Blog
‘A heartwarming historical novel’ – Rosie Goodwin
I am thrilled and delighted beyond words to have received warm words of praise from Rosie Goodwin, the Queen of historical saga authors, for The Royal Station Master’s Daughters. She describes it as 'A heartwarming historical novel', and I cannot thank her enough. I...
Royal Commission into coastal erosion – more than 100 years ago!
I wonder if Greta realises that her demands for action on climate change is not being called for the first time. It was a conversation started more than one hundred years ago. At the time urgent recommendations were made to save our coastline from further erosion....
Royal reminiscences of playing with Prince John, the royal train and more…
Playing with Prince John, riding on the royal train, visiting Buckingham Palace and joining the King on a shoot, these are some of the fabulous royal reminiscences from Leslie Heath about his time at Wolferton with his grandfather Harry Saward, the Royal Station...
Using liquid paraffin for mayonnaise, a royal recipe reminiscence
The Marchioness of Cambridge had to be inventive during WW2 when she discovered she had no olive oil to whip up her mayonnaise needed to serve with her fine fresh salmon for lunch. I doubt any of us would have thought of the alternative she chose - liquid paraffin -...
Signing up Norfolk’s War Horses for WW1
I so love Michael Morpurgo's powerful War Horse story and was reminded of it when reading about the signing up of Norfolk's own War Horses in a booklet called Dereham in the Great War, A Diary by Terry Davy. The entry for Thursday, 6 August 1914 vividly describes the...
Prince Philip’s black truffle crop at Sandringham
Did you know that when he was well into his 98th year Prince Philip became the first person in Britain to cultivate a successful crop of black truffles - and it happened on the Sandringham estate? It's mentioned by Prince Philip's friend and biographer Gyles Brandreth...
Sandringham’s Queen Bee Flower Power
I was interested to learn that TV naturalist and eco campaigner Chris Packham led a children’s march to Buckingham Palace to deliver a petition with more than 100,000 signatures asking the Queen to rewild royal lands. The petition urges the royal family to commit to...
Introducing my writing companions, Elsie and Ernie
We're currently staying in Airbnb in a hamlet called Barway while our house in Ely is renovated, and we'll be here for a couple more months yet. While here I'm pressing on with writing book 2 in my trilogy. I've written more than 35,000 words already and am making a...
When did the first Royal Train steam into Wolferton?
How fabulous for the newly wed Princess Alexandra to be swept off her feet and onto the royal train by her dashing young bridegroom, Prince Edward, (later King Edward V11) to spend their honeymoon at Sandringham. The date was 28 March, 1863 and this was the first...