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sutcliff_spaceThis 1250-word essay by Jeffrey Aldridge was written for the collection The Best of Bookmark: Children's Writers Talk About Their Work, material from the Edinburgh-based magazine about children's literature he edited with Pauline Brown and Robbie Robertson, which also included Rosemary Sutcliff's piece "Novelist's Hat and Minstrel's Bonnet". His essay gives a glimpse of Sutcliff from the outside, and also records remarks by the eminent historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett.
(This Desert Island Discs interview gives a few further details on how Sutcliff learned to write about things Scottish).
From the book's introduction, some context for their acquaintance: "Sadly, of course, Rosemary Sutcliff is no longer with us. She and I corresponded regularly, following her first contribution to Bookmark 4 – she was a subscriber, too, saying that she always looked forward to the next issue. I always intended to have an extended interview with her but the opportunity never arose. My personal memoir which concludes this volume stands as an inadequate substitute."
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF – A PERSONAL MEMOIR
I was in Portugal when I read of Rosemary Sutcliff’s death. One has to be somewhere, of course, but, nevertheless, it seemed oddly poignant to be a thousand miles from home base. It was my daughter, Hannah, who – having grabbed the edition of the European Guardian I had bought – first came across the news and told me. Immediately after the initial reactions, all three of us in our little cottage on a Portuguese hillside began to reminisce about times in Edinburgh and Sussex a few years before. Quite rightly, Elaine Moss began her obituary in the Guardian by saying that we should not be too solemn about all this; nor were we: there was a sense of mischief about Rosemary that would not long keep a straight face about such an event.
That is true. But there was also an extraordinary strength and purpose about her. I well remember the first time I saw her. I was meeting her at Waverley station in order to take her to her hotel. The train drew in and stopped, fortuitously, with Rosemary sitting directly opposite where I was standing. My first glimpse, therefore, was of her in profile and there was something forbidding, even stern, about that profile. The nose was aquiline, the head unmoving. I did not realise at that time the extent to which her body had been mangled – and parts immobilised – by the Still’s disease that she had suffered since infancy; consequently, I was a little disquieted by this stillness.
It took three of us to get her off the train, manhandling her in her wheelchair through the narrow door and down the step to the platform. Getting her into my car proved just as complicated. Carrying her tiny body was easy, but her legs were stiff and straight. ‘Mind my head,’ she warned as I tried to manoeuvre her into the passenger seat. Duly warned, I lowered my arms but then found her legs would not fit in. Eventually we worked it out; well, Rosemary gave me instructions and she landed in the seat relatively unscathed.
Getting her out at the other end of the short journey proved equally difficult but I don’t think I bumped her head. I left her and her companion at the hotel, promising to see her the next day – at the launch of her book Bonnie Dundee – and wondered quite what I had let myself in for.
I had arranged, at her request, for her to go to a programme of Scottish music at the Royal Scottish Museum the following morning, so I called in after the concert to see how she had enjoyed it. She was bubbling with enthusiasm. I nearly wrote ‘girlish’ enthusiasm, then thought better of it. Thinking even better of it, I think that ‘girlish’ is probably a correct description. Her delight in the concert was that of a schoolgirl, whole-hearted and laughing. Better still, she said to me: ‘Let me show you what I’ve bought. Isn’t it wonderful?’
She showed me a ring, an amber ring, ordinary at first glance. ‘Look at it. Isn’t that amazing?’ And there, engraved on the stone, but quite faintly, was the head of a Roman soldier, complete with plumed helmet. ‘It was meant for me, don’t you think?’
I remembered – who couldn’t? – those others who had travelled from the south of England into Scotland in search of the lost Eagle of the Ninth. I held the ring and saw Marcus and Esca going through a gate in Hadrian’s Wall, stepping into alien territory.
‘I do like rings,’ went on Rosemary. ‘I like to imagine myself with every finger decked in jewels, like Queen Elizabeth – the First, that is.’
At the book launch, I recall Dorothy Dunnett remarking of Rosemary that she was a dangerous woman; dangerous because of her acute powers of observation, her ability to get inside both characters and the period in which they lived. And here she was, an English woman, writing a Scottish story and getting it right! She had read the story, she went on, with the usual admiration for the writer’s skill but also, as a Scot, with an inquisitiveness as to how accurate it would be, not simply in its adherence to historical events – which is, after all, relatively simple – but in its Scottishness, that much more elusive quality.
She marvelled at the rightness of the speech, the grasp of the shifting fortunes of the characters, and – she added – found only one tiny mistake. At one point in the novel, one of the characters collects some bilberries from a bush. In Scotland, particularly at that time, they would have been called ‘whinberries’.
‘I’ll remember,’ said Rosemary. And she would have, too.
When I kissed her cheek on saying goodbye, she gave a little girlish (that word again!) wriggle and said, in reference to my beard, ‘Mmm, a nice furry one.’
The following summer, Pauline, Hannah and I were staying in Chichester and arranged to visit Rosemary at her home nearby. She was in her workroom when we arrived, sitting behind her desk, her stiff legs resting on a stool. Amongst the usual paraphernalia of telephone, lamp, radio and so on, I noticed a couple of small teddy bears. A manuscript lay on the desk in front of her. Her pen hovered over the text as she read.
‘Are we disturbing your work?’
‘No, no. I am just going over a third draft. I can put it down.’
What she was going over has now become Flame-Coloured Taffeta, a lovely story set in ‘the sea-haunted land between Chichester and Selsey Bill’ close to her home. I can remember the ‘fattened’ pen she was holding between her crippled fingers, though what it was bound with to achieve the required width I forget. We talked idly, as is usual on such occasions, before going through to her sitting room for tea. This was a lovely, light room, with many ornaments decorating shelves and window sills. I particularly remember a fine pair of T’ang horses which a friend had brought her from Hong Kong.
Small memories, these; hardly worth writing down, some might think. They don’t add much to our knowledge of the writer and, after all, it is her work that counts.
All this is true, no doubt. But it is worth remembering the courage, over a lifetime, and the sheer power of imagination that produced such works as Eagle of the Ninth, The Mark of the Horse Lord and Frontier Wolf. She, of all people, gives the lie to that facile notion that somebody needs to have experienced something directly before it can be effectively written about. What is needed is the imagination, the descriptive power (and remember she was a miniaturist of no mean ability before the disease took full hold) and the skill with words: these she had in abundance.
Oh, and a word for any Secretary of State for Education – and any of his or her acolytes – who persist in simplistic notions of what makes a competent writer (and by extension, an educable and worthy person): Rosemary was a lousy speller.
So, I give you a few personal memories of a couple of meetings with a remarkable person; only a few memories but vivid ones. Most vivid of all, perhaps, that extraordinary moment in the Royal Scottish Museum when I took her twisted, crippled hand in mine and placed on her finger the etched image of a Roman centurion.
(This Desert Island Discs interview gives a few further details on how Sutcliff learned to write about things Scottish).
From the book's introduction, some context for their acquaintance: "Sadly, of course, Rosemary Sutcliff is no longer with us. She and I corresponded regularly, following her first contribution to Bookmark 4 – she was a subscriber, too, saying that she always looked forward to the next issue. I always intended to have an extended interview with her but the opportunity never arose. My personal memoir which concludes this volume stands as an inadequate substitute."
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF – A PERSONAL MEMOIR
I was in Portugal when I read of Rosemary Sutcliff’s death. One has to be somewhere, of course, but, nevertheless, it seemed oddly poignant to be a thousand miles from home base. It was my daughter, Hannah, who – having grabbed the edition of the European Guardian I had bought – first came across the news and told me. Immediately after the initial reactions, all three of us in our little cottage on a Portuguese hillside began to reminisce about times in Edinburgh and Sussex a few years before. Quite rightly, Elaine Moss began her obituary in the Guardian by saying that we should not be too solemn about all this; nor were we: there was a sense of mischief about Rosemary that would not long keep a straight face about such an event.
That is true. But there was also an extraordinary strength and purpose about her. I well remember the first time I saw her. I was meeting her at Waverley station in order to take her to her hotel. The train drew in and stopped, fortuitously, with Rosemary sitting directly opposite where I was standing. My first glimpse, therefore, was of her in profile and there was something forbidding, even stern, about that profile. The nose was aquiline, the head unmoving. I did not realise at that time the extent to which her body had been mangled – and parts immobilised – by the Still’s disease that she had suffered since infancy; consequently, I was a little disquieted by this stillness.
It took three of us to get her off the train, manhandling her in her wheelchair through the narrow door and down the step to the platform. Getting her into my car proved just as complicated. Carrying her tiny body was easy, but her legs were stiff and straight. ‘Mind my head,’ she warned as I tried to manoeuvre her into the passenger seat. Duly warned, I lowered my arms but then found her legs would not fit in. Eventually we worked it out; well, Rosemary gave me instructions and she landed in the seat relatively unscathed.
Getting her out at the other end of the short journey proved equally difficult but I don’t think I bumped her head. I left her and her companion at the hotel, promising to see her the next day – at the launch of her book Bonnie Dundee – and wondered quite what I had let myself in for.
I had arranged, at her request, for her to go to a programme of Scottish music at the Royal Scottish Museum the following morning, so I called in after the concert to see how she had enjoyed it. She was bubbling with enthusiasm. I nearly wrote ‘girlish’ enthusiasm, then thought better of it. Thinking even better of it, I think that ‘girlish’ is probably a correct description. Her delight in the concert was that of a schoolgirl, whole-hearted and laughing. Better still, she said to me: ‘Let me show you what I’ve bought. Isn’t it wonderful?’
She showed me a ring, an amber ring, ordinary at first glance. ‘Look at it. Isn’t that amazing?’ And there, engraved on the stone, but quite faintly, was the head of a Roman soldier, complete with plumed helmet. ‘It was meant for me, don’t you think?’
I remembered – who couldn’t? – those others who had travelled from the south of England into Scotland in search of the lost Eagle of the Ninth. I held the ring and saw Marcus and Esca going through a gate in Hadrian’s Wall, stepping into alien territory.
‘I do like rings,’ went on Rosemary. ‘I like to imagine myself with every finger decked in jewels, like Queen Elizabeth – the First, that is.’
At the book launch, I recall Dorothy Dunnett remarking of Rosemary that she was a dangerous woman; dangerous because of her acute powers of observation, her ability to get inside both characters and the period in which they lived. And here she was, an English woman, writing a Scottish story and getting it right! She had read the story, she went on, with the usual admiration for the writer’s skill but also, as a Scot, with an inquisitiveness as to how accurate it would be, not simply in its adherence to historical events – which is, after all, relatively simple – but in its Scottishness, that much more elusive quality.
She marvelled at the rightness of the speech, the grasp of the shifting fortunes of the characters, and – she added – found only one tiny mistake. At one point in the novel, one of the characters collects some bilberries from a bush. In Scotland, particularly at that time, they would have been called ‘whinberries’.
‘I’ll remember,’ said Rosemary. And she would have, too.
When I kissed her cheek on saying goodbye, she gave a little girlish (that word again!) wriggle and said, in reference to my beard, ‘Mmm, a nice furry one.’
The following summer, Pauline, Hannah and I were staying in Chichester and arranged to visit Rosemary at her home nearby. She was in her workroom when we arrived, sitting behind her desk, her stiff legs resting on a stool. Amongst the usual paraphernalia of telephone, lamp, radio and so on, I noticed a couple of small teddy bears. A manuscript lay on the desk in front of her. Her pen hovered over the text as she read.
‘Are we disturbing your work?’
‘No, no. I am just going over a third draft. I can put it down.’
What she was going over has now become Flame-Coloured Taffeta, a lovely story set in ‘the sea-haunted land between Chichester and Selsey Bill’ close to her home. I can remember the ‘fattened’ pen she was holding between her crippled fingers, though what it was bound with to achieve the required width I forget. We talked idly, as is usual on such occasions, before going through to her sitting room for tea. This was a lovely, light room, with many ornaments decorating shelves and window sills. I particularly remember a fine pair of T’ang horses which a friend had brought her from Hong Kong.
Small memories, these; hardly worth writing down, some might think. They don’t add much to our knowledge of the writer and, after all, it is her work that counts.
All this is true, no doubt. But it is worth remembering the courage, over a lifetime, and the sheer power of imagination that produced such works as Eagle of the Ninth, The Mark of the Horse Lord and Frontier Wolf. She, of all people, gives the lie to that facile notion that somebody needs to have experienced something directly before it can be effectively written about. What is needed is the imagination, the descriptive power (and remember she was a miniaturist of no mean ability before the disease took full hold) and the skill with words: these she had in abundance.
Oh, and a word for any Secretary of State for Education – and any of his or her acolytes – who persist in simplistic notions of what makes a competent writer (and by extension, an educable and worthy person): Rosemary was a lousy speller.
So, I give you a few personal memories of a couple of meetings with a remarkable person; only a few memories but vivid ones. Most vivid of all, perhaps, that extraordinary moment in the Royal Scottish Museum when I took her twisted, crippled hand in mine and placed on her finger the etched image of a Roman centurion.
