I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that part of the story of my next book, ‘History Girls’, involves the discovery of a haul of old documents in the attics of Saltbury Museum.  As we know the Museum building was once the town house of Saltbury’s wealthy Victorian benefactor Sir Jeremiah Prodnoze and the new discoveries include private letters and his voluminous diaries.

As well as the museum, Sir Jeremiah founded Saltbury University and St. Ann’s School for Girls, so even today, more than a century after his death, he is remembered with affection and gratitude.   But let’s just say that the diaries put the noble Baronet’s family in a rather different light than the starchy Victorian grandees the present-day town thought them to be.

The problem for your author though, is that I needed to quote these old documents, some of which go back before the Victorian period to the time of Sir Jeremiah’s father, Sir Granville Prodnoze, at the end of the Napoleonic wars.  That means writing them, and getting the 200 year old language right, along with the formality shown in letters of the time even between close friends and family members.  It’s been fascinating. Oh and quite funny, as usual.

Oh, and Katie’s in it too.  As usual, she isn’t very formal!