Editorial Interview on The Ha'penny Steps
Inspiration
The inspiration for The Ha’penny Steps Trilogy came from a number of sources. First of all, I had been writing about the criminal underbelly of London for about ten years. I had been interested in some of the major crimes such as the Brinks Mat bullion robbery and the Hatton Garden safety deposit box theft. That, coupled with a deep fascination into some of London’s criminal aristocracy, such as the Kray Twins from the 1950s and 60s, the Great Train Robbers, and the impact these people had on certain sections of working-class London immediately post 1945. Britain was in chaos of following the Second World War and these characters took advantage of the times to expand their empires, undoubtedly with the assistance of a corrupt police force, especially in London. My first serious attempt at fiction writing was the first book of what became the Dagmar Johnson Penance trilogy, Disruption, Keeping Busy and Absolution.
I have always been interested in history since studying it as part of my first degree at Manchester in the 1970s. I liked to wander through museums and I have spent many a happy hour in dusty central libraries. My higher degree at King’s in London necessitated weeks at what is now the National Archives in West London, poring over original Victorian Government papers. I learned how to research here.
Some context here; I started my teaching career in Paddington which was, and still is, a working-class district of Central London. I taught children largely from first generation immigrants lured to London with the promise of work. After a couple of years, I moved over to what became the setting for The Ha’penny Steps in Kensal Town, just a mile or so from Paddington. I was here for about six years, during which time, I became fascinated by its history. It was, and still is, a little community bordered on one side by the Grand Union Canal and the Great Western Railway on the other. It was from here that both the canal and railways were built. From early Victorian times, it was, a hotbed of crime, prostitution, dog fighting and drunken brawls, into which the police rarely bothered to venture and then only in numbers.
Kensal Town was hit hard by the Blitz in 1940 and 1941. Its occupants were essentially poor, eking out a sparse existence and living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. In the 9502 and 60s, the area was dominated by Irish and Caribbean immigrants. I devised a local history project for my pupils so that they could learn about the origins of their area.
To come back to the actual spark that made me write the series, it was actually whilst watching a re-run of The Blue lamp film which features an escaping villain crossing the Ha’penny Steps, fleeing from justice. I recognised buildings and streets that I knew so well. I sent for the Ordinance Survey map from the National Archive in Scotland and spent many a happy hour looking over Kensal Town as it was in 1950, before the slum clearance programme began in earnest. So, I began to research the Blitz. I am fortunate that there are many primary sources available in writing and on-line, that point to the impact, even down to highlighting were actual bombs fell of this period in time. At this point, I knew I had the makings of a different kind of novel.
The Research
I began to collate the evidence. I decided that I must take each part separately otherwise I would get lost in the myriad of detail. Book 1; Maruska’s Story, tells of a young Czechoslovak Jewish doctor who escapes the Nazi occupation of her homeland and comes to Britain primarily for safety but also to try to save her family from the Holocaust. She is carrying a dark secret. I had to look at how Britain accepted these refugees, how they were interned and questioned upon entry, and how they were released into the country. Maruska falls in with small time black marketeer, Peter Porteous, who bumps along on the edge of society, dealing in hard-to-find merchandise that has often been liberated from bomb damaged ships and warehouses. He is always just about one step in front of the police. I needed to explore how rationing worked and what goods were in particular demand. Maruska is a Jew. To make her character and that of Shira, the Jewish wife of a crooked jeweller, authentic, I looked at the Jewish religion. Being an observant Jew is crucial to the character of Maruska. It is not possible to write about this without some basic knowledge of the Jewish faith and the role of women in that.
Book 1 deals with the possibility of German spies being on the ground. I discovered that the British intelligence authorities (MI5) claim that there were very few German agents operating in Britain during the war. This is patently not true as evidenced by the accuracy of German bombing. Indeed, at the outset of hostilities, many in the British establishment were sympathetic to the cause of Nazism largely for fear of Communism. At least two national newspapers were Nazi sympathetic, a fact that is still brought up today. Oswald Mosely’s Union of British Fascists had hundreds of thousands of members at the outset of the war. This soon dissipated owing to the intensity of the bombing. At the end of Book 1, I introduced the true story of the so-called Blackout Ripper or Stocking Strangler, who terrorised London’s working ladies and weaved that into the story.
Book 2 deals with the endemic prostitution that plagued Central London. I discovered that one of the main characters in this particular vice was a Maltese criminal who called himself Charlie Maitland. Maitland had a strangle hold on sex work in the West End of London. Nancy is an up-market prostitute who is one of Maitland’s top earners. She is also shining a light for Porteous and is singularly put out upon the arrival of Maruska. I had some fun looking at the statistics of those ladies who were frequently arrested for soliciting, how magistrates simply fined them and put them back out on the streets. Of course, prostitutes would not have existed without their being a market for their services. The influx of millions of foreign soldiers provided these ladies with an insatiable demand for their services. I also discovered that many women became part time sex workers to feed their families when their husbands were away on active service. The big clamp down on sex work came after the war in 1959 when the Street Offences Act prohibited open soliciting. The Act did not remove prostitution but simply drove it underground. I also researched how Britain gradually recognised the threat of child prostitution and how the various laws gradually clamped down on this shocking practice. Nancy eventually helps a young girl escape from this life. She and Porteous adopt this young lady. I was also fascinated by the rampant documented corruption in the Metropolitan police’s Clubs and Vice Squad, and how it impacted upon the lives of many of these working girls.
Book 3 deals with Alice’s story. Alice is a young lady from Liverpool who is in a same sex relationship with Phyllis who is a Naval Officer. Up till this point, I knew very little about the how society treated lesbianism as opposed to the terrible way it sought out, punished and humiliated gay men. In short, British society refused to recognise that gay women could have ever existed. Consequently, there was little, if any, legislation about lesbianism. I discovered some fascinating facts about the very few cases that ever came to court and they were solely about financial matters. Alice brushes up against the British Union of Fascists and the upper classes who actually believed in Nazism. Alice is a feisty character who was not to be trifled with. To make the story authentic, I researched how women were treated in the armed services, how they were denied access to facets of higher education that had exclusively been the sole preserve of men.
Finally, I had to get an understanding of how the black market and criminality worked during the Blitz. It was easy to hide behind the impact of nightly intensive bombing where the odd stray body unearthed under the rubble of a burnt-out building did not lead to any serious investigations…I had to find out how the ordinary people coped with these deprivations in their daily lives.
The characters
Porteous is the gel that holds these three women (and others) together. He is an essential part of the story being a ‘Robin Hood’ type of a character. He has respect. The people of Kensal Town recognise that partly because he can get the odd tin of coffee or a scarce pair of nylon stockings, but because he is well known in the area and essentially seen as a good person. The character of Maruska was a pleasure to write as I had completed so much research on the plight of refugees during the War. Nancy’s character was much darker given her past, her feckless mother and her overwhelming desire to provide a good education and life for her younger sister, Charlotte, in rural England. Nancy deals with hardened criminals almost every day, particularly her employer and the thugs who mind her. She is essentially trapped until she breaks away with Porteous’ help. Alice is fascinating as a gay female of the time. She is intelligent, as witnessed by the fact that she eventually gets higher qualifications in engineering at a time when this was unheard of for women. I enjoyed writing about Alice, her estranged family and her relationship with Phyllis.
Into these characters come a variety of others who become essential to the plot lines; Edith Bell, the pub landlady and part-time prostitute, Jimmy Ryan, Porteous’ fellow black marketeer, Phyllis Adams, Alice’s long-time lover, Rabbi Isaac Levy, Jutta Meyer, a Wehrmacht Auxiliary of the Abwehr, and many more. Each one is crucial to the defining of the main characters. They were all a pleasure to write.
These characters were all complex. I couldn’t just pluck one out of the air and simply write about them. Each one had to have a carefully crafted back story and personality.
The Plots.
The plots were not that difficult to construct. I knew what I wanted for each of the characters and I knew how they would be tied into each other. Each book has a main theme. Book 1, is concerned with espionage in Britain during the Blitz. Book 2 explores prostitution and sex work in London tied in with the Blackout Ripper, Gordon Cummings, and his series of murders. Book 3 deals with the rise of fascism amongst the upper classes and attempts to subvert the British war effort.
Each book could be read as a standalone novel; that is always what I have tried to do with each of my mini-series. The Ha’penny Steps was much easier, given the amount of time I had spent of the research. Each book is essentially a study of the main characters. How their lives entwined, how they survived from day to day and how they each did their bit for the war effort.
I wanted to bring all the main characters together some time after the war had ended. I think I succeeded in doing so that all the loose ends were tied up. As a writer, I am content with the plotlines and how it all finished. To write a trilogy, parts 2 and 3 cannot be a rehash of book 1. They have to be distinctive, but inextricably linked, so that the reader comes back for more.
The Editing Process.
Quite simply, I was very lucky in that my good friend from University, Ken Nevitt, who has a forensic mind when it comes to ensuring accuracy about historical matters, went through each of the books, line by line, and checked the veracity of each statement. For example, he even picked up that I had inserted the incorrect date of when the King and Queen had a formal dinner at the White House before the USA even entered the war. It is this attention to detail that makes the book accurate in its historical references. We did have some interesting debates about some things…. Ken was a reserve soldier in his youth and this helped with some of the military references.
As a writer, I spend many hours researching the internet to ensure that if I refer to something, it is accurate. I have done this with all my books. I can tell you all about the efficacy of a Glock 19, how police in the UK conduct interviews, how the Crown Prosecution Service works and how illicit substances are smuggled into the UK and distributed. You actually can’t make this stuff up…For example, I do laugh when I read that a protagonist can suddenly recover from being knocked out by a villain. No; you have concussion and very likely need hospitalisation. I read one book recently where a single female detective constable (the lowest of the low) was tasked with transferring a convicted war criminal on her own from one maximum security centre to another. This would not happen in real life, but the writer thought this was a good idea, especially when the prisoner escapes.
When I finish the first draft of a book, I leave it for a month or so and then I go back to it. I edit it, proof read it and then I assemble the manuscript. This goes first to my wife who reads it and tells me in no uncertain terms where I have gone wrong. At this point after any revisions, Ken gets a copy to read, although he professes a certain dislike of non-fiction, he undertakes this task without complaint. Other friends and ex-colleagues get a draft copy and they willingly share their thoughts. Fortunately, I have never really had a bad review; some criticism, but never damning.
Some other thoughts
I write because I enjoy it, not for profit. I try to create characters that people either love or hate. I aways try to make them genuine. When I finished the Penance Trilogy, I had a profound sense of loss, knowing that I would probably never write about the character of Dagmar Johnson again. I know that other writers experience this loss as almost a bereavement. I did try to write a prequal to the Penance Trilogy, but I gave up after about four chapters. I used the initial plot lines to create An Unlikely killer, which is now one of my favourite books, where I allowed my imagination to run riot with murder, mayhem and illicit substances.
I finished The Ha’penny Steps trilogy and that is where it will stay. My sense of loss lasted a few weeks and them another writing project dropped into my lap. This was my semi-autobiographical work Queen’s Park; A Tale of Two Young lives. This was my first attempt at writing a novel aimed at a young adult audience. Because it is semi-autobiographical, I wrote it very quickly in about three months.
I currently have three books on the go. I have returned to my normal theme of London Crime writing about a female university lecturer who just happens to be the daughter of a crime lord and a contract killer in her spare time, as well as being an expert on theoretical economics. Part 1 is finished. I will commence part 2 when I have completed some editorial tasks that I am currently undertaking. I have a plot line for part 3…
I have a novella in my head that takes the reader back to war time Britain. I came across the phenomena of London’s night cafes when researching the Ha’penny Steps. In these places, freelance sex workers would meet their clients without actually being on the streets where they were subject of harassment from pimps, organised crime, and the police. This will be a short story about five of these different ladies.
Finally, I have several chapters of. Victorian melodrama written that is about love, treachery and betrayal. This will take some time…
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I have the beginnings of a website; CRSpencer.com but I profess not to have been very diligent in updating it…. I must do better.