important question. Where can people get a copy of Champagne in a Broken Teacup?

G: The book is available via Amazon as a paperback, a hardback, a Kindle eBook or via Kindle Unlimited. Our website https://www.kenebec.com?d has a direct link to Amazon for this book and our other books.

I’d like to thank you for asking me to talk about Champagne in a Broken Teacup. I’m not sure how many of your readers are local but if they’re interested I’d just like to add that I’ll be giving a talk about the research behind the book in June at the Sturminster Newton Literary Festival.

Thanks for coming along Greg and good luck with your book sales and festival talk.

Janet Gogerty

5.0 out of 5 stars A great story that brings recent history to life.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 March 2025

This is a cracking good story and a very well written novel. Paris under German occupation in World War Two is the setting. This is history, but the novel goes far deeper than the classic black and white photographs of German soldiers marching past the Arc de Triomphe. The author takes us into the lives of happy young newly-weds and their friends. This novel is inspired by the author’s aunt who worked for the resistance and is backed up by careful research. Far from being a dry recounting of the times, we are soon wrapped up in the lives of young and older Parisiens determined to fight for their country as violence and the death of friends and family becomes a reality. The Germans are not the only enemy as informers and traitors make it impossible to know who to trust, keeping us in suspense in every chapter.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Champagne-Broken-Teacup-Adventures-resistante-ebook/dp/B0DPVJNZRM/

Tuesday Tiny Tale – In Time

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If you read the April 1st post, it wasn’t a joke…

Calendar Change

It was Tuesday 14th April, only two weeks to go until the start of the new thirteenth month; it had not been an April Fool’s joke. In the USA plans and celebrations were well under way to welcome Trumpril, the new late spring month.

In Israel it was 10 Nissan Anno Mundi 5785, in China it was Ding Wei Day, Geng Chen month, Yi Si year, Year of the Snake. Other lands were waking up to 9, Shawwal, AH 1446…

There were few countries who were well organised or willing enough to change to the new Trumpian calendar in such a short amount of time. In truth many were saying to themselves, whose idea was it anyway to start using the Gregorian calendar in the first place?

In Britain it was 3025 and soon time to celebrate renewal at Pink Moon. The return to the Druid calendar had been the subject of much discussion. Brexiteers and atheists alike took some pleasure in dismissing a calendar that was a European construct and classic example of the church telling everyone what to do. The Prime Minister reminded the people of the United Kingdom that they had already celebrated Ostara, the spring equinox, so there was nothing strange about the Druid Calendar.

The Druids had been a little uncertain, or felt no need to put a date on creation, so after consultation with experts from such Radio Four programmes as ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’ and ‘More or Less’, a Cabinet meeting was held. It was decided the easiest way to work out the year the Druid calendar started was to round it up to the nearest thousand years. While BBC Verify were still checking out the facts, the Prime Minister had already announced that Westminster would be moving to Stonehenge. The Chancellor confirmed this would save a great deal of taxpayers’ money as Stonehenge needed less repairs than the Houses Of Parliament.

Sunday Stroll – Beautiful Beaulieu

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A nice day for visiting. Whose home are we going to?

THE LORD PRESERVE THY GOING OUT AND THY COMING IN

A nice bright house and cosy

Wonder if we’ll be invited for dinner?

Let’s explore

We meet the family

The previous Lord Montagu, founder of the Beaulieu Motor Museum, had a very colourful life. The current Lord Montague leaves interesting notes around Beaulieu Palace.

A Quarter of a Century

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My father came home one day, very excited with a new invention, Velcro! He worked in plastics, but I’m not sure if the plastic factory where he was manager actually produced it. Looking up Velcro I see it was commercially available in the fifties, but to us in the late 1960s it was a novelty. He kept trying to find ways of using Velcro around the house. 

More exciting inventions lay ahead of course, Dad once said that he would like to live to a hundred to see what would be invented. Sadly he only got past seventy. August 2025 he would have been one hundred and I have thought for a while it would be interesting to think of how many new inventions he has missed. This is rather an overwhelming task; there is a difference between something being invented and most people being aware or getting to use it.

2025 also marks a quarter of a century gone by, whether 25 is the last year of the quarter or the first year of the next, doesn’t really matter. I can remember when, thanks to George Orwell, 1984 was The Future, then 2001 A Space Odyssey confirmed the start of a new century as the obvious FUTURE when we would be living in plastic bubbles on the moon.

All that seemed to happen at the turn of the century was the panic that all the computers would get confused and everything would be switched off. At work we were seriously considering whether we should all go home and fill the garage with tins of food and flagons of water. Chez Gogerty we didn’t in the end and luckily all was well.

How has life changed in those twenty five years? Before the millennium I naively thought the twenty first century would be one of peace after all the violence of the twentieth, how wrong could I be. We can definitely conclude that humans have tried everything to make the world a better place, following faith, education, new political ideas, better medical treatments, scientific improvements. Alas new inventions are hijacked by criminals and war mongers as well as doctors and scientists hoping to improve lives.

So what in your life is vastly different from 2001 AD or CE .

I seem to recall saying at the end of last century that had I known home computers were going to be invented, I would not have got married let alone had children! I cannot recall why. Probably children arguing over whose turn it was to use the one computer and me saying everyone was spending too much time on that ghastly second hand machine with green writing, my memories are hazy. I do know that fathers were saying they should get a computer for the children, when they actually wanted one for themselves.

Now of course I can’t imagine not having a computer and iPad and panic if I forget my phone, even if I am just popping to the greengrocers.

What has changed in your life over the past twenty five years?

Sunday Stroll – Kingston Lacy

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What do you think of the décor?

Perhaps the library would be more relaxing?

His and Hers, which do you prefer?

The other stairs – for the servants

While the servants are working lets go outside for a stroll.

Everybody should have an ancient Egyptian obelisk in their back garden.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/dorset/kingston-lacy

I’m going east for a week, see you all soon – Hopefully the train trip will be less disastrous than some of our recent trips…

Serene Sunday – Lincoln Cathedral

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Lincoln Cathedral is part of the busy old city high up above the newer parts of the city.

Anyone can bring along a piece of scrap material that meant something to them…

…or you can join in sewing diamonds and hexagons for the traditional patchwork quilt that is being made.

Paper doves

Someone has to vacuum…

Cathedrals always have plenty to explore.

Build your own cathedral

Wander round the cloisters

Watch a wedding

Unhallowed Ground – part three

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THIS IS THE FINAL PART OF THE STORY AND FOLLOWS ON FROM YESTERDAY’S

Unhallowed Ground – part two

That evening the vicar left his dreary sixties vicarage, switched on his torch, made his way in the dark across the churchyard and slipped in a side door. In the vestry he looked around at the various cupboards. He had sorted through a few shelves of books and paperwork, without finding anything of historical interest. Now he had a good reason to search everywhere for any records that had survived from previous centuries. He felt like a character from an M R James horror story, though the electric light bulb dangling from the ceiling was not quite as atmospheric as candles or a lantern. In a story the vicar would have opened a book that he should never have touched… with horrific consequences. John Dee did not believe in such things, though  even as he chuckled  to himself he imagined being the one who discovers the victim, not the hapless vicar who has suffered the unspeakable death.

He pulled aside a dusty old velvet curtain that hid a door with a childish thrill, anticipating a secret room. He tugged at the door, falling backwards as it opened easily. But all it revealed were a few books that looked as if they had suffered fire and flood. Too damaged to be of any worth and yet someone had been reluctant to throw them out. John carefully picked up one at random and took it to the table in the vestry where an ancient table lamp gave only a poor light, but John was not going to wait till morning.

It proved far too damaged to read properly, all he could hope for was snippets that might give clues. If it had originally been a journal or parish records no dates had survived.

…and on this day did the villagers bring him to… claiming… performed evil deeds.. demanding     … be tried …all witnessed against him…   I feared he may be innocent, a rogue and trickster mayhap, but not…    black arts    to be hanged…   some affirmed he was of the undead 

John felt a trembling of excitement or dread as some of the words became clearer.

  as …to the gallows he cursed the villagers and all their descendants, saying he would return to take revenge. Thus it was that Jacob the carpenter fashioned a wooden stake while six strong men dug a grave thrice six feet deep.

John shuddered, the story was slotting into place, unless deep graves were commonplace in this Godforsaken place.

I entreated the villagers to behave as Christians, not heathens and allow the man to be buried with dignity until that terrible day of judgement.

The vicar was quite relieved that the day of judgement had been dispensed with in the 21st Century, or at least he hoped it had.

But they heeded me not..

John felt empathy with the poor vicar

  was stand within consecrated ground and pray for his soul…

thus Jonas Warlock lies in an unmarked grave in unhallowed land where no man now dare walk.

A name, the poor man had a name. Tomorrow night at the service they would know who they were remembering. The next pages were missing and John could just make out a faded signature, Rev A Crowley. More research could be done later, if any other records existed of an unimportant little village. In the meantime, Warlock’s skeleton was safe from interference. The unsafe dig would need to be shored up properly before removal could be considered. John Dee would not let the small matter of lack of proof spoil his service. As far as he knew, the Book of Common Prayer did not contain such a service so he would make one up, with a bit of imagination and a good deal of Duolingo Latin. Fortunately the Reverend Dee’s main attribute for his calling was a rich, sonorous baritone voice.

With a new moon and only the graveyard and nature reserve surrounding the church, a thick darkness seemed to lie between the church and the bland vicarage building that was not yet a home. He was glad of his torch and he told himself there was a proper autumn chill in the air, not that he was bothered by what he had just read.

The church was full on All Hallow’s Eve, some of the children, dressed in skeleton onesies and witches’ outfits, looked more like they had come for a party, but they were here. John began his introduction by holding up the crumbling book.

‘Within these withered pages lies the testimony of the reverend A. Crowley. We do not yet know much about him, except that he was compassionate in a time of ignorance and myth. Jonas Warlock was unfairly tried and lies just the other side of the church wall, forever excluded from God’s kingdom, or so our ancestors believed. The Christian faith is all about forgiveness, that is not ours to give, but we can pray for the soul of Jonas and welcome him back.’

The congregation was impressed with the vicar’s Latin prayers and a musician had come forward to volunteer to blast out the dusty pipes of the organ. His playing owed more to ‘Phantom of The Opera’ than ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’ but that didn’t seem to matter. Everyone surged out into the night, some to shine their phone torches over the wall, though all they could see was the tarpaulin over the rigging. Others steered clear and made their way briskly past the regular graves.

At last John Dee was alone, glad now of the old cloak he had found in the vestry and worn for dramatic effect. Closing the doors behind him, he felt the darkness close in. The last flickers from people’s phones had faded into the night and though he had intentionally left his phone at home, he realised he had forgotten his heavy duty torch.

As he quickened his pace, trying not to stumble, he felt a hand grab his shoulder. He turned and for a moment thought the dark shape was a shadow until it spoke. It was a stranger dressed in a black cloak and cowl, for one moment John tried to be rational. Perhaps there was a monastery hereabouts and the monk had come to pay his respects… He attempted to ask the figure if he had been at the service, but his mouth was dry.

The voice was rasping as if it had not been used for a long time.

‘No I am not a monk. Reverend John Dee, I have you to thank for releasing me at last from my grave, I knew this night would somehow come so I could keep my vow and I have all eternity to act.’

When he pulled back the cowl from his face, the vicar knew this was not a vampire, or a ghost. Even in the utter darkness John Dee was drawn to the eyes of this creature and what he saw there was beyond anything humans could imagine. Pure evil did exist and he was facing it. Could the God John Dee did not believe in protect him?

Unhallowed Ground – part two

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Tonight’s tale follows on from yesterday’s.

Tuesday Tiny Tale – Unhallowed Ground – part one

The next morning the team arrived early and the vicar and the robin watched with interest as slabs of rough grass were carefully removed to expose the soil, but then progress slowed as the team painstakingly marked out squares with string and appeared to be brushing soil away with toothbrushes. John Dee had to leave for his appointment at the local primary school. The head had been delighted when the vicar offered to visit the school. She welcomed fresh input to their school project ‘Layers of Time’ aligning with the interest in the dig. But if she was expecting him to talk about Romans she was soon disappointed. John didn’t like children much, however they were part of his calling and he found he soon had their interest when he started describing the more gruesome aspects of history. He ignored the expression on the teacher’s face as he moved onto public hangings and burials in unconsecrated ground. Before she could interrupt him he rounded off his talk with the politically correct plan to understand the wrongly accused of the past.

The vicar returned to the dig just in time to hear a cry of surprise and fear from a young woman and see other team members grab her before she was sucked into the sink hole that had suddenly appeared. It was not large, but wide enough that she could have slipped in. With great presence of mind the vicar had his camera out and leaned over the wall to take a picture before the leader of the dig ordered everyone to move right back. They joined the vicar on the safe side of the wall.

‘I saw a ladder’ gasped the girl.

 John brought the pictures up on his phone screen, a bit blurred, but they did seem to show a wooden ladder. There was excited chatter. Some were pragmatic and thought it must be an old sewer, while others suggested a secret tunnel to the church. Romans were forgotten about for the moment.

‘It is not safe for us to proceed at all, we need the council to send in their engineers’ said the dig’s leader.

John was disappointed, hoping a mystery tunnel would be of nearly as much interest as skeletons and they only had a short time to produce historical drama for the locals.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ piped up another young woman ‘my boyfriend’s a potholer and even better, he is on the potholing recue team. They could check this hole more safely than council workers.’

‘Yes let’s get this underway before the council gets involved,’ said John ‘after all, you have permission to dig, does it matter how it’s done?’

The emergency potholers treated the operation as a good training exercise. Within an hour all sorts of rigs and pulleys were set up so the volunteer could be lowered without stepping on the ladder. Initial shining of torches showed the ladder went down a long way. The ropes were played out and he disappeared out of sight to report back on his radio that the narrow passage down widened into some sort of cavern. His boss ordered him not to go any further, lest the whole lot came down on top of him.

They all heard his reports from down below ‘I’ll try and take photos, it’s a small space, oh my god, bring me up…’

He was helped off with his helmet and he looked pale and shocked.

‘Skeleton…’

‘A catacomb?

‘Just a small space and a skeleton laid on a slab of stone.’

‘A burial in unconsecrated ground, just as we expected,’ said the vicar ‘but why so deep and why the ladder?’

‘Whoever buried him would need a way to get back up, whatever the reason.’

‘Or he could have requested in his will that a ladder be installed in case he wasn’t really dead and then he could get out. People used to be scared of being buried alive.’

‘Still are’ said someone else.

‘He was definitely dead,’ said the potholer ‘he had a large wooden stake through his ribs.’

‘A vampire?’

‘Poor chap’ said the vicar ‘he probably had a disease which makes your mouth bleed and could have had mental health issues as well. We don’t have vampires in England.’

‘Yes we do’ piped up someone else ‘Count Dracula landed in Whitby.’

‘That is fiction’ sighed the vicar. ‘We will certainly pray for him at the All Hallows’ Eve Service tomorrow night, I trust you will all be there.’