Herring Girl
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Other Lives, Other Selves: a Jungian psychotherapist discovers past lives, by Roger J. Woolger, London: Thorsons, 1999
Proof of Heaven: a neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife, by Eben Alexander, London: Piatkus, 2012
Reincarnation: a critical examination, by Paul Edwards, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996
Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principle, by C.G. Jung, tr. R.F.C. Hull, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, tr. Gyurme Dorje, ed. Graham Coleman with Thuuten Jinpa, London: Penguin, 2005
Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, by Ian Stevenson, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1974
Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences: how understanding NDEs can help us to live more fully, by Penny Sartori, London: Watkins Publishing, 2014
Language
A Dictionary of North East Dialect, by Bill Griffiths, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumbria University Press, 2004
Fantabulosa: a dictionary of Polari and gay slang, by Paul Baker, London: Continuum, 2002
Fishing and Folk: life and dialect on the North Sea coast, compiled by Bill Griffiths, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumbrian University Press, 2008
The Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (NECTE), Newcastle University, www.ncl.ac.uk/necte
Northumberland Words: a glossary of words used in the county of Northumberland and on Tyneside, vols. 1 and 1i, by Richard Oliver Heslop, London: published for the English Dialect Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1892‒4
Victorian life
A Woman’s Place: an oral history of working-class women 1890‒1940, by Elizabeth Roberts, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984
Late Victorian Britain 1875‒1901, by J.F.C. Harrison, London: Fontana, 1990
The Classic Slum: Salford life in the first quarter of the century, by Robert Roberts, London: Penguin, 1973
The Dillen: memories of a man of Stratford-upon-Avon, ed. Angela Hewins, London: Elm Tree Books, 1981
Local history
Cullercoats, by Ron White, The People’s History Ltd, 2002
Images of England: North Shields, by Eric Hollerton, Stroud: Tempus, 1997
Images of England: Tynemouth and Cullercoats, by John Alexander, Stroud: Tempus, 1999
Inns and Taverns of North Shields, by Charlie Steel, Stroud: Tempus, 2007
North Shields: living with industrial change, by North Tyneside Community Development Project (CDP), vol. 2, London: Home Office, 1978
North Shields: women’s work, by North Tyneside CDP, vol. 5, London: Home Office, 1978
Ordinary Lives a Hundred Years Ago, by Carol Adams, London: Virago, 1982
The Life and Times of Francie Nichol of South Shields, Francie Nichol, as told to Joe Robinson, London: Allen and Unwin, 1975
Fishing and diving
A Brief History of Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, North Shields, 1899–2001
A Drifterman’s Diary: an account of herring fishing in Norfolk in the days of sail and steam, by J.E. Holmes, Yarmouth: 1994
Beyond the Piers, by Ron White, The People’s History Ltd, 2002
Deep Sea Voices: recollections of women in our fishing communities, by Craig and Jenny Lazenby, Stroud: Tempus, 1999
Dive the North East Coast, by Peter Collings, Deep Lens Publishing, 1986
Following the Fishing: the days when bands of Scots fisher girls followed the herring fleets round Britain and scores of trades depended on the harvest of the sea, by David Butcher, Newton Abbot: Tops’l books, 1987
Hello Sailor!: the hidden history of gay life at sea, by Paul Baker and Jo Stanley, London: Longman, 2003
Herring Girls and Hiring Fairs: memories of Northumberland coast and countryside, by Maureen Brook, Newcastle upon Tyne: Tyne Bridge, 2005
Living from the Sea: memories of shoreside life in the days when fishermen’s nets were often full, but their pockets usually empty, by David Butcher, Sulhampstead: Tops’l Books, 1982
Manual of Freediving: underwater on a single breath, by Umberto Pelizzari and Stefano Tovaglieri, Crystal River, FL: Idelson Gnocchi, 2004
North Shields: memories of fish ’n’ ships, by Ron White, The People’s History Ltd, 2002
Patterns for Guernseys and Jerseys, by Gladys Thompson, London: Batsford, 1969
The Bonny Fisher Lad, edited by Katrina Porteous, The People’s History Ltd, 2002
The Driftermen: life in the tough days of Britain’s vanished herring fleets, recalled by the men who manned them, by David Butcher, Reading: Tops’l Books, 1979
The Last of the Hunters: life with the fishermen of North Shields, by Peter Mortimer, Nottingham: Five Leaves, 2007
The Long Line: three plays by Tom Hadaway, North Shields: Iron Press, 1994
The Trawlermen: memories of the men who manned Britain’s trawler fleets through the great days of sail and steam, by David Butcher, Reading: Tops’l books, 1980
Acknowledgements
Researching and writing Herring Girl has taken a very long time. My first notes, in September 2006, begin: ‘A character investigating past lives – plus a sceptic. How can thoughts be transmitted? Time is not necessarily linear.’ The person who accompanied me throughout this journey, who has been my first reader for over fifteen years, is playwright and creative writing tutor Margaret Wilkinson of Newcastle University. As well as commenting tirelessly on the structure and drafts of the novel, Margaret also guided me through Buddhist approaches to reincarnation and karma. She has been, and continues to be, the best possible writing companion.
I am also grateful to uber editorial consultant Lisanne Radice, who briskly intervened to renew my faith in the novel when my motivation was at a low ebb.
Hypnotherapist David Holmes conducted me though a past-life regression session, and introduced me to the character that would become Edith in Herring Girl – thank you so much. Thanks, too, to everyone who shared their past-life regression experiences with me, particularly the writer Amanda Scholes.
My fishing informants include ex-skipper Paul Dowse of Moir Seafoods in North Shields, Neil Robinson of the Port of Tyne Harbour Master’s Office in North Shields, and the ever-intrepid Peter Mortimer, who chronicled the contemporary fishing experience in his book Last of the Hunters. I also want to thank Margaret Gill of the Dove Marine Laboratory of Newcastle University for information about local research into the feminization of fish.
Deep Blue in Whitley Bay taught me to dive, so thanks are due to them; and to Mark Hussman, for descriptions of his many North Sea dives – as well as guidance on Asian English syntax. Also to the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (NECTE) at Newcastle University for archive recordings of Geordie dialect, which helped me ‘hear’ the historical conversations I was writing.
Like Mary, Laura and Ben in the novel, I spent many illuminating hours in the local history section of the library in North Shields, where the librarians – particularly Alan Senior – were incredibly knowledgeable, patient and helpful both to me and the many others trying to fathom the process of tracing the dead via census, microfiche, parish records, photography and website sources. I’m also grateful to librarians at the Tyne and Wear Archives at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, who helped my research into the ownership and crew members of fishing vessels in the 1890s; to staff at the General Registry Office in North Shields, for advice on tracing people via birth, marriage and death records; and to John Crawford of the Buckie and District Heritage Centre, for a long discussion about sleeping (and other) arrangements aboard herring boats at the turn of the century.
Thanks are also due to the many people who responded to my advert in the local paper for reminiscences of La Continental Bar (aka ‘The Jungle’) in North Shields in the 1960s – especially Lillian Burn, Alan Fidler, and an elderly man who preferred not to give his name but who spoke to me for well over an hour about his experiences as a young gay merchant seaman.
I’m grateful too to Justin Dix, Senior Lecturer in
Marine Geophysics and Geoarchaeology at the University of Southampton, who answered my many questions about what happens to the human body when immersed in the sea after death, and about circumstances that might help delay or prevent decomposition; and to Bob Williams of Aquapulse International Limited, for information about using ultrasound devices to search for items underwater.
None of these very obliging and generous informants should be held responsible if I have misunderstood, misinterpreted or misrepresented anything they have told me.
Finally, a huge thank you to my agent, Charlotte Robertson, for her intelligence, tenacity and energy, as well as for insights that helped shape the final manuscript; and to my editors, Rosalind Porter and Charlotte Van Wijk, and copy editor, Caroline Knight, for those last few crucial tweaks that an author simply can’t see for herself, but which make all the difference.
Debbie Taylor
The Old High Light, North Shields