The Vernham Chronicles – It’s just about as original as you
can get!
On 15th October 2012, my novel The VernhamChronicles will be enjoying its 2nd birthday!
In those 2 years, The Vernham Chronicles has received mixed
reviews and comments, and gladly, none of them(so far) bad!
Some readers have likened or compared The Vernham Chronicles
to Spike Milligan, and one reader thought there was an element of Gormenghastabout it. While these observations are complimentary, they aren’t really anywhere
close to the mark.
I suppose that the brilliant Spike Milligan is used as a
yardstick for wacky British comedy and quite rightly so, but I don’t think you
will find anything like The Vernham Chronicles in his great body of work. In
addition, the only connection that The Vernham Chronicles has with Gormenghast
is a flood during a rainstorm.
Indeed, the closest description I have seen is ‘BBC’s TheLeague of Gentlemen before it gets nasty!’
In a radio interview at Marlow FM 97.5, DJ Paul Mansell asked me
what inspired my writing of The Vernham Chronicles and its characters. The
novel’s inspiration goes back to just a little over 40 years ago when I was a schoolboy.
I used to walk down a little high street everyday on my way
to school, some of the buildings dated as far back as the 16th Century
and other cottages built into the gaps afterwards.
Some of the characters in The Vernham Chronicles were inspired
from people that I saw regularly going about their daily business in that
little high street, and some characters inspired from those I have had the
uncertain pleasure to meet.
The Vernham Chronicles’ characters are of course a complete
exaggeration or distortion of those people; they are purely literary caricatures.
One of my favourite characters, and indeed it would seem many
of readers’ favourites, is Mr Robson the Counterfeit Scotsman and a character
that I had to be careful not to over indulge myself. A little old man that wore
plaid inspired this lovely old fellow, he was most likely Scottish but it
amused me to think that he might just be a Scottish fanatic and very English. I
remember my mother buying me a second hand Oor Wullie (Our William) annual when
we went to a local muscular dystrophy charity fete. This comic book and its little
lad called Wullie and his pals Fat Bob, Wee Eck and Soapy Soutar fascinated me
with its use of strange language in the speech bubbles. The language of course
was a way of adding a phonetic accent to otherwise English text.
I found inspiration in Wullie, so much so that I tried to be
Wullie right down to wearing dungarees and boots with tacks in (tackety boots)
and I would sit on an upturned metal bucket just to be like him.
All this role-play was typical adolescent behaviour and I’m
certain we have all pretended to be someone else at sometime or another. This
of course made me the original Counterfeit Scotsman, but the thought that
somebody could carry on this façade until late in life because of their fanaticism
tickles me in all the right places.
I incidentally adore Scotland and love the Scottish way
of life!
Mrs Bunkerton, recently widowed 7 years ago as she insists
on telling people every day is another favourite. Mrs Bunkerton has an
obsession with the accuracy of time and she makes sure she visits the local
tearoom ‘Comfytums’ at two minutes past ten o clock every morning; to be too
early or miss the exact time would throw her day out completely.
The natives of Vernham village are all obsessed with
something or another anyway, and their personalities are all products of their
strange neurosis; this is why human beings are an enigma.
Without rewriting the novel here for you, I would like to
leave you with a short section of a lovely review by Sue Magee of The Bookbag,
which I feel sums up The Vernham Chronicles; you will of course have to read it
to maker your own mind up!
It's said that in times of war people turn to Jane Austen for her gentle humour and a reassurance that all will be well in the world. The Vernham Chronicles had a similar effect on me. The humour tickles you relentlessly and won't let go even when you scream for mercy. It's kindly humour though: you laugh with people rather than at them and you're left with a feeling that you could live in Vernham and know that you might not be accepted, but it would be because you were an outsider and not because you're in any way different. That's their kind of logic.”
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