Ravenscliffe

by Jane Sanderson

  ‘Here are the results of the election contest in the constituency of Ardington.’

  The returning officer was Lester Moorhouse, chairman of the parish council; a Liberal, Amos thought resentfully, though there was no clue in his neutral expression as to what was written on the piece of paper in his hand. He was milking the moment, though: his pause was a little long, a little theatrical and his voice, when he spoke again, was loaded with self-importance.

  ‘Mr Webster Thorne, Liberal Party: two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-five votes.’

  A hum of urgent conversation waxed and then waned. Amos and Enoch looked at each other, knowing without speaking that they shared the same thought: Thorne had polled well. Their anxiety had been well-founded.

  ‘Mr Vincent Camberley-Brook, Conservative Party. Eighty-three votes.’

  Someone sent up an ironic hurrah and earned a ripple of laughter, but it was of the nervous, distracted variety, and offered no real release from the tension.

  ‘Mr Amos Sykes, Independent Labour Party.’

  In the pause, Amos heard only the pounding of his own heart. His hand, in Anna’s, was cold and his mouth was bone dry. He felt he stood on the edge of a precipice; he hadn’t realised, until now, how very much he wanted to win.

  ‘Two thousand, nine hundred and forty-two votes. Mr Amos Sykes is duly elected as the Member of Parliament for Ardington.’

  These last words in Mr Moorhouse’s moment in the spotlight were lost in the animal roar of victory from Amos’s supporters. Thorne and his agent exchanged stunned looks of abject confusion. They stood immobile, trying to comprehend the loss while pandemonium broke out all about them. Like a shot, Seth was back on the platform, hooting with ecstatic triumph. Eliza clambered up too and threw herself joyfully into the mayhem. Enoch, tears streaming down his face, joined Amos and Anna in a tight embrace and the three of them swayed there, heads together, quite undone by emotion, unsteady with relief and disbelief. When they finally pulled apart, Thorne was gone from the platform and the Liberal supporters were trailing out of the hall like guests ejected from a party. Vincent Camberley-Brook, entirely unsupported in the crowd but gentlemanly in defeat, waited politely for the victory speech; when there is no hope of winning, neither is there disappointment at losing. And in front of the platform an expectant, jubilant, giddy crowd of Labour voters shouted for their man. He stepped forwards and they hollered their approval, clapping and clapping, stamping their boots on the wooden boards. Amos waited, let them settle, and then he spoke.

  ‘Today, my loyal friends, you have put your trust in me, and I make this pledge to you now: I shall not let you down. There is much work to be done, but I shall not rest until there is no child hungry in Ardington, no working man without fair pay, no widow without t’means to support ’erself and ’er family. It’s an honour, a privilege, to represent you and I shall endeavour always to justify your faith in me.’ Here his voice cracked and faltered and he looked down at his boots. A swell of cheering rose to fill the moment, giving him time to collect himself. Anna moved closer and he reached for her, pulling her tight to his side. Someone shouted, ‘Three cheers for Amos and Anna Sykes,’ and Amos looked at her, and then out across the hall and he laughed out loud, warm and flushed with happiness. This was his world, and it was a place where anything was possible.

  For an authentic taste of

  Anna’s homeland,

  try your hand

  at these traditional

  Russian delicacies.

  Anna’s Recipes

  Pirozkhi

  Ingredients

  16 fluid oz warm milk

  1 tablespoon sugar

  1 tablespoon yeast

  2 tablespoons melted butter

  1 egg

  1 teaspoon salt

  1½ lb flour

  Half a cabbage, finely chopped

  6 hardboiled eggs, chopped

  Salt and pepper to taste

  Method

  Pour a little of the warm milk into a bowl and add the sugar and yeast. Set aside until it foams – about ten minutes. Pour the rest of the milk into another bowl and to this add the melted butter, the egg, the salt and 4oz of flour. Stir, adding the yeast mixture. Then continue to mix in the flour, about 4oz at a time, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl and doesn’t feel sticky on your hands. Cover with a linen cloth and set it in a warm place for about an hour, during which time it should almost triple in size.

  While the dough rises cook the cabbage in butter until it wilts then stir in the chopped eggs and cook until the cabbage begins to turn golden brown at the edges. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside to cool.

  Tip the risen dough onto a floured surface and form into a long sausage, about two inches wide. Cut into one-inch pieces and roll into balls. Flatten the balls, place a small spoonful of filling in the middle then fold the circle in half to enclose. Pinch the edges together tightly to seal. Brush the upper surface with beaten egg.

  Put the pirozkhi on baking sheets, leaving room between them to grow, and bake in a hot oven for about twenty minutes until golden brown and puffed up.

  Blinis

  Ingredients

  3 oz buckwheat flour

  9 oz strong white flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon dried yeast

  5 fluid oz sour cream

  6 fluid oz milk

  2 eggs, separated

  1 oz butter

  Method

  Sift the flours and the salt together in a large bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Gently warm the milk and sour cream in a small pan – do not overheat. Add the egg yolks and whisk together then pour this into the flour, whisking again until you have a thick batter. Let the bowl stand, covered, somewhere warm for about an hour, then whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Cover again and let stand for another hour.

  To cook, melt butter in an iron pan and drop a generous tablespoon of batter into the pan. When the upper surface begins to bubble – after about a minute, perhaps less – flip the blini over and cook on the other side for thirty seconds. Transfer to a cooling rack then repeat the process until all the batter is used up, adding butter to the pan when necessary. This recipe is for about twenty blinis.

  Serve warm with thick sour cream and caviar.

  Ukrainian potato pancakes (deruny)

  Ingredients

  1 large onion, peeled and grated

  6 potatoes, peeled and grated

  2 eggs, beaten

  2 tablespoons flour

  Salt and pepper to taste.

  Method

  Mix the grated potatoes and onion together. Add the beaten eggs, the flour and a twist of salt and pepper.

  Heat oil in a flat skillet and drop a large spoonful of the mixture into the pan. Fry until browned on one side, then flip over and brown the other side.

  Serve warm.

  Borscht

  Ingredients

  2 pints excellent, gelatinous beef stock (the better the stock, the better the soup)

  4 large beetroot, 3 peeled and diced, 1 grated

  1 large onion, sliced

  1 carrot, diced

  1 stick of celery, diced

  1 large potato, peeled and diced

  1 bay leaf

  Half a cabbage, finely shredded

  2 tablespoons cider vinegar

  1 teaspoon honey

  Salt and pepper to taste

  Sour cream and fresh dill to serve

  Method

  Soften the onion in butter in a large pan for a few minutes then add the diced beetroot, onion, carrot, celery and bay leaf to the pan and stir well to coat everything with butter. Cook for ten minutes over a low heat. Add the grated beetroot, the potato and the cabbage, cook gently for a few minutes then pour in the stock and simmer until the vegetables are meltingly tender. Add the vinegar, honey and salt and pepper to taste.

  Serve with sour cream and chopped dill.

  Bibliography />
  Bailey, Catherine, Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty (Penguin Books, 2008).

  Barstow, Phyllida, The English Country House Party (Thorsons Publishing Group, 1989).

  Black, Clinton V., History of Jamaica (Longman, 1999).

  Elliot, Brian, South Yorkshire Mining Disasters, volume II (Wharncliffe Books, 2009).

  Elliot, Brian, Pits & Pitmen of Barnsley (Wharncliffe Books, 2006).

  Elliot, Brian, Yorkshire Miners. (The History Press, 2009).

  Fraser, Bryan, The West Riding Miners and Sir William Garforth (The History Press, 2009).

  Holman, Bob, Keir Hardie: Labour’s Greatest Hero? (Lion Hudson, 2010).

  Howse, Geoffrey, Around Hoyland: A Second Selection (Sutton Publishing, 2000).

  Parsons, R. M., The White Ships: The Banana Trade at the Port of Bristol (City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 1982).

  Phillips, Melanie, The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffrage Movement (Abacus, 2004).

  Pugh, Martin, The Pankhursts: The History of One Radical Family (Vintage, 2008).

  Russell, A. K., Liberal Landslide: the General Election of 1906 (David and Charles, 1973).

  Reading Group Discussion Points

  The first chapter of Ravenscliffe shows Anna’s emotional response to the house on the common. How significant do you think buildings are to our state of mind? And how symbolic, for Eve and for Anna, is the move from Beaumont Lane to Netherwood Common?

  Eve’s son Seth plays a significant role in Ravenscliffe, particularly in the first two parts. Does his anger and resentment prevent him from being a likeable character? Or is it entirely understandable? Do you think the adults in his life handle him well?

  As well as the fictional characters of Ravenscliffe, there are also real historical figures such as Edward VII, Keir Hardie and Sylvia Pankhurst. How successfully do you think the author weaves them into the narrative, and what effect does their presence have?

  Before his untimely death the Earl of Netherwood seems to be re-evaluating his life and his priorities. How genuine did you feel this impulse was, and how far might it have gone? Do you think his response to the colliery disaster reflected well on him, or badly? Was it too little, too late?

  How does the earl’s death alter life for his family? Do you think Henrietta’s character would have developed in the same way if he had lived?

  When Thea marries Tobias do you consider her a force for good within the Hoyland dynasty, or the opposite?

  What evidence is there in Ravenscliffe that British society – and the world at large – was on the brink of great political change?

  If the cast of characters were transported to the present day, who among them do you think would be best equipped to cope with modern life? Who would fare worst?

  Conversely, if you were transported to the world of Ravenscliffe how would you cope and at which level of society would you find a place?

  Why do you think, in twenty-first-century Britain, we are still so drawn to the Edwardian era? Does what we know of this period in history – and what we know happens as the century rolls on – influence our understanding and interpretation of fictional events?

  Q&A with Jane Sanderson

  Ravenscliffe has a large cast of characters and storylines – how do you organise your writing to give them all the right amount of space?

  That’s a good question, because one of the things I worry about is forgetting someone after the first few chapters, so that they appear once then never again. It has very occasionally happened to me as a reader, and I do hate to be left wondering what on earth became of so-and-so. How I avoid this is to write everyone down on an increasingly long list as and when they appear – it sounds fairly obvious, but it’s really helpful to be able to scan the list from time to time and remind myself of what I called the housemaid or the groom, or some other bit-part who might need another mention. Equally, the list is useful to remind myself of loose ends, those smaller storylines that remain unresolved or that have been temporarily lost in the bigger dramas. One of these days – when I have a free week or two and a very large sheet of paper – I might make a Netherwood family tree, with everyone on it, and their connections to each other.

  Do you have a clear picture in your head of the town’s geography?

  Yes I do. It helps, of course, that I’m thinking of my old home town of Hoyland when I visualise Netherwood, but I think it’s actually quite important that I can picture, for example, the route from Ravenscliffe to Netherwood Hall that Daniel and Anna take, or Seth’s journey from Ravenscliffe to New Mill Colliery, or the earl’s fateful drive from Long Martley up to the top of Harley Hill. Perhaps when I get round to doing that family tree I could also do a map of Netherwood with all its principal landmarks, like those maps of Earthsea at the front of Ursula K. Le Guin’s books that I used to pore over as a child.

  Do you know where your stories are heading when you start, or do they evolve as you write?

  Yes and yes, I would say. That is, I have a fair idea of where I want everyone to end up, but I don’t know exactly how they’re going to get there. Before I start writing the books I prepare a fairly detailed outline for my editor of what’s likely to happen, so the structure of the stories – the bones of them – are in place at the very beginning. But it’s perfectly possible for new ideas and solutions to present themselves, or for individual characters to develop in surprising ways. I didn’t know, for example, that Absalom Blandford was going to deny Eve her gift from the earl until I got well into the writing of Ravenscliffe, although I had always known he would wreak some sort of revenge on her for spurning him in Netherwood. It would be very dull for me, as the writer, if I knew down to the very last detail exactly what was going to happen. I often sit down without knowing at all what I’m going to write, and then surprise myself with the way the story goes.

  Have you got a favourite character?

  Oh, that’s a tricky question to answer, and I think I would have to say no. There are things about all my characters that I like: even the reptilian Absalom is interesting to me for his nastiness. His meanness makes him fun to write – I don’t know anyone remotely like him, but he sprang fully formed into my imagination. Of course, among the cast are a few that stand out for special mention: Anna is terrific for her resourcefulness and loyalty, and Amos is fantastic for his integrity and his sense of humour, and his engaging awkwardness in matters of the heart. Henrietta, too, is such a strong individual, so uncharacteristic of women of her class. And the lovely Eve will always have a place among my favourites, because she was the start of it all. I’ve enjoyed the way that the children have emerged in Ravenscliffe too: Eliza has come out of the shadows and Seth has grown in an interesting and – I hope – satisfying way. This next generation of Netherwood inhabitants could be the ones to take the story on, up to and beyond the First World War, perhaps.

  How do you get started on your books?

  With some trepidation initially, then with increasing confidence as the words start to fill the page. In fact, I think find it more difficult to finish a book than to start one. There’s something so significant, somehow, about those final sentences. Giving them weight and interest but steering clear of sentimentality is my goal.

  Could you see your books on the screen?

  Yes, I really could – but I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I? Nevertheless, I think both Ravenscliffe and the earlier Netherwood are extremely televisual, and I’d love to see them brought to life. I’d be hoping for an old-fashioned thirteen-part series, though, not one of those two-parters they like to give us these days, where everything gets condensed into too small a space and entire characters are chopped from the action.

  Your female characters tend to be very strong: does your writing have a feminist theme?

  There’s no agenda, though I can see why you might ask that question. Eve, Anna, Henrietta, Thea – they’re all independent-minded women with a strong seam of resilience running th
rough them. And of course Henry is drawn to the Suffragists, whose vociferous campaign for the enfranchisement of women was certainly a milestone in the long fight for equality of the sexes. But I think the key word there is resilience. I grew up around strong women who, while they probably wouldn’t have described themselves as feminists, led independent and – in my grandma’s case – self-sufficient lives, and did their best with the hand they were dealt. I wouldn’t say there’s a specifically feminist theme to my writing but I certainly do salute the women in my corner of Yorkshire who knew what they wanted and worked hard to achieve it.

  Did you have a house in mind when you pictured Ravenscliffe?

  No, it was purely imaginary, unlike Netherwood Hall, which was based very specifically on Wentworth Woodhouse, a stately home near my own home town. Netherwood Common is imagined, too, but I liked the idea of Eve and Anna and the children making a home in a big old house, with open countryside all around them, and the freedom and space to be themselves. It’s a symbolic move away from the confines of the miners’ terraces.

  Are your characters based on anyone you know? Are you in the book?

  One of my friends says that I’m definitely Amos. If I am in there it’s because you can’t help, as a writer, deploying your own values or your own sense of humour, although these things don’t emerge in one individual but are scattered among the characteristics of the cast. Similarly, there are elements of people I know now, or people I used to know as a child, in various characters in the books – though I’d say this is more true of the working classes than the aristocrats, since there’s no blue blood in my family!