Mother courage

Author Stephen Foster explained.

‘In 2007 I was researching a story in Scotland and there were reams of papers to go through,’ said the Australian historian. ‘Then I came across a newspaper clipping about matrimonial separation in 1825. Not all that expected.’

It described how Cecilia Horne, the estranged wife of the Rev. Thomas Horne, had fled to Guernsey with her two daughters and had enlisted the help of locals and the Royal Court to help her keep her children.

With his imagination piqued, Stephen travelled from Australia to Guernsey in what was to be the first of four trips.

‘I started at the Priaulx Library, with its wonderful collection of newspapers. In fact the Priaulx and the National are the two best libraries in the world to work in.

‘There were five local papers back then and only one was in English. One paper would repeat what another printed, and there were quite a few contradictions. It could be quite confusing and it took a lot of making sense of. But it interested me and I’d encountered the artist Zoffany before, in India.’

The story was sufficiently interesting enough to make the Southampton Herald and this was syndicated into the Scottish newspaper from which Stephen found the clipping.

‘And after that, it was partly forgotten.’

Stephen said that he has an interest in child custody cases.

‘In Australia there have been a number that have created big headlines. Last year a husband, a Lebanese Australian, took his children back to Beirut. But his wife was determined to get them back, so she contacted a TV channel to follow and film her while she went to Beirut and grabbed the kids back. Of course, it didn’t end well.’

Cecilia, however, found considerable support when she came to Guernsey.

‘She was described as being a woman of “rank and fashion” and reputed to be a great beauty. She had a 17-year-old daughter, Clementina, also a great beauty, and an 11 year-old girl, Laura. So she would have found a great deal of friends and support. Even the procureur said to her that he didn’t want to be persuading her to break the law.’

Within his research, Stephen found a lot missing. ‘So I decided I needed a device, something to help me. So I invented a diary, written by Clementina, so it became a mix of history and fiction but I approached it from the perspective of a historian. So the device is – “what happens next?”’

When the book was mostly complete, Stephen set about finding a publisher. But he didn’t want to go down the normal route.

‘Some trade publishers don’t market a book as well as they might. I knew how to have the book edited and I have a friend who is a designer, so I was able to produce the book I wanted.

‘Historians would call it a micro-history. It’s a small story but it has a larger reach. When people have commented that it’s an unusual book, I see that as a badge of honour.’

Stephen had listened to the audio book of the ‘late, great’ Roy Dotrice reading The Book of Ebenezer Le Page while driving between Canberra and Brisbane.

‘Then up popped Genius Friend by Edward Chaney, about the Ebenezer author GB Edwards, and I saw that this was published by Blue Ormer Publishing, run by Steve Foote. I thought “this might be the man for me”.’

A meeting in London followed and Steve was interested.

The book was launched last Tuesday in a packed Guille-Alles Library and the people there were treated to passages from the book being acted out live.

‘It was a joint idea between Steve and me,’ said Stephen. ‘There are two particular speeches in the book relating to child custody and from both sides. I said that these would be good dramatised and Steve said he knew exactly who could do it – Guernsey History In Action Company. I turned it into three scenes.

‘While the book took an obscenely long time to write, the play took no time at all.

‘It’s my first and last play, though. That could be the only time that it’s ever been shown.’