Beamish Museum - Great Research Tool And New Writing Projects
Now that Lycan Lamia - Book Four in the
Beyond Series is almost edited and ready for publication and can happily turn
my attention to two new writing projects I've been itching to start. The
feeling of relief when a writing itch is finally scratched is amazing!
Mink Coats is an History true life novel based on my both my grandmothers lives
whom I promised to write about and they both lived astonishing lives. I also
have a huge interest in all kinds of history, especially early twentieth
century history so when I had the opportunity to visit an open air working
museum set in Tyneside close to Durham I jumped at the chance. Not only was
this an enjoyable day out, but for me it was an opportunity to experience what
it was like to live in a northern town from 1900 right through to the Second
World War.
So here is my tour of the Beamish Open Air Museum, and
boy was it brilliant! I took a lot of photo’s, I loved it that much, but
basically it is a working museum, where you catch a tram to a 1900’s coal
mining Village of Beamish, which has mostly crumbled and collapsed into the
mines, but what’s left has been beautifully preserved.
A typical looking early twentieth century Northern
town.
The traditional bakery smelt amazing. They’d just finished baking hot cross
buns and the scent of cinnamon and bread baking made my tummy rumble… so I
bought a warm loaf…. Mmm!
Every building had been dismantled brick by
brick and moved to Beamish. I caught the tram to 1900’s town, which according
to Barclays Bank Manager all of it has been built from original buildings that
were to be demolished from elsewhere, taken down brick by brick and rebuilt at
the museum.
Barclays Bank just like one I worked in during the 80's
I had a nosy in the Dentist Surgery and he told us
some gruesome stories about pulling teeth, so I went to the Music teacher’s
house and she’d just baked some cherry cake in her wood burning range…. Mmm!
All that food we needed to wash it down in the local pub and warmed up by a
roaring fire then headed to the sweet shop where they’d just made some lime and
sherbet boiled sweets…. Mmm!
Grocers just like the one my mum began her working
life in. Kitchen and Hearth. War time Britain and
the Land girls cottage -A working farm preserved in 1940’s Britain, with your
very own Home Guard and Land Girl to answer any questions and bake some very
lovely cheese scones in an old wood burning range.
By this point I was
getting some serious cases of Déjà vu and it was bugging me so much I asked the
tram conductor if they had ever allowed filming of period drama’s there and it
turns out they have. Catherine Cookson? 
I enquired and I was
right. The Sweet shop was the giveaway for me and as I love the Catherine
Cookson films that are made for TV I was really chuffed to say, I’ve been on a
film set of The Wingless Bird! Which made me even more excited, I've been on a
film set!
My other new writing project is a teen/YA trilogy
about Time Travelling witches in The Devilin Daughters series The Reluctant
Enchanter.
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