I’m tired. What with the launch of Castle Sefton Press’ first book – Ghost Train – and preparations for Christmas, I think that’s only natural. And it’s good to be tired from doing productive things. At the last minute too, CSP also had to deal with some new EU legislation, the new General Product Safety Regulation, which means that we have to fulfil various disclosure and traceability obligations and ensure that our books are safe for EU customers. I don’t think there is too much to worry about, unless we come up with something like J K Rowling’s Monster Book of Monsters.
I enjoy hectic times at this time of year, within reason: being busy, being tired, rushing jobs late at night and trying to cram too much stuff into the fridge. It’s all part of the festivities and builds up the excitement, although this year’s Christmas art work is a reminder that we all need to take a rest occasionally, even at our busiest times.
It is also a depiction of a very old tradition as I was reminded by Jane Moulder of the excellent Renaisance music ensemble PIVA at their very entertaining Christmas concert last week. It may go back to the Saxon and Viking practice of leaving food out to appease Woden or Odin at this time of year.
Jane also reminded me what a long season Yuletide used to be, in addition to the specific celebration of Christmas. Many people speak with cynical scorn about early Christmas preparations these days, but it doesn’t have to be commercial. For example, I usually start thinking about Christmas in September when I make preserves to give as gifts, because that is harvest season. I’m sure that’s something Clyde in Ghost Train would like to do. It’s all part of the ideas of work, life and seasonal rhythms that are explored in the book, and some of those are themes that I want to return to in future works.
Future works are something else I have been busy with. I have been developing a new novel that I hope will become the first of a series set in the fictional region where the Ghost Train story takes place. But Christmas is a wonderful time for short stories too – particularly about magical adventures, mysteries and ghosts – so I have also been working on a few of those. Entertaining by storytelling on dark nights is another ancient tradition, one that has transferred successfully to television particularly in the superb BBC films by Laurence Gordon Clark. If you can’t get hold of a copy of my Ghost Train by Christmas, you can experience a very different one in his film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ story The Signalman, which is showing in the UK on Talking Pictures TV on New Year’s Day.
Of course, Dickens’ was famous for his Christmas stories; A Christmas Carol remains one of his most famous works of any kind. The week before the PIVA concert, we were entertained by Don’t Go Into The Cellar‘s rendition of the story: actor Jonathan Goodwin dressed as Dickens and presenting it in dramatic monologue, very much as the author used to do. I very much enjoyed seeing a style of acting involving extravagant costume and make-up, pronounced gestures and varied projection of the voice that I had thought totally extinct. It made me think of the magnificently anachronistic screen actor Tod Slaughter in one of his best-known films, The Murder in the Red Barn (1936). If you’re new to that kind of thing, you probably won’t believe it.
The film is supposedly based on the real-life murder of Maria Marten in 1827, although from what I remember from the excellent permanent exhibition at The Moyes Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (UK) it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the true story. The exhibition contains one of the most sinister objects I have ever seen close to: a book telling the ‘Red Barn Murder’ story that is bound in the tanned skin of the (supposed) murderer, William Corden.
A book bound in human skin. I don’t think that would pass the EU General Product Safety Regulation.
Wishing everyone a merry and festive Christmas season, and looking forward to some engaging new stories in 2025.