Monica Edwards - a Personal Appreciation

sartorias  recently did a Book View Cafe blog on what kids like, and what was the first book that made you into a reader? and having thought about it for... oooh... minutes, I realised that the standout author from my early years of independent reading was Monica Edwards (1912 - 1998).

From my earliest days of graduating from picture books to 'chapter books' I gravitated towards (mainly) pony stories. I read them indiscriminately, working my way through the local library's supply of books by the likes of Ruby Ferguson, Judith M Berrisford or the Pullein-Thompson sisters. Mostly they were about English girls with ponies having improbable but exciting adventures and winning gymkhanas. Occasionally they might have the horses as central characters (such as Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby books). Always they had equines. (How I got into Narnia stories via The Horse and His Boy is maybe too obvious to tell.)

But the books I came back to time and time again were by Monica Edwards.

By some random chance (thanks, Mum), ‘Wish for a Pony’ by Monica Edwards was in my Christmas stocking when I was eight. Yes it was a pony book, but it was so much more besides and it instantly broadened my horizons. It introduced me to multi-layered characters who felt like friends. Characters who had a continuing life even when I wasn't opening my book as a window on their world.

Monica Edwards wrote two series of children's books, one set in Romney Marsh and based on the fictional village of Westling where her main heroine, Tamzin Grey, is the vicar's daughter. Westling is recognisably Rye Harbour in Sussex where Monica (Newton) grew up, the daughter of the vicar. Monica's other series is set on and around Punchbowl Farm  in Surrey, a fictionalised version of the farmhouse which she and her husband Bill Edwards bought in the 1930s. The two series are interconnected with characters from one appearing in the other occasionally. My personal favourites are the Romney Marsh books, and I've managed to collect the whole set over the years, finding titles that I recalled reading from the library but never owned.

I don't honestly know how I would judge them against today's crop of children's books if I came to them fresh, but they stand up well to re-reading even though they are from a much more innocent time.

Wish for a Pony instantly became my favourite book, to be read and re-read. It's the first Romney Marsh book and introduces Tamzin Grey and her best friend Rissa Birnie, two likeable main characters. It also includes a richly populated geographical background, detailed and ‘real’ with interesting grown up characters, too. She drew on characters from Rye Harbour to populate her books. Who can say whether they were real individuals or amalgams of local characters. Apart from Tamzin's ever present but not overbearing parents, and her little brother, Diccon, (whose age unfortunately shifts part way through the series) recurring characters include Old Jim Decks the rogueish but intrinsically good ferryman, and Old Jim’s son, Young Jim and the slightly sinister Hookey Galley who is always Up To No Good. Even the minor characters, like Butterbeans Pope who is always hanging around the harbour mast, the inappropriately named Lillycrop children, and the curmudgeonly grocer, Smiling Morn, are all succinctly drawn. Yes there are horses, and yes, Tamzin's wish for a pony does come true, though not via the obvious route.

The second book, Summer of the Great Secret, sees Tamzin and Rissa trying to reform Old Jim Decks when he is suspected of smuggling - a recurring theme and a semi-respectable profession for a Sussex fisherman when it involved brandy from Fance rather than boatloads of narcotics (Dr-Syn-for-kids?). In the third book two boy characters duly arrive, Rissa’s cousin Roger and his piratical and dashing young friend, Meryon Fairbrass, and the four children become the core cast for the rest of the series which includes stories of the local farm struggling through a foot-and-mouth epidemic, or fake ‘hauntings’ to scare off developers, or of rescuing seabirds from an oil-slick or saving a dolphin from exploitation. The ponies are ever present, but not always the focus. Rissa eventually gets her own pony, but the boys have their own interests. Meryon, despite a swashbuckling pirate ancestor, always aspires to a career in medicine.

It says a lot for the impression these books left on me that I can write this now without referring to the volumes on my bookshelves. The characters lived for me then and still live for me now. I remember them not just as paper characters, but as friends I once knew well and still remember with fondness. I grew up with Tamzin, Rissa, Meryon and Roger – absurdly delighted when, as they grew up, Tamzin and Meryon ended up with an ‘understanding'.

Monica Edwards writing was never flashy, but it had an intense quality of realism, albeit not gritty as is currently the fashion. Her characters still faced physical trials and moral dilemmas and saved the day by extreme courage, steadfast loyalty to each other and intelligent reasoning. She was thoroughly grounded in the geography and history of her specific locations, never more upfront than when she wrote Storm Ahead, which featured a lifeboat disaster based on the loss of the Mary Stanford of Rye in 1928 when the whole of the seventeen man crew of the Mary Stanford Lifeboat drowned. Monica (age 16) was witness as the lifeboat capsized while coming into harbour, and it was her father who officiated at the mass funeral for the seventeen drowned sailors. Rooted in fact and bitter experience, Monica's writing was never more realistic than when describing that storm and its consequences with chilling intensity.

I recently read the  The Monica Edwards Romney Marsh Companion by Brian Parks and was interested to find out that Meryon was based on a boy she knew in real life. When I discovered that he died while at Oxford University, I was gutted. It was as if one of my favourite childhood characters had been killed off without fulfilling his potential of growing up to be a doctor and marrying his Tamzin. Those characters grabbed me so much as a child that over four deecades later I still care.

It  behooves us as writers to understand that the very best books are about people who feel real. A good book is a combination of plot, characterisation and style, but just as architects will debate whether form follows function or function follows form, readers will debate the relative importance of the three major criteria. For me, there's no contest. Without great characterisation a book doesn't live. Tamzin, Rissa, Meryon and Roger never stopped living when I closed my book and they're still living now.

Thank you. Monica Edwards.

Monica Edwards - a Personal Appreciation

sartorias  recently did a Book View Cafe blog on what kids like, and what was the first book that made you into a reader? and having thought about it for... oooh... minutes, I realised that the standout author from my early years of independent reading was Monica Edwards (1912 - 1998).

From my earliest days of graduating from picture books to 'chapter books' I gravitated towards (mainly) pony stories. I read them indiscriminately, working my way through the local library's supply of books by the likes of Ruby Ferguson, Judith M Berrisford or the Pullein-Thompson sisters. Mostly they were about English girls with ponies having improbable but exciting adventures and winning gymkhanas. Occasionally they might have the horses as central characters (such as Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby books). Always they had equines. (How I got into Narnia stories via The Horse and His Boy is maybe too obvious to tell.)

But the books I came back to time and time again were by Monica Edwards.

By some random chance (thanks, Mum), ‘Wish for a Pony’ by Monica Edwards was in my Christmas stocking when I was eight. Yes it was a pony book, but it was so much more besides and it instantly broadened my horizons. It introduced me to multi-layered characters who felt like friends. Characters who had a continuing life even when I wasn't opening my book as a window on their world.

Monica Edwards wrote two series of children's books, one set in Romney Marsh and based on the fictional village of Westling where her main heroine, Tamzin Grey, is the vicar's daughter. Westling is recognisably Rye Harbour in Sussex where Monica (Newton) grew up, the daughter of the vicar. Monica's other series is set on and around Punchbowl Farm  in Surrey, a fictionalised version of the farmhouse which she and her husband Bill Edwards bought in the 1930s. The two series are interconnected with characters from one appearing in the other occasionally. My personal favourites are the Romney Marsh books, and I've managed to collect the whole set over the years, finding titles that I recalled reading from the library but never owned.

I don't honestly know how I would judge them against today's crop of children's books if I came to them fresh, but they stand up well to re-reading even though they are from a much more innocent time.

Wish for a Pony instantly became my favourite book, to be read and re-read. It's the first Romney Marsh book and introduces Tamzin Grey and her best friend Rissa Birnie, two likeable main characters. It also includes a richly populated geographical background, detailed and ‘real’ with interesting grown up characters, too. She drew on characters from Rye Harbour to populate her books. Who can say whether they were real individuals or amalgams of local characters. Apart from Tamzin's ever present but not overbearing parents, and her little brother, Diccon, (whose age unfortunately shifts part way through the series) recurring characters include Old Jim Decks the rogueish but intrinsically good ferryman, and Old Jim’s son, Young Jim and the slightly sinister Hookey Galley who is always Up To No Good. Even the minor characters, like Butterbeans Pope who is always hanging around the harbour mast, the inappropriately named Lillycrop children, and the curmudgeonly grocer, Smiling Morn, are all succinctly drawn. Yes there are horses, and yes, Tamzin's wish for a pony does come true, though not via the obvious route.

The second book, Summer of the Great Secret, sees Tamzin and Rissa trying to reform Old Jim Decks when he is suspected of smuggling - a recurring theme and a semi-respectable profession for a Sussex fisherman when it involved brandy from Fance rather than boatloads of narcotics (Dr-Syn-for-kids?). In the third book two boy characters duly arrive, Rissa’s cousin Roger and his piratical and dashing young friend, Meryon Fairbrass, and the four children become the core cast for the rest of the series which includes stories of the local farm struggling through a foot-and-mouth epidemic, or fake ‘hauntings’ to scare off developers, or of rescuing seabirds from an oil-slick or saving a dolphin from exploitation. The ponies are ever present, but not always the focus. Rissa eventually gets her own pony, but the boys have their own interests. Meryon, despite a swashbuckling pirate ancestor, always aspires to a career in medicine.

It says a lot for the impression these books left on me that I can write this now without referring to the volumes on my bookshelves. The characters lived for me then and still live for me now. I remember them not just as paper characters, but as friends I once knew well and still remember with fondness. I grew up with Tamzin, Rissa, Meryon and Roger – absurdly delighted when, as they grew up, Tamzin and Meryon ended up with an ‘understanding'.

Monica Edwards writing was never flashy, but it had an intense quality of realism, albeit not gritty as is currently the fashion. Her characters still faced physical trials and moral dilemmas and saved the day by extreme courage, steadfast loyalty to each other and intelligent reasoning. She was thoroughly grounded in the geography and history of her specific locations, never more upfront than when she wrote Storm Ahead, which featured a lifeboat disaster based on the loss of the Mary Stanford of Rye in 1928 when the whole of the seventeen man crew of the Mary Stanford Lifeboat drowned. Monica (age 16) was witness as the lifeboat capsized while coming into harbour, and it was her father who officiated at the mass funeral for the seventeen drowned sailors. Rooted in fact and bitter experience, Monica's writing was never more realistic than when describing that storm and its consequences with chilling intensity.

I recently read the  The Monica Edwards Romney Marsh Companion by Brian Parks and was interested to find out that Meryon was based on a boy she knew in real life. When I discovered that he died while at Oxford University, I was gutted. It was as if one of my favourite childhood characters had been killed off without fulfilling his potential of growing up to be a doctor and marrying his Tamzin. Those characters grabbed me so much as a child that over four deecades later I still care.

It  behooves us as writers to understand that the very best books are about people who feel real. A good book is a combination of plot, characterisation and style, but just as architects will debate whether form follows function or function follows form, readers will debate the relative importance of the three major criteria. For me, there's no contest. Without great characterisation a book doesn't live. Tamzin, Rissa, Meryon and Roger never stopped living when I closed my book and they're still living now.

Thank you. Monica Edwards.

Movie of the Week: Captain America

A hideously early showing at 12.10 p.m. so H and I could catch the 2D verion of this. I can't imagine seeing this in 3D would add anything.

I never read Capt. America comic books so I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original story, but it didn't matter. It was a good story, well done. I don't remember seeing Chris Evans in anything previously (turns out he was The Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four Movies, so that shows you how much of an impression they made on me) but he was convincing in this as both the runt who continuously tries and fails to pass the physical for army enlistment during WW2, and as the scientifically enhanced super soldier who becomes Captain America.

The supporting cast was excellent. Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving are always worth watching, though I completely failed to recognise Richard Armirage as the spy, Kruger. Hayley Atwell was the love interest, Peggy, looking almost unrecognisable in 1940s red lipstick.

Verdict: unexpectedly good. Much better characterisation than most of the recent batch of comic book films and a gazillion times better than Green Lantern.

Movie of the Week: Captain America

A hideously early showing at 12.10 p.m. so H and I could catch the 2D verion of this. I can't imagine seeing this in 3D would add anything.

I never read Capt. America comic books so I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original story, but it didn't matter. It was a good story, well done. I don't remember seeing Chris Evans in anything previously (turns out he was The Human Torch in the two Fantastic Four Movies, so that shows you how much of an impression they made on me) but he was convincing in this as both the runt who continuously tries and fails to pass the physical for army enlistment during WW2, and as the scientifically enhanced super soldier who becomes Captain America.

The supporting cast was excellent. Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving are always worth watching, though I completely failed to recognise Richard Armirage as the spy, Kruger. Hayley Atwell was the love interest, Peggy, looking almost unrecognisable in 1940s red lipstick.

Verdict: unexpectedly good. Much better characterisation than most of the recent batch of comic book films and a gazillion times better than Green Lantern.