No glass demons, but glass angels.

On Thursday I finished the current round of edits of my new book Silent Saturday, so I decided I would award myself a morning off on Friday and drive over to Dunning. There is a very old church there, St. Serf's, which is only open for part of the year. Last time I went, it was still closed for the winter, but looked tantalisingly interesting, so I had been promising myself for ages that when I had time I would go back and see the interior. Simple pleasures...
St.Serf's is no longer a "living" church; it is managed by Historic Scotland because it houses the ancient Dupplin Cross, a Pictish carved cross dating to around 800AD. It has many intriguing features, not the least of which is the bizarre t-shaped layout of the church. Originally it was a more conventional rectangle but later in its history it was extended to accommodate more worshippers. Wooden galleries were added which make it quite difficult to make out the original lines of the architecture.
The church has a fine Romanesque bell-tower but sadly you cannot go up it! Not even the church guide is allowed to; it is unsafe. (I would have gone up anyway if allowed!!) The guide was however kind enough to unlock the door so that I could at least take a peep at the inside of the tower (bell-towers are a bit of a "thing" with me, since I started work on my current trilogy - they appear in several of the books). The stairs were extremely worn and narrow, with no hand-rail - although there are hand holds carved into the stone. The oddest thing was the roof of the staircase, which is very crude and unfinished. I had never seen that before.
One of the lovely features of the church is its Victorian stained glass windows by Ballantine & Gardiner. Normally I am not very fond of Victorian glass - I'm much more interested in the older stuff, when I can find it. But these windows are gorgeous. I've posted a couple of pics of one of them. This window shows an old warrior who has finally laid down his sword. The sword lies under the feet of the pictured angels, and his scabbard, which hands at his waist, is empty. I love the old man's very weary but calm face. I found this window very moving. Who knows? Perhaps I'll manage to weave him into a future book!

A big thank you to Mr. Garry Malcolm, who showed me round the church. If you want to see more pictures of St. Serf'S, there is a whole album on my Facebook churches page at http://www.facebook.com/ChurchesIHaveVisited  Note, this is a historical interest page, not a religious page.

Why I love visiting old churches!

This week I was down in Gloucestershire and whilst I was there I visited another couple of old churches: St. John the Baptist in Cirencester, and Gloucester Cathedral. I was loading all the photographs onto my personal Facebook page when I realised that rather a lot of my recent photo albums have featured churches. It's getting to be a bit of an obsession! There are so many photographs, in fact, that I have started a FB page especially for them, which is open to anyone. You can see (and hopefully "like") it here: http://www.facebook.com/ChurchesIHaveVisited
I've got photographs of the ruins of Blackford church, St.Nicholas' church in Ghent and Steinfeld Abbey in Germany, amongst others, and I hope to add to them in the future.
So where did this interest come from? It does not originate from religious fervour, although I am an occasional churchgoer. It partly originated from my researches into the Steinfeld stained glass; I have written about that several times for the small press literary journal The M.R.James Ghosts & Scholars Newsletter, and the real-life history of that magnificent glass was the inspiration for my second novel, The Glass Demon. Before I researched the Steinfeld windows, I had never really taken a particular interest in stained glass, but I began to look out for mediaeval glass after that, and soon realised how very little of it survives, thanks to the iconoclasts. I have lost count of the number of mediaeval churches I have visited, where nothing remains of the original glass. I grieve when it has been replaced with plain glass, because it becomes so much more difficult to imagine the architect's whole vision. When I come across a church which has some really old glass, such as the fabulous parish church of Fairford (pictured), I feel thrilled. I have gone from taking a passing interest to searching out these rare treasures!
It's not just about the stained glass, though. I have a particular liking for very old (Gothic, Norman or Romanesque) churches. I am not fond of Baroque churches, many of which give me the downright creeps! I'm not all that fond of Victorian churches either (too recent). What fascinates me is a really old church - a church whose foundation stone was laid perhaps 600 or 700 or even 1000 years ago. When you think about it, very few buildings survive from such a distant past. There are manor houses and castles, which are also very interesting, but they were the domain of the very rich. A church was a public building, attended by rich and poor - indeed, funded by the rich (whose memorials are everywhere) and built by the poor. Enter the crypt of Gloucester Cathedral and you can see pillars carved by Saxon stonemasons! Climbing the stone stairs to the tribune gallery in the same cathedral is also exciting; you have very much the sense of what it must have been like bustling about in a great mediaeval building (and the views down into the nave are fabulous, if somewhat vertiginous).
I'm fascinated by the way you can see history, not just of events, but of ways of thinking, in the changes that a church has undergone over the years. Stained glass was smashed and interior decoration stripped from many churches during the Reformation. Most churches no longer have a rood screen, though occasionally you can see one, or spot the remains of one (I spotted vestiges in St. John's Kirk in Perth during a concert recently). Strange to think that much of the celebration of the mass was once hidden from the view of ordinary churchgoers!
Later on, Baroque interiors were grafted onto Gothic architecture - a notable example being St. Bavo's cathedral in Ghent (Flanders) - I'm sure someone thought those black and white decorations were really cutting edge back in the 17th century; personally I think they are horrible! Just as bad are the 18th and 19th century wooden galleries inflicted on some Gothic churches - I am sure they seemed a wonderful idea at the time, providing seating for so many, but I can't help thinking those ancient stone walls must have heaved a sigh of relief when they were removed again!
I love to speculate on the reasons why churches grew and changed, or fell to ruin. Why did the people of Muthill elect to build a new church, rather than restoring the old parish church when it was burnt down? Why did the fabulous Fairford glass survive when so much glass was smashed to smithereens? Were there really enough lepers in Stirlingshire in centuries past to justify the insertion of "leper squints" at Fowlis Wester and Innerpeffray? If I find out, I'll let you know.

BOOK SIGNING IN CIRENCESTER!

I'm delighted to say that I shall be doing a book signing next Saturday 21st April 2012, from 11am until 12.30pm at Octavia's Bookshop, 24 Black Jack Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2AA. Tel. 01285 650677

I'm strictly there until 12.30 only because we are flying back to Edinburgh the same afternoon. If you are within striking distance of Cirencester I'd love to see you - I'll be signing books but I'm also happy to chat and answer questions!

It's Silent Saturday!

I've not blogged recently, thanks to two bouts of an unpleasant winter virus and the much more welcome interruption of some lovely house guests. However, today I just had to put - well, if not exactly pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. I'd like to mark a day that has a special significance for me.

The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is known in my former home of Flanders as Stille Zaterdag ("Silent Saturday"). On Silent Saturday, no church bells are rung; Flemish children are told that the bells have flown away to Rome to collect Easter eggs from the Pope. I first heard about this tradition in 2009, when we had not long been living in Flanders. I was attending first year Dutch classes, and as well as learning the language, we learnt all about Flemish customs. The story of the bells flying away instantly intrigued me. I imagined how I would have reacted if I had been told a similar tale when I was a child. I would have been desperate to get into the bell-tower and see whether it was true or not!

The class moved on to other topics but the image stayed with me, of a little girl climbing a church tower to see whether the bells had really gone. Great oaks from little acorns grow, runs the old saw; in this case that one idea grew into a whole book, the first of a trilogy. As a child, my heroine and her friend Kris climb the tower of their local church to see whether the bells have flown away. Having satisfied their curiosity, they decide to look out of the window at the village below - and they see something truly terrible happening, the repercussions of which echo down the years to the present day.

The first book of the trilogy, aptly named Silent Saturday, will be published in 2013 by RHCB under the Bodley Head imprint.

Sewers, bell towers and catacombs!

Writing is a distinctly solitary business, so I enjoy doing an "event" now and again. Last week I visited Perth Academy to run a ghost story writing workshop with a group of S1 creative writing & drama students, and this week I gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Crieff. The topic was "Finding inspiration: sewers, bell towers and catacombs." It was all about the places that have inspired my books, past and future. I'm happy to talk on a variety of topics but the Rotary club fancied this particular one, though I did wonder whether they regretted the choice when dinner ended and I launched into a description of decomposing corpses contaminating the water supply in 18th century Paris! They're a staunch lot though, and managed to keep their haggis, neeps and tatties down.

The photograph is by David Smart (thanks, David!) and shows me with Vice President George Penny.