My new novel The Girls from Greenway! 
Life in the Sixties – Motown, jazz, frothy coffee, ten pound poms, the pools, love and betrayal. The book is set in Essex. Two sisters, Angie and Doreen have a difficult home life on their council estate in Chelmsford. And then things get worse – unknowingly they fall in love with the same man.
Last Thursday, The Saturday Girls, my novel about mod girls in the Sixties, was published by Bonnier Zaffre. The day was very exciting in a quiet sort of way. Quite unexpectedly, my niece first thing went to her local Sainsbury’s with her two sons (3 and 1) and sent me a photo of them in the trolley, holding copies of the book. It was such a lovely surprise and quite moving – that she should do that, and also that the boys should sit quietly and hold the book nicely. I have to say, other photos show them considering eating the books, but hey.
Now it’s off to Paris. Expect more pictures of coffee cups.
When was the last time you talked about Angel Cake?
Here’s my answer to that question – quite a lot, quite recently. About a week ago I received the first print copy of The Saturday Girls ) (out next Thursday!! pre-order it now). How lovely it looks! And there, tucked into the back of the book is a recipe for Angel Cake – because there is a delicious, moist, soft Angel birthday cake actually in the book. And this is a real life Angel Cake – not a cake mix! When I knew there would be a cake in the back of the book I decided to do a little research to see what it actually tastes like. I’m not sure it’s meant to have icing, but it tasted very good. I did a bit of a wide ranging search in fact and I have to say that Tesco’s own brand came out rather well.
Then on Wednesday at a social event, with much, much white wine and a sprinkling of canapes, I found myself in conversation with a French scientist who loves to bake. ‘What is your favourite cake?’ I asked, quite innocently. And she said, ‘Angel cake,’ just like that and proceeded to give me yet another recipe. We then had a discussion about what to do with egg yolks and how much mayonnaise can one household actually eat. But that need not trouble us here.
Because on Thursday, the very next day, a story was published in the Guardian about the reissue of the Suffrage Cook Book (read a review here). A book to warm the hearts and stomachs of those fighting the good fight to obtain votes for women. And the recipe they printed to go along with the story was … Suffrage Angel Cake!
I think what we can draw from this is that it’s all pointing one way. It all started with The Saturday Girls. And that’s where it’s heading. Published by Bonnier Zaffre, it comes out on 23 August 2018 – next Thursday. Pre-order it now!
And once it is in your hands – the book really is beautifully produced – you can try out the recipe. And when you have produced a delicious cake, then you can sit down with a generous slice, a cup of tea and a good book (The Saturday Girls obviously) and relive the heady days of the Sixties, when Saturday night was the night for dancing and the Corn Exchange was the place to be, and have a really, really good time.
This is a brief post to alert you to the interview I did with Radio Gorgeous which is now up on their website as a podcast. *
Just before Christmas, on a wintery afternoon, Jo Pembroke and I sat in the John Snow pub in Soho, near Carnaby Street and talked – and talked. In the background you can hear the end of the lunchtime rush. Of course we discussed Chelmsford, mods and rockers, the Corn Exchange and music – and the interview opens, like the book, with the haunting organ chords of Green Onions. But the conversation ranged far and wide. Jo steered the conversation to Heybridge Basin in Essex where my dad grew up, Leytonstone in London where my mum was born, Woodford where the World War ll bomb fell on their house, then their meeting in the boom town of Chelmsford, where I was born and grew up. Then on to Birmingham, Leicester and Tours, before landing back in London. It’s all here
The picture that accompanies the interview is me in our back garden on the Woodhall Estate. On the left of the picture is our shed. People who have read Beyond the Beehive will know the importance of a shed in the life of a young person who wants to keep a secret. Behind me stretch the other houses on our block and far in the distance, on the right of the picture is the beginning of the shops. Important for chips, the purchase of wedding presents, the Off Licence and Sally the Baker’s. Plus the all important grocer’s.
I am wearing a black dress and a red beret. And for real fashion aficionados, the shoes were black patent with Louis heels and a flower detail. An interesting combination for a wedding outfit, and the basis of not a few jokes. But I take comfort from the fact that my niece (whose image is on the front cover of the book) saw this picture and asked me if I still had the dress as she liked it. Or possibly because she was about to go to a fancy dress party.
* Friend M writes ‘Last night …. could not absolutely could not get to sleep. Cup of tea etc and then I found Radio Gorgeous and you being interviewed! After that I was ab… z z z z z’
Events over the last few days are incomprehensible and almost unbelievable, Donald Trump is to be the next president in the White House, Leonard Cohen has died, and almost unnoticed cuts to the benefits of the poorest in our society have been introduced.
What was happening in the 60s? JFK, one of the most popular presidents ever was shot, thousands of American troops were pouring into Vietnam, pressure was being put on Harold Wilson to send members of the British military to join them, and the Beatles were taking the world by storm. On Saturday 12 November I’m going to be talking about this and more at the Stroud Green Library Sixties Saturday event.
Here’s a piece about the event from the Harringay on Line Friday Ketchup newsletter:
‘The Friends of Stroud Green and Harringay Library are delighted to present an afternoon dedicated to the Sixties at the library on Saturday 12th November from 2 – 4pm
At 2.30 we welcome Elizabeth Woodcraft, a local author, to discuss her new book ‘Beyond the Beehive‘ and what it was like being a mod girl in Chelmsford. Elizabeth will play music from the era and her book will be available to buy after the event.
PLUS
*Pop up exhibition: For one afternoon only, from 2pm until 4 pm, local people have lent items from the sixties for our ‘Beyond the Beehive’ exhibition
*Bring a photo of yourself or your parents/grandparents in the 60s’ to share! Bring baby pics, wedding photos, pictures of you on marches or pictures of your parents and grandparents from the 1960s. If you have no photos, write a memory, association or words you associate with the 60s on our post-it note board.
*Take a selfie with a beehive wig! Elizabeth will bring her wigs for you to try on
*Take part in our discussion about what you like, remember, think about the 60s. ALL ages welcome. All you need is an interest in the 60s!
*Browse and borrow books from Haringey Library from or about the 60s
Refreshments available
We are very excited about this event and we hope to see you there!’
What a great evening at Waterstones Covent Garden on Friday night. This was an event organised by Novel London and it was standing room only. There were three authors, Christopher Bowden (the Purple Stain), Laxmi Hariharan (Taken) and me (Beyond the Beehive), each reading the first chapter of our latest novels.
The Covent Garden branch of Waterstones is in Garrick Street, in the middle of busy Covent Garden. It also has an entrance in New Row. It is a place of nooks and crannies, layers and stairs, and shelves packed with enticing books. As I arrived, as the chairs were being arrranged and the wine glasses set out on the table, Norma Cohen who compered the show, gave the readers some last minute professional advice (only project). Then the cameras were focussed, the mics were attached and, standing in front of a shelf with the title Smart Thinking, the evening began.
All three books were very different, mine about working-class girls in the 60s, Christopher’s about crime in Paris and London and Laxmi’s many-lives novel. The evening was compered with enormous charm and humour by Norma Cohen.
It was a great birthday party for me. Several of my Christine-friends were there (people whose names are Christine) including my oldest friend Christine who is the inspiration for Sandra. Apart from arguing that she would never have worn caramel flavoured lipstick, I think she liked it (of course she hasn’t read the whole book yet) (Don’t sue me, I’m a lawyer). There were people from my French class (merci!), writing pals, my relatives, barristerial colleagues and chums we see in Paris. I didn’t have copies of my book to sell, but I did have postcards! and there were a few copies A Sense of Occasion. Afterwards, a few of us went to Carluccio’s across the road for a bowl of pasta and a glass of red wine and I went home with roses and gifts and cards.
So a huge vote of thanks to Waterstone’s Covent Garden and to Cameron Publicity for supporting such a great event, and of course to Novel London for setting it all up.
The Essex Girls, out on 23 August 2018, is a book I’ve wanted to write for most of my life, because it seems the world has not paid much attention to the lives of mod, working class girls, and I wanted to redress the balance. When I was about 10 I started to write a book about a girl who didn’t go to boarding school. Somehow, apart from the Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton, there weren’t that many books around about children who went to day school. All those boarding school kids had to have their adventures in the long hot summer holidays, whereas in my world we were having adventures on weekdays and weekends. I say adventures – I mean writing the local newspaper, cooking ourselves little restaurant meals, putting on plays for the other kids in the street, and following someone on the estate we were convinced was a spy and noting his movements down in our notebooks (a spy with a very dull life, it turned out).
The problem grew more acute as I got older and became a mod. There were limitations with being a mod – if you weren’t interested in clothes and music and possibly scooters and if your mum and dad would not have let you go to Clacton or Margate on a Bank holiday, even if you’d wanted to, then there wasn’t much going on – but there was still a life, and one with a lot of action. The film Quadrophenia demonstrated that people were interested in mods, but the girls don’t get much of a look in, in the story.
So, out came the notebook and over the pages flew my pen, and then my word processor and then one computer after another.
I hope I’ve captured some of the essence of the excitement of Saturday nights, walking into a dance hall in time to the rhythm of Green Onions, or the smell of Wishing perfume by Avon, or seeing people you knew wearing parkas and leather coats, swooping along the road to park outside the mods’ coffee bar. It was a great time.
The Essex Girls is published by Bonnier Zaffre and is available to pre-order here
It is all go in Chelmsford, preparing for the launch party of A Sense of Occasion.
The Saracen’s Head will be humming – just as it did when mods dropped in, lurching from the Lion and Lamb, via the Golden Fleece and the White Hart, parking their scooters outside, slipping out of their parkas.
The play list for the launch has been one of the most important features. As regular visitors to this website will know, the stories in A Sense of Occasion trace the lives of four mod girls in the 60s – love loss laughter and scooters. So the music has got to catch the essence. The Four Tops, Spencer Davis, Green Onions, a smattering of the Beatles, James Brown, Donnie Elbert and more. Just listening to the tracks now is like being at the Corn Exchange on a Saturday night. Everyone smelling their best – Old Spice or Avon’s Wishing. Everyone looking their best in their suede coats and their Hush Puppies.
Books will be on sale, books will be signed. There will be a prize for the best mod outfit. There will be lights, there will be music. Can’t wait!
Hear more great tracks at The Sixties Made Me