How I met the Past (part one)

Last week, I was asked whether I was interested in Thomas Cromwell prior to Hilary Mantel’s Trilogy. And I thought I would write up an “origin story” in answer. This is part one - and my introduction to Cromwell himself will follow next time.

Looking back over The Thread of Her Tale I realise that I have already touched on this about a year ago, but the story bears repeating as it takes in the impact of a good teacher. And good teachers should be celebrated. I wrote to my secondary school History Teacher - Mr Larkin - when I submitted my PhD, because it was largely down to his influence, back in the 1980s, that I studied history. A large part of his teaching was about the Great War (I remember him encouraging a class of teenagers to look at - actually look at - the War Memorial in Stalybridge) and my PhD thesis: Maurice Elvey: The Development of a British Filmmaker during the First World War (2018) owes him a huge debt. He was the best teacher I ever had. But my origins as a historian come from an earlier teacher, from when I was at Primary School.

When I was eight, we had a teacher called Mrs Etches. I think we only had her for a term, or at the most two terms; there was a short-lived newly qualified teacher who started our year, and then some supply teachers, one of whom seemed to dislike me intensely. The feeling was mutual, so it was as though the sun had come out when Mrs Etches arrived.

I wasn’t a happy child, mostly stuck in my books, and Mrs Etches clearly noticed this. I remember her asking me to recommend a book for the class to read together and I suggested Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson (still a very good read). But my favourite book - which I didn’t feel I wanted to share too widely - was A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley.

It was A Traveller in Time that brought the past to my attention. Penelope, the book’s protagonist, is sent to Derbyshire to convalesce and finds herself caught up in the story of the Babington family who once lived in her aunt and uncle’s 16th century farmhouse. There book focuses on a plan by Anthony Babington to rescue Mary, Queen of Scots, from nearby Wingfield Manor, where she was held prisoner (in the custody of one Sir Ralph Sadler in his post-Cromwell years). I was completely in love with this book, its descriptions of material culture, its conjuring of past lives. I am still in its grip - especially the way Uttley manages to show centuries-old objects surviving and being used in the present, their origins largely forgotten (the bobbin boy, the patchwork quilts, the locket).

Penelope’s (and therefore the reader’s) attention is directed towards the younger Babington brother Francis, but to eight-year-old me, Anthony Babington was the dashing hero. I learned that he was a “real” person, that his attempts to free the Queen of Scots did not stop at Wingfield, and that the more ambitious, failed Babington Plot meant that he met with a terrible end some years later. This was my fiercely guarded secret - that Alison Uttley’s book made me want to know more, more, more.

I learned to read at Stalybridge Library (where, unknown to me, a young woman was making use of the reference library to research the French Revolution for a novel she was writing.)¹

I loved Stalybridge Library and its solid Manchester red brick, dark wood doors, and distinctive papery library smell. It was well stocked with an extensive children’s section, but there was no prohibition on looking around more widely, and in the Grown Up Library I found a large hardback copy of Antonia Fraser’s biography of Mary Queen of Scots. I took to carrying this around with me despite its weight and size, and Mrs Etches must have noticed. She asked me if I would like to talk to the class about Mary Queen of Scots - and she even encouraged me to write a play based very loosely on A Traveller in Time. As a result, I started to realise that being interested in history, and writing about it was a legitimate thing to do.

And what’s more, Mrs Etches lent me her own copy of Antonia Fraser’s book so that I didn’t have to worry about a library loan. When I tried to return it to her, she woudln’t take it, and told me it was mine to keep. I still have it, over 40 years later.

Thank you Mrs Etches, I still have your book

I was thinking about Mrs Etches earlier this week when I was visiting York Minster. I had a sudden memory of her taking my class on a school trip to York. We went on the train, and I can still remember parts of the journey and the checked patterns on the seats. We went to the Railway Museum and we also visited the Minster, where one of the boys solemnly told me that the crypt was haunted. He had - honest - actually, really seen a ghost down there. A ghostly monk perhaps. Needless to say, I wouldn’t go in the crypt. In fact, I didn’t enter York Minster crypt until this Tuesday, only to find there was no ghost there.

At least - there wasn’t a ghost like the one that Jamie Miller convinced me that he had seen. But in the undercroft museum² there was a ghost of my former self. Because in one of the display cases I saw Anthony Babington’s rosary. It was the last thing he ever touched, to guide his prayers before his execution. And suddenly I was eight years old again.

Anthony Babington’s rosary, on display in York Minster

1. Hilary and I discovered this connection years later, when she told me that she had become a writer in Stalybridge Library, while working on A Place of Greater Safety.

2. The York Minster Undercroft Museum, within the Minster, is excellent - and I thoroughly recommend visiting. It includes information about the long development of the Minster site, its restoration and repair, and a wide variety of religions and cultural artefacts.