Sixteen-year-old Sarah wishes for a life beyond the Welsh Back where she lives with her elderly parents at The White Hart Inn in Bristol. As the youngest, the weight of responsibility sits heavily on her shoulders but in Victorian England there are few opportunities for working-class women to escape their mundane lives. That doesn’t stop Sarah from dreaming.
In keeping with the naming patterns of the time, she is the third daughter to be named Sarah. How can she possibly fill the role of replacement for the other two who passed away, along with her only brother and another sister? Of her two remaining sisters, Harriet, eight years her senior, lives in Wales and has her own share of family problems, and Mary, over two decades older, is more like a second mother and someone she would come to rely on.
Her well-meaning parents, Jacob and Betsey, have done their best for their family, but for Betsey, the sadness of losing four of her brood proves too much. She becomes increasingly cantankerous and as she ages her mind wanders and bitterness increases.
Sarah is their mainstay and at her mother’s beck and call but isn’t given credit for all the work she does. Betsey rules the kitchen with a rod of iron rather than a wooden spoon, but Molly, their kitchen girl, always saves the day. Sarah promises never to leave them, but what will that mean for her own life?
Given that my other passion in life is genealogy, these characters, their life challenges and ensuing conflicts were indirectly gifted to me. Sarah’s story is inspired by a true-life ancestor, the sister of my great-great-grandmother, Harriet. I’d stepped sideways in the hope of finding a link for my Harriet in Sarah’s line and was astounded by what I discovered.
I’d been researching the real-life Sarah’s story for some time, looking for the evidence of her life. I’d found her on every census from 1841, starting as a seven-year-old living with her family when her father was a grocer, through to 1901. Alongside those records were numerous birth, death, or marriage certificates, baptismal records, newspaper articles and notices. Intrigued, I began to think Sarah had a story worth telling. Hers was no simple story. The time period was a fascinating era, with all its morals and codes and laws and mores, but human nature being what it is, those codes were not always followed.
By 1851, the family have moved to the Welsh Back (a ‘back’ is the Bristolian word for a wharf) and the Welsh Back was the street supporting the wharves in the famous floating harbour where the trows (specially designed boats) tied up after crossing the Bristol Channel from Wales. Her father is the licensed victualler (the publican) at The White Hart Inn, living with his wife, daughter, lodgers and servants, and a grandson. My cast of characters now needed bringing to life.
Ten years later, so much had happened. From being the happy young girl with dreams, her life disintegrates and emptiness fills the space where her heart resides. At the age of 26, Sarah is a widow and has already buried one child. Her son is living with her sister Mary, and Sarah is caring for her elderly parents while ostensibly running the inn, but that isn’t all there is to the story either. Those facts alone gave me great scope for her life story to develop. It is often hard to believe the trauma some of the women of the day endured, but endure it they did, and often thrived.
Genealogy provides the facts, but the stories lie in the gaps. We can never know what people said or how they felt or behaved, we can only surmise. What writers can do is take the history of the time and wrap it around their lives. During Queen Victoria’s reign, a lot was going on including the opening of the Crystal Palace in London, the Crimean war, the building of the Bristol Suspension bridge with all the pomp and splendour, arguments and errors, and finally celebrations, and then the general development of a prosperous and progressive city as it moved towards the 20th century.
The publication of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the serialisation of Charles Dickens’ stories both added context and depth to Sarah’s character. Did either she or her mother actually read or use these books? I will never know, but Sarah was literate enough to keep written records for the inn.
I spent as many hours researching Bristol as I did researching Sarah. Through archived maps I could find where the White Hart Inn was situated and were else she lived; where the church sat, and where she might walk. I read up about the words unique to Bristol and the dialect that changed the way they sounded. A newspaper article gave me a real-life report on her visit to the courthouse as a witness in a murder trial, and the licencing papers provided details of the associated dates and venues. After a disastrous fire, she needed to rebuild. Such details provide my framework but the characters provide the resulting drama.
If that wasn’t enough, during the following ten years, both parents died and she transfers her victualler’s licence from the White Hart to another inn. Another snippet to arouse my curiosity. What on earth is going on? At this point the story took a surprising turn. I dug even deeper. The more I found, the more engrossed I became.
Aunt Nettie didn’t approve. Mary didn’t approve. Why didn’t Sarah listen to them? What was so important to her that she would ignore all advice? She broke codes of behaviour by attending funerals. She took risks until the brewery managers turn up. They don’t approve either and her life is once again tipped on its axis.
Amongst the dramatized facts, the characters take liberties – as they always do. The fictional staff, customers, and workers, all cause Sarah a great deal of trouble. She is threatened and coerced. She has to make tough decisions that affect other people. She is constantly defending herself while trying to maintain her dignity and strength, but there is one person who offers her hope, and she will cling to that hope against all odds.
What I discovered amounted to an enduring love affair spanning four decades, complete with all its emotional upheavals. How could I resist? And so began the first book in The Ancestors series, Sarah’s Destiny.
