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Jane Robinson

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9/9/2020

Wild Barbara


I'd like to tell you a little bit about the subject of a major biography I'm working on at the minute. Regular readers will recognise her: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon has cropped up cheerfully throughout my career. Now I have a chance to explore just what an unusual and influential woman she was. The portrait below, by Emily Osborn, does her no particular favours, but I think you get a sense of her strength of spirit. She called herself 'wild', 'one of the cracked people of the world', on a life-long quest for truth, beauty and most of all, for justice. 
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I can reel off plenty of interesting facts about her: she was illegitimate (which is why her cousin Florence Nightingale refused to acknowledge her); independently wealthy; a professional water-colourist; an intrepid traveller; was involved in founding the first women's suffrage society and the first university college for women in England (Girton, Cambridge); changed the legislation preventing married women from owning their own property; campaigned for women to be allowed into the professions; opened one of the country's first co-educational schools for inner-city children; refused to wear stays; lived half the year with her eccentric French husband in Algeria, etc. etc..

But what really sets her story apart is love. She was at the centre of an adoring and eclectic circle of friends, including George Eliot, the Brownings, John Chapman, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Lizzie Siddal, Gertrude Jekyll, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, Millicent Fawcett - and so on and so on. All of them described Barbara as warm-hearted - 'lion-hearted', even; boundlessly generous, and kind. 

Those were her celebrity friends; countless working-class people had Barbara to thank for education, physical well-being, financial and moral support. Barbara was a phenomenon; the most modern woman of the Victorian age, and I cannot wait to tell her story.  

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In other news: I'm incredibly honoured to have been invited by the Hawthornden Trust to spend time in Italy working on the Bodichon biography. This is not a tranquil time for any of us, and I must admit I'm apprehensive about the journey, having hardly left home for six months, but it's such a privilege. I can't say no to the opportunity for peace, quiet, and writerly sympathy. Bring it on.

Soon after my return in October, a documentary about Mary Seacole is due to be aired by ITV. I spent a morning filming with the incomparable Alison Hammond and am much looking forward to the result. I'll let you know the date on Twitter.

And finally, Captain Oates sends his love. He has spent lockdown doing an awful lot of thinking, and is therefore having a(nother) quick snooze, otherwise he'd be here at our desk as usual. Sweet dreams.



Cheery thoughts from the desk of Captain Oates

17/3/2020

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This should have been the busiest time of a busy year, travelling around talking about one book while trying to finish the next and drawing up a proposal for the one after that. I was looking forward to being flat out  and boasting (modestly) about how much in demand I was and how well the book was selling.

Hah!

It is good for the soul to realise (with a bang) that life isn’t all about oneself after all. It’s not even about #MeToo. It’s about us. There used to be a sit-com on TV, years ago, featuring a ridiculously earnest couple who went around the village in matching fair-isle tank-tops and sandals with socks, helping people whether they liked it or not with a steely cheeriness. Was it something to do with a neighbourhood watch group? Or Reggie Perrin? Can’t remember. Anyway, that mortifying fear of interference has never quite left me: people will think I’m a busy-body if I bother them, or somehow hoity-toity. 

Now things have changed. I'm really trying to stop looking inwards and start looking out. My husband and I have signed up to a couple of local WhatsApp groups to volunteer practical help and moral support to friends and neighbours who could do with some (virtual) company. I’ve also offered to send regular emails to people who feel lonely or cut off.  

Meanwhile, I can’t write - as in work-writing - all the time till summer… Captain Oates is keeping us occupied to a certain extent in his own inimitable way. This morning I came downstairs to find he’d nicked the rather generous supply of dog-treats we keep for walking next door’s Irish setter. When I questioned Captain about this greedy breach of good manners, he glared fatly at me and growled.

I know: we’ll do more gardening. Dig for victory and all that. I might even start knitting (unlikely, though I did make some jam at the weekend which has the consistency of tarmac). Or sewing outfits for Captain like the ones Ruth’s duck Rosa wears in Louise Penny’s wonderful Inspector Gamache books. If you don’t know them, by the way, you’ve a HUGE treat in store.

In fact that’s it: I’ll catch up with the whole series, like a bookish box-set. Then I’ll start at the beginning again with my beloved Commissario Brunetti volumes (hope he and Paula are OK in Venice). Then I’ll learn the names and songs of all the birds in our garden. Formal names, I mean. Obviously I know Blackie the Blackbird, and Bobby the small beige one and Kevin the jackdawy-crow-rook-raven. And then – any other suggestions?

The novelty’s going to wear off soon, especially for those of us with vulnerable or far-off friends and family. But I’m convinced we’re going to learn a lot from this episode, both individually and collectively, that will stand us in good stead when it’s all over. And it will be over.

Enough for now. Good wishes to everyone. Captain Oates says it's time to leave his desk and make lunch, so I'm off. Jam, anyone?  
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