Detectives, Thrillers and Mystery Stories
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Welcome to our insights behind the stories
Hello and welcome. Sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to forget how much it takes to write a novel or indeed work up a short story - making sure the kernel of the idea is quickly portrayed. So we thought you might enjoy discovering some of the behind the scenes insights and have a taste of what makes a novel or listen to a selection of our short stories - which we think you may find is particularly soothing at bedtime. inside this issue we have a mixture of sound bytes, video, slide shows as well as some great stories, which we feel you will enjoy. Do keep in touch and let us know what else you would like to see, hear or read in our next Magazine.
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4 Detectives and Collecting Evidence
Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hiding inside This Detective Issue 14 26
What's behind the scenes
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A different journey
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Good Cop
Extract from
Bad Cop
latest novel
10 History of Detectives...
32 A love of
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curios objets d'art
Author reading from
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The Lyme Regis Murders
Mystery, Crime And
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more podcast, videos and all sorts
Bermuda scam
of tit-bits
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Interesting
Podcasts of
facts about
Short Stories
Crime Fiction
and find plenty
$200 million
Spies...
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Come to the back
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Detectives and Collecting Evidence
A detective can be referred to as an investigator, because that is exactly what a detective does. There is no requirement that a detective has to be a police officer, it can be anyone from a law enforcement agency, or one hired in a private investigation company. It is basically the nature of the job which makes them a detective. Their main job is to investigate, find things out and solve a case by collecting relevant information, by digging out evidence and by interacting with the informants and witnesses. They collect the oral and physical evidence in order to solve a mystery or a case. They search records, or you might say they take all possible measures to solve a case. The detectiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job allows them to arrest the criminals, by solving the mystery of a case and then it can further lead to a conviction of the guilty in court.
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Collecting Evidence; In most cases it is the
Deoxyribonucleic Acid; a living cell that
Police detective who will be responsible for
carries genetic instructions for the
investigating a crime scene. Their first objective
development, functioning, growth and
is to interview any detained people or victims
reproduction of all known organisms and many
and carefully piece together an outline from
viruses.
which the forensic team can focus their search. Collecting evidence has to be accurate
“A DNA profile is a list of numbers that indicate how many repeat units are in each
enough so that a scene can be reconstructed,
copy of 20 marker regions located throughout
from which the biological, physical and material
the genome. Here’s how that profile is generated”
can easily be connected to the people involved
(sources Celia Henry Arnaud). Next is the
in the crime. Starting with physical items such
‘latent’ evidence, this is the residues left
as mobile phones, guns, computers, get away
behind such as footprints, fingerprints and any
cars etc, to help with understanding the
other print that connects a human being to the
scenario, allowing the detective to piece
crime scene. After that the scene goes down to
together the complex jigsaw puzzle of what
the microscopic level collecting data like
happened. Biological evidence such as blood,
fibres, soil particles or vegetation to retrace
body fluids hair and skin tissue – provides
the steps of before and after an action has
important DNA material that can identify a
taken place i.e. where the persons have come
specific individual. Much of this work occurs in
from, or can be followed. The Crime scene has
the laboratory after it has been collected from
to be rapidly assessed at all levels, as the
the scene. So what is DNA?
Detective is working against the clock.
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According to Locard’s Exchange Principal,
apps, iCloud, DropBox, Instagram, Twitter,
evidence becomes quickly contaminated, with
YouTube, Hotmail, Outlook, and Skype for
teams entering and exiting a crime scene. As
Business, have all become legitimate ways to
they add or subtract material as they move
collect information – so less and less is hidden,
across the cordoned off zone.
but as the digital sciences are an ever expanding
As you can imagine the digital revolution
boom – the revolution is always one step ahead
has now greatly impacted evidence collecting.
of the justice system, mainly due to the billions
From a criminal’s Facebook status which now
being pumped into it.
can be used to satisfy the courtroom attorney.
DEF CON is the world's longest running
Mobile phones have now become primary
underground hacking conference. One of their
source, being used to access the internet,
many traits is the encouragement of Hackers to
perform business transactions as well as sending
compromise as many machines as possible over
messages to loved ones provides a life map of a
the two day event that requires no sophistication
person’s activities. Even if the files have been
or specialist knowledge to attack.
deleted – they have not been cleaned off a
It makes one think, what hope does the
device and police can still access wiped
average layman have, when innocently plugging
information.
their phone into a recharge booth and leaving
Forensic tools can now capture and analyse cloud data, I am sure you have heard in
it on??? Well just across the way is the cybersecurity
the news that Data retrieval from Facebook
conference, hopefully catching up the criminal
Messenger and Timeline, Office 365, Google
digital revolution.
“I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.” Isaac Asimov
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Good Cop Bad Cop
News stories about individual police officers seem to attract authors’ imagination looking for antagonistic material for thrillers. Here are some snippets of some enforcement issues that went awray. The first is cringingly embarrassing. When a Mayor in california was posing for a group photo, after the photo opportunity had finished, one of the members stepped forward with a microphone in his hand and said, “You probably don’t remember me, but you are the police officer who falsely arrested me four years ago.” continuing, the group member said, “You lied on the police report, and i believe you are a rogue police officer and you don’t deserve to be here.”
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Another case came to the attention of the county Authorities when dismissed policemen avenged the community. Keeping his uniform and making a counterfeit badge, he walked into a neighbouring county officers’ car park, stole a car then drove to a quiet side road. When a women driver was travelling on her own he shot at the tyres, then murdered the unfortunately driver. in fact as many as 5 women were killed before the rogue was tracked down. ‘Hot cop’ fell from grace after heroically rescuing members of the public trapped in a hurricane’s destructive wake, when he was later caught taking a selfie making rude remarks and personal jokes about people.
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History of Detectives... Detectives originated in Paris, when in 1833 a French soldier, eugène François Vidocq returning from service, set up the first known detective agency called "Le bureau des renseignements universels pour le commerce et l'industrie". Much to the annoyance of the officials, eugene employed ex-convicts, believing they would access inside information. it wasn’t long before eugene had upset the establishment boasting that he made "... eight hundred and eleven arrests, including fifteen assassins, three hundred and forty-one thieves and thirty-eight receivers of stolen property”. Further upsetting the officials, Vidocq was arrested with a false charge of embezzling money. but the court of Appeals later released him. 3 Famous real detectives Allan Pinkerton a Scottish American detective and spy founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. it all began when he was a boy wandering through woodlands when he came across a group of men counterfeiting
money. Pinkerton was hired to track western outlaws, Jesse James and the reno Gang. ignatius Paul Pollaky also known as "Paddington" Pollaky, born in Hungary, became a professional private detective in britain. His first commissions were from Henry Sanford who asked him to spy on confederate agents in britain who were purchasing supplies for the American civil War. From 1865 until 1882, his office was located at 13 Paddington Green, hence his nickname. Two middle-aged Austrian immigrants, isidor “izzy” einstein and Moe Smith, who worked in New York’s Lower east Side Police department, managed to arrest 4,932 offenders, between 1920–25 and seize around five million bottles of illegal alcohol. They gained a reputation for being excellent at concocting disguises. unfortunately fellow agents, grew increasingly jealous of the pair’s success, found a way to get them sacked from the department.
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John Pierce St. John, or “Jigsaw John”, was a Los Angeles Police Department Homicide detective. In his 51 years of career, he reportedly closed over 1000 homicide cases. The nickname caught on because of his ability to piece clues together in difficult cases. Vidocq’s legacy was to introduce record keeping, criminology, and ballistics to criminal investigation. He made the first plaster casts of shoe impressions, which was used as evidence in court.
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Mystery, Crime And Spies...
“Espionage is a lesson in paradox: the better your intelligence, the dumber your conduct; the more you know, the less you anticipate”. Adam Gopnik
A spy is a person who obtains confidential information, without the permission, to aid organisations to counter an action against a competitor. The rule that having more intelligence doesn’t lead to smarter decisions. it seems that the deception of collecting valuable information backfires because after having found a way to collect intelligence, the spy ring may become paranoid. They may convince themselves the other side could be doing the same in reverse, and therefore feeding through fake information in order to misdirect to the decisions, producing a merry-go-round of inaccurate information, muddied with subterfuge… so who knows the truth?
in 1913 just before the outbreak of WW1, the cabinet du secret des postes, (nicknamed the French cabinet noir), an office which intersected letters of suspected criminals. The Office gained a taste for inclusion of French politician’s post, as well. These letters contained highly embarrassing details about secret love affairs, which the Office sold illegally to other Governments for extortionate amounts. espionage is a paranoid paradox where hard-won information is wildly reinterpreted, so much so that the truth is lost and no one knows what’s real anymore. The faked information aims to create paranoid fear and confusion among the political and bureaucratic rivalry between intergovernmental competition.
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Interesting facts about Crime Fiction
crime Fiction has always been a popular read even though it had rather crude attempts of detection to figure out the motives, suspects or how a crime was committed. The earliest thrilling story is in Arabian Nights, where a fisherman discovers a heavy, locked chest on the shore of the river Tigris. He sells it to a ruler Harun al-rashid, who has the chest broken open, only to find inside it, the dead body of a young woman. He orders his subjects to find the killer or be executed if they don’t. in 18th century, chinese crime stories include one particularly interesting story called bao Gong An – when translated in 1949 provided a Dutch author with the inspiration to write a series called the Judge Dee Mysteries. Victorians became fascinated by a subgenre nicknamed “Locked room” mysteries, originated by edgar Allen Poe who wrote "The Murders in the rue Morgue". readers were presented with a seemingly impossible puzzle –
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where a murder was committed with no indication of how an intruder could have entered a “locked room”. Arthur conan Doyle, in 1887 introduced the first detective to have clients who hired his protege, Sherlock Holmes to solve a crime. This was followed by Golden Age Mysteries taking off with two british authors, Agatha christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, their plots of which followed the typical theme of murder: A body, preferably that of a stranger, is found by a maid. A few guests have just arrived at a wealthy mansion for a weekend, when they may or may not know each other. This might typically include a handsome young gentleman, his beautiful fiancée, an aging actress with an alcoholic husband, a clumsy aspiring author and a quiet middle-aged man no one knows anything about and who is supposedly the host's old friend, but turns out to be a famous detective. The police are either unavailable or incompetent. to lead the investigation for the time being.
Behind the scenes of crime thriller writer.. it is really important to conduct interviews of the people who have been doing something to make a change. Such people make their name in the world such as politicians, writers, poets and many more. Here is an interesting interview of the person behind Lyme regis Murders. First of all, starting with a brief introduction, which is that, he a licensed insolvency practitioner who deals with the problems of ordinary people, when they are unable to handle the debts in businesses. There are great solutions for such situations in the uK law and he aims to apply those laws in such a manner that it allows people to spent life with less worry. His interview consists the questions related to his book Lyme regis Murders; the first question that was asked to him was about the inspiration behind his writing?
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He answered that he wanted to write a crime thriller that consists of a private investigator’s character. His inspiration is other crime thriller authors such as barbara Vine, such as belinda bauer, rachel Abbott, and Graeme Macrae burnet, Peter James, ian rankin and others. upon asking about the book, he answered that there are some actions and thrills that are taking place in the story. Lyme regis is the centre of attention; it is an ancient, Jurassic small town that is situated on the coast of Dorset. He further stated that he wanted to keep his main character not be a policeman, so he did but he took care of the fact that this main character should have a police experience. From the initial thoughts about the book, he wanted the main character to be a female. He further explained how he wanted the character to be; he said that the idea of main character was supposed to be a superwoman, but not everyone’s idea of superwoman. The character he had in mind was financially well off, in a relationship. Then he came to character that he portrayed in the book, named as Tammy Pierre who is six feet tall and exponent of Krav Maga, the israeli system of martial arts. She smokes panatelas, drinks vodka at £100 a bottle, and does lines
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of cocaine when stressed. is in a relationship with Ginny Jones, her PA, but, with the morals of an alley cat, has flings with, among others, her sometime boyfriend, and israeli martial arts coach, Dov Jordan. She is a force of nature, but she's also a woman who can be vulnerable, she has health issues, and is easily hurt. Then we asked him about his learnings from the book, and he answered that its all about constructing a crime thriller and giving the most attention to the main character. He gave some examples of other authors, saying that everyone has their own idea of depiction. Such as Agatha christie focused on setting puzzles, while Karen Slaughter consists of a male hero who is vulnerable. The crux is that he learnt the construction of a crime thriller. Now comes an interesting part, because while you are reading a book or piece of writing you might imagine what did the author think while writing this or what would have surprised them. upon asking him we got to know that he answered this question in the last stage in the book, in a single sentence. We know that you might be curious about the title, upon asking he said that it is what it is, a number of murders take place in the town of Lyme regis and that’s it. You might get to know more when you read the book by yourself.
Another important factor while reading a book is, you keep imagining it’s real. We asked the author if there is any reality behind this book and he said the main character is inspired by mixed heritage. As his first wife belonged from Trinidad and her father was an architect by profession. And that’s where the resemblance ends; Tammy’s mother was French, Jewish. While other characters are moulded according to the main character. He has been writing for 30 years, when he met his second wife. He said that, back then he had an idea of writing a short story. The motivation and encouragement came from his wife. He ended up writing “Little Ouss”, and his wife kind of really liked it so did his daughter. The group of writers he joined were impressed by the conclusion, the story revolved around a little man and his cat.
There are some people who always think that they are going to become an author, but he did not think like that until he wrote the first short story. He is also of the point of view that 'if it isn’t meant to happen, it won't.' in his point of view if the readers like something and you successfully engage them in what you have written then that’s the success of a book. He says that there is no order of what comes first, the plot or the characters. You might be interested in knowing that how the authors develop the plot and characters of a story, for him he starts with an idea or a notion. As far as the title of the books is concerned, he is of the view that chooses what fits right. Giving some references, the Hamilton conspiracy is a thriller, based in Hamilton, bermuda. conspiracy is what drives it, but at the same time, that word conveys to the reader an element of suspense before the
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book is even picked up. Ditto titles that have an element of the familiar about them. So, short stories with titles like, Death Zone, Licence to Kill, A Perfect Match, i am a Gigolo, beads of blood. Titles need to pique the reader's interest. After that the narrative must hold it till the end. As an author, he thinks he is still on the learning curve and he is not able to compare himself with his inspirations. He writes while he is sitting in a cosy environment in his bedroom. Most of the authors prefer to write in the night-time and we do not know whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up with that timing so does he. if you are concerned about a typical day that you choose to write something, in his opinion he said there is no specific typical day. He gave a reference to his Hamilton conspiracy book which took him almost a year to write and he choose the weekends to write it down.
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Sometimes you just use your imaginations, ideas or thought but most of the times there is research involved, which can be about guns and more. The best advice we could conclude from the interview is that in his opinion one should not write something, which makes the reader get bored. Avoiding too many details, inaccuracies can make the readers lose interest. upon asking the experience of his first ever book, he said that We publishers gave him a tip for his first novel. An interview is incomplete when you do not get an advice for upcoming writers from an established author. For the new writers, he suggested that do it because you want to, have to and do not do it just because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in your mind that you should.
The Lyme regis Murders by author Andrew Segal A shocking and horrifying discovery throws this quiet seaside town into turmoil. The chief inspector, unused to dealing with
t r, i n urde e h Wes to mnocent
in lty? m e co th ui g e ar ally re
Tammy’s life is now seriously in peril. but from whom – and why? The townsfolk of respectable Lyme regis are meanwhile alarmed by
murder on his peaceful seaside beat, takes the
the news of the return, after twenty years in jail,
easy option and points a finger at the only
of a convicted child rapist.
suspect directly linked to the children – and
could this be the person seen lurking during
accuses the stepfather of being behind the
the early hours behind the Goldcrest’s home? is
attacks.
there an entangled web of deceit and fraud
eric Goldcrest, the wealthy guardian of the three victims, is now forced to leave the marital home by his hysterical wife and takes refuge (where?) to clear his name. The only person eric can trust to prove his innocence is the unconventional Private
behind the threats to Tammy that really do connect eric to the death of his children? Tammy struggles to resolve the nightmare situation. can she protect herself and clear – or convict – the stepfather of the crime? Andrew Segal’s storytelling of The Lyme
investigator, Tammy Pierre. but the case gets more
regis Murders will, once again, keep fans of his
elaborate. Tammy uncovers new evidence and in so
dark and absorbing style held fast to the very end.
doing, becomes a target herself – a brutal, but unsuccessful, knife attack and being forced into a road accident by three mysterious cars.
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The Lyme regis Murders by author Andrew Segal
Listen to extracts of The Lyme Regis Murders read to you by the author Andrew Segal. Just click on the pictures and enjoy, or watch the book trailer opposite, again just click on the picture to launch. The novel is an easy read who-done-it and is available in both ebook and Hardback editions on Amazon.
Buy Now on Amazon
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The Hamilton conspiracy; Death threats in $200 million bermuda scam Undeterred by threats of kidnap and ransom, the crew of his luxury yacht murdered, businesses up in flames and bankruptcy beckoning, Jack is on the run,
him a permanent stay behind bars. But Jack Gregory has always been a winner. Failure doesn’t figure in his world. This time, however, winning will be no
reduced to living incognito in a seedy
guarantee of success. This time, Jack is in
Paddington hotel. Ignoring his wife’s
a Catch 22 and doesn’t know where to
pleas, he hatches an outrageous plan to
turn. Like a bull in a china shop he rampages
recover his lost millions. Its failure will end
on to a conclusion where even victory will
his already shaky marriage and guarantees
be laced with a bitter taste of defeat.
> Listen here <
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> Order Amazon <
Easy Listening Podcasts of Short Stories read by the authors @HappyLDNPress
it is so nice to sit back after a hectic day and enjoy someone else reading you a story. in our collection we have quite a mix of stories, ranging from beautiful poems, childrensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bedtime snippets, to extracts from Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest novels. Sometime next year we are planning to turn them into full length audio books. So do keep in touch and also let us know what else you would like to hear more of.
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A diï¬&#x20AC;erent journey exploring London
Reading Extract
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Little London Adventures & Cockney Curiosities Amusing historical stories enriched with contemporary photography
Clare Newton
i would like to invite you to share in some of east London’s delights. it is a treasure trove of curiosities and artifacts. before i came to live in east London, i didn’t really consider there was anything of interest let alone of importance in this historical suitcase. but how wrong i was. back in 2007 and the announcement of the Olympic Games coming to share its extravaganza with London, it was hinted that parts of Newham would undergo a complete transformation with the arrival of four spanking new sport centres and a giant stadium. This spurred me to pick up my camera, dust it down and leap on my bicycle to photograph whatever bits of history i could uncover before it changed forever. Although i’m not an historian, nor was i known at school for enjoying the weekly history lessons, i was nevertheless intrigued by the number of 16th century maps of the city of London, that threw themselves at me via the internet. each etched a cityscape longing to offer its little clues, if one took the trouble to study their
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pictograms that symbolised something or other. The curious thing i found was that if i overlaid the old map on top of a new map, i could become a bit of a detective and uncover an historical clue. For example, while peering into the british Library’s online archive one evening, i found an odd set of cross-roads with a small symbol like a castle positioned in the middle of the X. So off i trotted to find the co-relating roads. And there, hidden at the back of a rather smelly city farm, amongst the hens and the sheep poo, was one of King Henry Viii’s Hunting Lodges. i didn’t quite understand at the time that i was looking at such a place, sitting forlornly in the middle of Stepney Green’s scrubland as it was, but it did trigger another adventure into finding out what the ruins where all about. After recognising the tell-tale clues of red Tudor bricks lying scattered around the site, i was delighted to find, hiding amidst the scrambling bramble, a silhouette of a portal gateway made of the same deep red brick.
Pocketing a tiny fragment of the brightly coloured brick, i visited the Museum of London and asked their opinion resulting in their introduncing me to the local Stepney history club. i had a field day, meeting all kinds of people with similar interests, who eagerly gave me leads and an array of pamphlets and snapshots to set me on the right track. With a hot cup of coffee in hand and a computer buried under heaps of growing printouts, i hit save at every gem. Late into the nights i poured over the historian’s visceral notebooks, fading photographs and elaborately painted maps bound into large leather books with fraying gold letters, which almost flaked off as i breathed at the screen. each trail lead to another until finally reaching the original undercrofts of the Times international, (when it lived in Wapping for a while). There i found first hand the original copies of centuries’ old newspapers. Opening a page i found myself reading the intense account of the radcliffe Highway Murders in 1819. in another, came across east London’s great Lady Angela burdett coutts, Grand daughter of the very wealthy banker Thomas coutts - do you recognise the name? Yes the bank still lives on. Angela was known as “the richest heiress in england," after the banker left his entire fortune to her. but instead of spending this fortune on an ephemeral lifestyle, Angela put the money to do some great charity projects such as barnardos. Short Story extract by ©clare Newton 2019
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Little London Adventures & Cockney Curiosities Clare Newton FRSA London has many remarkable stories, hidden amidst east end's rich and historical past. but only fragments are left to discover and piece together, their heritage, before the fever-pitch regeneration of the urban landscape, sweeps it clean away. celebrated photographic artist clare Newton takes you on a visceral journey, weaving in between east London's industrial remnants combining stories with stunning city images.
Buy Now for Christmas
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STOcKiSTS & Pre OrDer Here and cOLLecT 1. Foyles 2. Waterstones 3. Amazon.co.uK 4. Daunts bookshops 5. Somerset House (home of PhotoLondon) 6.The Photographers Gallery
Does History have a place in contemporary Art photography?
A LOVE OF CURIOS OBJETS D'ART
The City of London has been a major settlement for two millennia. It became the epicentre of trading with the world as long ago as the Roman invasion – being established as an outpost along the River Thames
Artist-photographer clare Newton draws together the complex strings of creativity, by combining delicate images with the delightfully quirky stories from the city of London
in AD47. Even today, time hasn’t in any way diminished its global influence. Now, artist and photographer, Clare Newton, explores the City’s secretive treasures, but rather than take you on a journey portrayed with traditional photography, she creates the artistry of images through long exposures combined with a technique called ‘shutter-dragging’, accentuating the past where all that’s left is a ghostly residue.
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Extract from Book 2
Little London Adventures & Surruptious City A mine of curious facts & Art that lurk behind the City walls
Clare Newton
Grub STreeT JOurNALiSM
18th century’s most celebrated satirists and social
The city is used to a great many squabbles. A well
commentators, that fell illegally into the hands of one
to-do, Mr. Jonathan Swift, in 1726 the author of
such disreputable Grub Street resident, edmund curll.
Gulliver’s Travels, decided to avenge his annoyance on
curll was well prepared to profit from publishing the
the impoverished publishing community, where a
poems under the title ‘court Poems’, much against
large number of aspiring poets, ‘hack-writers’ and
the wishes of their author.
low-end booksellers frequently foisted ill-written and illicit works on the city’s dwellers. Grub Street was in the cripplegate Ward, part of the parish of St Giles-without-cripplegate – so-called, as cripplegate was both ‘within’ and ‘without’ the city, being bisected by the original walls. Now known as Milton Street and part of the barbican estate, Grub Street contained a high concentration of ne'er-dowells existing on the margins of London’s journalistic and publishing community – the street’s name becoming a derogatory term for any poor-quality journalism. it was a manuscript of Alexander Pope, one of the
And so Mr. Swift, in Pope’s defence, thought it was time to bestow upon these lowly literates some of his dry wit and political humour, enflaming the decadelong feud: “Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign'd to paste; I know a trick to make you thrive; O, ‘tis a quaint device: Your still-born poems shall revive, And scorn to wrap up spice.
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Little London Adventures & Surreptitious City Clare Newton FRSA
Author, Social Entrepreneur and
‘Jump4London’, to celebrate London 2012. She made
PhotoArtist Clare Newton, talks
the World’s Longest Photograph, with 5,000 people
candidly to Dr Shahnaz Ahmed,
taking part and appearing to simultaneously jump. True
Podcaster in USA and creator of
to form it made a Double Guinness World Record as part
Living A Life Through Books,
of the Cultural Olympiad’s World Record London – it
about writing and her favourite
was an astonishing 1 kilometre long by 2 metres high,
authors.
printed on two and a half tons of specialist
Awarded British Female Inventor of the Year and a Fellow
photographic material, used a swimming pool’s amount of ink and took 29 days, 24/7 to print continuously.
at the Royal Society of Arts. One of Clare’s many endeavours was an extraordinary project called
PODCAST Interview
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A Cockney’s high spirits
on the river. Each carving a living from work generated by the trading ships, who flooded the city with imports and physical jobs offloading heavy cargoes and stacking them into warehouses. With the continuing flow of ships coming into the capital, meant that many immigrant families and sailors were often abandoned, because there wasn’t any
“Born in the sound of Bow Bells.” You may have
money to pay for their services on an
heard this saying, which refers to anyone living
empty ship back, so they were left stranded
within the vicinity of East End. But it actually
in a foreign country. In the early 1800’s
refers to an obscure church in Cheapside called
Hythe, Wapping and Poplar became
St Mary Le Bow, whose giant bell could be heard
desperately overcrowded.
as far away as Highgate. If you happened to be
In 1840 the railway entrepreneur’s
born in this local part of London you would be a
spied new opportunities to take the rich
person of distinct heritage – a proud Cockney,
merchandise from East London’s
well-known for tough characteristics and also
warehouses and deliver them around the
known as an East Ender, not to be confused with
country.
the well known TV series. But unlike so many districts East End is not
But this meant a Governmental land grab, seizing the slums and rookeries to
so much a defined place with borders or parish
make way for steam trains. Although
boundaries, but like the way sound travels, it is
communities were displaced, it soon had a
an invisible district that lays just east of the City
positive effect forcing people to find other
of London, running along the edges of the
ways to make a living and move on.
Thames. Cockneys were known for their
French Protestants called Huguenots, joined the local population after fleeing
resourcefulness in making a living, from Costa
their homeland to avoid religious
mongers or Pearlies to protect the theft of a
persecution, set up garrets in Spitalfields to
Costa’s donkey, to making a living as lighterman
ply their specialist skills in silk weaving.
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Hidden London
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Writing a trilogy about a young man’s first romance
The novel-trilogy of which into Full Sunlight is the first part was much time in the making. This of course is often the case with a long text, which, by the time its final form materialises, has had many elements added to it, sometimes at large intervals. but living with a fictional project for a prolonged period does mean that you grow clearer about your subject-matter: you increasingly benefit from the power of hindsight and the advantages of greater mental maturity. The trilogy was one of the key endeavours by which, across the years, i sought to gauge my capacity as a writer. repeatedly, i asked myself: can i complete it? And even if i can, will it be of real literary merit, at least in my own eyes? And even if it is, will it impress the general reading public? i applied these questions to my other writing efforts as well: these were mainly in the field of philosophy.
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Throughout the writing of the trilogy, there was a constant issue with squeezing adequate time from my weekly work-routine, which was chieďŹ&#x201A;y that of teaching. i was determined to write on as regular a basis as possibleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in fear of drifting away, for any length of time, from the spirit and atmosphere of the material i had thus far produced, and so of irretrievably losing continuity. Yet, despite this regularity, the project still, as said, moved slowly. With the publication of into Full Sunlight, i am pleased to report that, of the friends and acquaintances who have read and commented on it, all have spoken positively: averring an immediate engagement with the material and a spontaneous sense of enjoyment; also, in some cases, a chiming of their own experiences with those conveyed in the text.
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richard did not see him again until Thursday. At lunchtime, he appeared just after the whistle had blown, with one of the three people who had been with him before. Standing at the side of the line while it was forming, he looked at richard with his tight-lipped smile, then loudly cleared his throat, in a way richard could recall from earlier years, when a bully would show his power over a smaller boy by threatening to spit on him. Monkton spat on the ground, and, followed by his friend, moved into the line. As he did so, he pushed a smaller boy out the other side. richard knew he had to do something about this. Forcing himself forward, he felt his thighs trembling as he approached Monkton, who watched him coming with a kind of gleam in his eye. “You!” richard found himself calling out, with some satisfaction at the sound of his fully-broken voice. “Who, me?” said Monkton, pointing at himself, the gleam still in his eye. “Yes!” thighs trembling even more, and a blockage gathering at the back of his throat. A flicker in Monkton's eyes made richard think that he had sensed his fear. “Yeah, what?” Managing to swallow, richard called out again. “come out of the line! You pushed in!” “bollocks!” For a moment, richard said nothing. The tall prefect was looking on from a distance, without expression. richard felt alone, but also, as the seconds went by, steadier, as his breathing settled into a rhythm. An idea formed in his mind. “The line doesn't move till you come out. We'll stand here all day if necessary.” Then he called out to everyone: “Look, he's holding you up!”
Exerpt from Wide Illumination by Tom Rubens
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