I love writing about people – especially people in families. There is such a richness of emotion, of action, within families. Nowhere else will love and loyalty vie with dislike and disloyalty, (even hatred in some case), pride with resentment, happiness with complete sadness. Nowhere else are human beings so close.
With The Stranger in my House, I wanted to explore a situation that would completely turn around the characteristic of a family. And I knew that needed to be something drastic. And that the family had to have a weakness within it it. And that weakness in the Collins family was grief, the sadness of losing the mother, the centre of their world. The father Graham is still grieving, bewildered, struggling to cope with running a business and trying to look after his children, eight-year-old twins, Chloe and Charlie.That “something drastic”; the situation that would completely change the characteristic of this family arrives in the form of Lynne, the district nurse who cared for Anna, the wife and mother of the family, who died when the twins were six. Lynne continued to call on Graham after Anna died and slowly but surely becomes part of his life… and consequently of the twins lives, when she and Graham marry.
I’ve always known about coercive control, although that’s not what it’s been called until these last few years. But it’s always been the patriarchal control, the accepted head of the family situation of past times, I was initially aware of. The earliest of my books, A Hundred Tiny Threads the prequel to the Haworth trilogy, is set after WW1 and the protagonist’s father, Bill, is a man of that era; he totally controls the family: by his moods, his temper, his fists.
But these days control of any sort is identified as coercive control, and it’s recognised that this can result in psychological damage that can last for life. It’s difficult, sometimes, for the victim to make sense of what’s happening, to see it as abuse. It’s like imprisoning someone, restricting everything they are. They are robbed of their independence, and their confidence is slowly undermined. It destroys who they are.
Anyone can be guilty of being a coercive controller. And guilt is the right word, because, today, it’s viewed as a crime. To totally have control over another adult human being is a crime. It’s shown in so many ways: physical assault, threats, humiliation, intimidation or other abuse intended to harm, punish or frighten. The perpetrator gaslights the victim by denying things have happened, using the confusion to control, criticising everything they do and say. Victims suffer in silence.
Which is what Graham in The Stranger in my House does, he tells no one, feels completely useless. Isolated, he has no control over what happens to his children or his life. And neither do his children.
But children grow up. Chloe and Charlie become young adults with minds of their own…
Llyn Crafnant and LlynGeirionydd are separated by the forested slopes of Mynydd Deulyn (Mountain of the Two Lakes) and lie within wonderfully scenic valleys where the Gwydyr forest meets the lower slopes of the Carneddau mountains in Conwy.”The lakes are about a mile apart,” said the photographer casually. “The walk’s about five miles.” What actually happened was that we took the circular route which covers a distance of eight miles and involved some steep climbing.
But, at this point I have to say that wasn’t his fault. We ended up – or should I say – started off walking in the opposite way to the route in the book, having parked in the car park nearLlynGeirionydd, instead of the one near Llyn Crafnant.
This was due to the fact that, at one point, the SatNav took us in the wrong direction. It’s always the SatNavs fault, you know; we once got stuck on a very narrow dirt farm track faced with a sign that joyfully said in large red writing, ” Use your eyes, the SatNav lies”. I think I might have said that before, it’s something I bear in mind when sitting by a certain irate driver having to turn back on a journey.
Anyway, I thought, it’ll be alright; we’ll just read the directions backwards.
I waited on the edge of the grass while the photographer took his first photo of Llyn Geirionydd.
Gwydir Forest is named after the Gwydir River, which takes its name from the ancient Gwydir Estate, established by the John Wynn family of Gwydir Castle, who owned this area (Gwydir is translated as River with Red Banks) The land here was once dominated by lead and zinc mines. Some of the mines have been partially restored and made safe for visitors, but we didn’t visit; our sights were set on getting to Llyn Crafnant Though we did pass an old restored engine-house, and also the waste tips, now left to be naturally covered over.
The First World War had highlighted a shortage in wood production and the forest was stripped bare at the time because many of the early forestry workers, former employees in the forest’s mines, had no experience of forestry. This caused the 1919 Forestry Act to be passed and Gwydir Forest was acquired from Lord Ancaster by the Forestry Commission in 1921.
Most of the original plantations have now been felled and replanted as part of the forestry cycle. We passed quite a few places where this was happening.
The majority of the forest is conifer such as Japanese larch, Norway spruce and Scots pine but apparently, over the last two decades there has been more Welsh Oak, ash and beech planted to give a more varied and softer outline to the forest
“When we get to the top of this track, there’s a little bit of a short climb and the track narrows a bit,” said the Photographer over his shoulder as I puffed and panted behind him. ” Don’t worry, it’ll be so worth it for the view.’
The track did narrow a bit indeed. As the directions said, ‘…into a steep narrow footpath, less than forty centimetres wide (that’s about sixteen inches in old money) in some places, on an unmade and uneven surface, where you can expect mud, rocks and tree roots.‘. The embarrassing thing is, just as I was wobbling leaping gazelle-like from rock to another a young couple (stressing young here!) ran past… with a dog … very quickly.And they even had the breath to wish us a cheerful “good morning.”
Every now and then we caught glimpses of the view. Went past a stile. Down a wider path. Through a gate. Saw the obligatory cow. And then…
The Photographer got his first proper shot of Llyn Crafnant on the northern edge of the Gwydir Forest.
And then lots more. It really is a glorious place
One last look and we walked away from Llyn Crafnant …
Following the arrows we crossed over the road into a small wooded area. And there the arrows stopped. We looked around: there was a stile in the far corner, but it was broken, covered in brambles and branches and looked unused. On the other side of the clearing there was a broad track. After some discussion we chose the track. (later realising we should have tackled the stile).
After an hour of walking up the never-ending road we stopped for breath, and for the Photographer to revell in the scenery and take many photos of the craggy slopes of Mynydd Deulyn.
And for me to have a rest. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that I realised I had somehow managed to take the attractive shot below whilst I was rummaging in my rucksack for the fourth, and last, bottle of water. Naming no names, but someone dared me to include this in the post – and I’m never one to pass on a dare. Which is probably the reason I find myself on these hikes walks.
Another hour of uphill, round a bend, and the road began to descend, until we were …
Back to the start…
I’m often asked what do I think about when I’m walking and with not enough breath to talk. I must say not having enough breath to talk isn’t something that often happens to me. But usually I’m taking in what’s all around us. We walk in so many diifferent kinds of places, so I just soak up the sights and the sounds whether in the country or in more urban areas.
But there are times when I’m thinking how to describe what I’m seeing, wondering if it will fit into a scene in the book I’m currently working on – or intend to work on. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t. It’s usually the latter, but that’s okay. And if I can keep it in mind for when we next stop for the Photographer to capture the scenary, I’ll make notes.
And I remembered that moment, that feeling of almost sinister atmosphere when I wrote one of the scenes in Sisters.
“‘Whoops! Watch your step, Miss Clumsy.’ Said in a jokey manner, it still manages to imply the familiar censure. ‘If it wasn’t for me always looking out for you, I don’t know what you’d do.’ He laughs. ‘Probably kill yourself, one of these days.’ He pulls her close, turns her so they are facing the lake, standing on the edge of the steep banking. The sun is sinking lower in the sky, the black shadows of the trees lengthen, their reflection stretch and waver over the lake, the water rendered blood-red.“
Book Description:
An accident and a terrible lie by sixteen-year-old Angie tears her family apart and her younger sister, Lisa, being sent away. They don’t speak for thirteen years, until their mother’s death brings them together. Lisa quickly realises her sister is trapped in a dangerous marriage.
What does Lisa owe to the family that betrayed her? And if she tries to help, will she make things more dangerous for them all?
A powerful story of domestic violence, courage and forgiveness.
Trust is the one thing that families should be able to take for granted. Trust born from love, from the belief that each member knows the other because they have lived together, seen the weakness and strength of each other. Having faith in each other means there is trust in theirselves, in their judgements, in the confidence that they are implicitly correct in that conclusion. But of course trusting can be the automatic option, the unquestionable. It also avoids any confrontation between siblings, parents, relatives. It means that every one can get on with their lives, not having to think too hard about the actions of everyone else in the family. It’s taken for granted that each believes whatever they are told. Don’t question. In turn it’s accepted that each can also reveal whatever they want to disclose about themselves, their thoughts, their actions. And take for granted that they are believed.
There is only one problem with that premise. Everyone is alone in their heads. No one (whatever anyone believes to the opposite) can read minds. What we present to the world, the façade we choose to show is our decision.
And that is where the secrecy comes in. Although it’s undeniable that every family has its secrets, it’s the substance of them that count. Of course secrets can also be trivial, small, kept in a loving way (a celebratory surprise, a present) or as a kindness, hiding something that is better kept under wraps if the person keeping it believes that.
On the other hand, harrowing, life-changing secrets can damage an entire family for some time. Even forever. Those kinds of secrets break that instinctive trust, that belief that those closest to us, who we love and respect, are truthful. Are not lying.
Families can be complicated. That’s an obvious statement. And where there are families with secrets, there are stories. And these are the stories that are at the root of all my books.
Their mother, Julia Prinsep Stephen had become a widow in 1870 after her first husband, Herbert Duckworth, died of a burst abscess. She already had three children: George, Stella, and Gerald. The latter was born shortly after Herbert’s death in 1870.
Eight years later Julia married Leslie Stephen. English society in the late 1800s was built on a rigid social class system, and as a graduate of Eton and Cambridge, a respected literary critic and biographer, Leslie was seen as one of the literary aristocracy. He was also a widower and father of a girl, Laura, who had a learning disability, and who, incidentally, was the granddaughter of the Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.
Despite Leslie doting on Laura as a tiny child, by the time she was nine it was obvious that something was wrong; she was slow to talk or read, and veered from total fatigue to violent tantrums. It was a problem for both her father and Julia (although Julia, as friend of the family, had already partly taken on the role as a surrogate parent after Leslie’s wife, Minny, had died when Laura was five). But marriage and producing four children in quick succession: Vanessa in 1879, Thoby in 1880, Virginia in 1882, and Adrian in 1883, increased the difficulties for the two parents. Neither of them were equipped to deal with a child who had special needs.
Besides being agnostics, both Leslie and Julia were humanists, who advocated the rights for women to be the same as for men, to reach their own conclusions in matters of religion. Yet both believed that the home was the true basis for morality, a sanctuary free from corruption, and therefore home was the place for women. So Julia, who despaired that she was unable to discipline Laura, or train her to carry out domestic chores, apparently felt that her stepdaughter was deliberately wilful. And Leslie, who, during a time when society viewed anyone who was not seen as “normal” as undermining that society, was ashamed of her. His domineering patriarchy in in this upper-class, intellectual, and claustrophobic household would be viewed as bullying these days.
He must have been very frustrated by Laura, and it was a conflicted family: having little parental authority over one daughter, whilst succeeding in having total control over the other two.
Unlike their brother, Thoby, neither Vanessa nor Virginia were allowed to go to school. It was still not considered suitable to send girls to school, so they were educated at home by tutors.
Initially, as small children, they spent their days inventing whimsical stories about their neighbours, then progressed to writing illustrated stories and poems, and making up riddles and jokes for a family magazine they called the Hyde Park Gate News. In years to come, biographers of the two sisters were to declare this as early proof of the reciprocal nature between them that, well before any formal training, they nurtured each other’s art, acting as the other’s friend, adversary, and creative muse. And they must have decided between themselves which of them followed which creative path: Virginia the writer, Vanessa the artist. Yet each one’s individual talents led to the same ending, an endeavour to tell stories through their craft, Virginia with words, Vanessa through her paintings.
But, in the background there was always the perceived family problem of Laura. And, in 1886 at the age of sixteen, when Vanessa was seven, and Virginia was four, Laura was sent away to live with a governess. And was absent from the public family.
Four years later, despite being deprived of any early official schooling, and notwithstanding the Victorian restrictions on girls and women, Julia and Leslie decided to encourage their other daughters to pursue their talents. Over time, Vanessa studied both at the Royal Academy Schools and the Slade School of Fine Art, Virginia took classics and history in the Ladies’ Department of King’s College London.
Laura, on the other hand had been diagnosed by psychiatrists as suffering from ‘imbecility’. However I do need to point out that, despite extensive research, I could find no established medical rules of defining mental illnesses at this time. Yet in law, under such acts as the Lunacy Act of 1845 and the Idiots Act of 1886, there were precise specific and distinct legal classifications for certain conditions. These groupings fluctuated though. Laura was initially admitted to Earlswood Asylum in 1893, aged twenty-three, as an “imbecile” but in the 1901 census she was labelled a “lunatic”. which could suggest worsening symptoms
Virginia and Vanessa had battles of their own to contend with; both, as children, were sexually abused by their half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth. As an adult Virginia Woolf wrote extensively about this incestuous abuse in her diaries and letters, although there is little I can find about the abuse with either sister. Understandably, many say this was the origin of the fragility of Virginia’s psychological state. But It needs saying that it has been suggested in various papers that there were genetic connections of mental instability on the paternal side: Leslie Stephen was prone to violent mood swings, his father suffered from depression, a nephew had a bipolar disorder and was admitted into an asylum for mania. Virginia herself suffered from depression, and Vanessa is reported to have had at least one nervous breakdown.I should also add here that therefore it could follow that this family history of the Stephen family means it is likely that whatever condition Laura suffered from in her life, her genetic composition means she was more susceptible to other mental disorders.
In 1895, their mother. Julia Stephen died of heart failure, following a bout of influenza. Shortly afterwards, Virginia had her first mental breakdown.And, when their older half-sister Stella Duckworth, who in the absence of their mother had stepped in to run the household, also died two years later, and after their father died in 1904 after a long battle with stomach cancer, Virginia made her first suicide attempt.
Vanessa took charge. After dealing with all the domestic affairs, she moved the family (Vanessa, Thoby, Virginia, and Adrian) from Hyde Park Gate to the Bloomsbury district of London in 1904 to begin a new life.
Here Vanessa, Thoby, Adrian and Clive Bell started The Bloomsbury Group with friends who were writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists who rejected the oppressive Victorian principles of their parents’ generation, and they adopted creative freedom, sexual permissiveness, and atheism. They became known for their unconventional lifestyles and love affairs, shocking many outside their social group.
As the older sister Vanessa dealt with many of Virginia’s emotional and mental breakdowns. But she also held true to her own code of conduct; her lifestyle, her unconventional, sometimes eccentric relationships, were reflected in her art: the nude portraits of her friends and family, the use of design in her work. (both considered to be the prerogative of male artists) Yet her loving care for her sister was balanced by the long term and continuous rivalry in their separate spheres of creativity. Reading through the lines during my research I wondered whether, sometimes, this conflict was wearisome for the older sister; whether Vanessa’s marriage, in 1907, to Clive Bell was subconsciously an effort to distance herself from Virginia.
The marriage, a year after their brother Thoby’s death from typhoid, made Virginia descend again into some sort of nervous breakdown. The marriage meant that Virginia and their brother Adrian had to move out of the Bloomsbury house, thus providing a distancing between the two sisters. A distance Virginia resented, because, before long, she began to pursue Vanessa’s husband, Clive. Their love affair lasted, intermittently, over six years. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that reveals enough proof, I think, to believe that the underlying reason for the affair was so that Virginia was once again at the centre of her sister’s life.
In 1914 Vanessa began a life-long relationship with Duncan Grant, who was bi-sexual. Taking Vanessa’s two sons, Julian and Quentin, from her marriage to Clive, and accompanied by Duncan’s lover, the writer David Garnett, they moved to Charleston Farmhouse, Sussex. In 1918 Vanessa and Duncan had a daughter, Angelica.
Because I have concentrated on these two women as sisters, and because much has been written about their achievement by far more scholarly people than me, I have left out details of the body of work that both women produced. I was more interested in what made them ‘be’, what formed them as human beings.
I found an extensive amount of articles, journals, newspaper reviews, discussions, diary quotes, lectures etc. on Virginia that revealed much of her personality and mental health. But far less details on Vanessa’s character. Because she didn’t keep a diary as Virginia did there is little written about her personally, except for the time of her son, Julian’s death during the Spanish War, when she became extremely and understandably depressed. But, mainly, there are only facts about her place in the family, about her marriage and relationships, her part in the Bloomsbury set, and the cannon of her work. And I found almost nothing on Laura. Having left few records of her own, she’s as invisible in history as she was in her family. And yet, her small story needs to stand alongside her famous sisters, because, I think, her presence (wherever she was during her life) must have had some effect on Vanessa and Virginia. There had to be some experiences, some memories they shared, that would always have impacted on the three of them.
Troubled by mental illness throughout her life, Virginia was institutionalized several times and attempted suicide twice before drowning herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse on March 28, 1941. Her ashes are buried in the National Trust garden of Monks House, Rodmell.
Vanessa died at Charleston Farmhouse, at the age of eighty-one, after a bout of bronchitis, on 7th April 1961. She was buried on 12th April, without any form of service, in Firle Parish Churchyard.
N.B. Leslie and Julia visited Laura until Julia’s death in 1895. Stella visited her until her death in 1897. Her aunt Annie Thackeray Ritchie visited her until her death in 1919. Annie’s daughter Hester Ritchie brought her home for visits on occasion. Then the visits stopped. When Laura died in 1945 the asylum did not know of any living relatives, though both Vanessa and Adrian outlived her and even inherited the remainder of the legacy Leslie had left for her care
Sometimes, family members can become estranged from one another, either by choice or by circumstances. “In one of her informal reminiscences from around 1922, Virginia describes ‘Thackeray’s grand-daughter, (Laura) a vacant-eyed girl whose idiocy was becoming daily more obvious, who could hardly read, who would throw scissors into the fire, who was tongue-tied and stammered and yet had to appear at table with the rest of us.’ Virginia makes the difference between them clear: Laura was not, in fact, one of “us,”’ https://tinyurl.com/36sj5mc5
And, in a way, this is how Lisa (formerly Mandy) feels about her sister, Angie, in my book, Sisters, when she says, “I never wanted to be in Micklethwaite ever again. Yet here I am. And meeting the one person I never wanted to see again. “
Sisters waspublished by Honno on the 26th January 2023:
It’s a funny thing about Judith Barrow’s books. I start reading, thinking they will follow an expected genre, get about halfway through, and realize that they are about something else entirely. In Sisters, for example, I thought I was going to meet another Cinderella, one who lives through and overcomes family trauma, meets her prince, and lives happily ever after. Only… not so much.
When we meet thirteen-year-old Mandy, she’s the classic middle-child of a working-class family on a 1970s housing estate. She’s proudly pushing the pram containing their family’s much-anticipated and beloved baby brother when she runs into her big sister, Angie, a typically boy-crazy young teen. Angie is attempting to show off for a boy when a terrible accident occurs and the precious baby is killed.
A devastated Mandy rushes back to her home, but to her shock is blamed for the tragedy. She waits confidently for her big sister to explain, but Angie doesn’t step forward. Instead, their family falls apart in a meltdown of grief, blame, and shame. Publicly branded a baby-killer, Mandy is bullied at school, shunned by her parents, and lied about by her sister, the one person who could have saved her.
Of course, we can see how the adults who should have provided love and support in spite of what was obviously an accident, instead fail their child. How the sister she’d always looked up to allowed her own fear to keep her from protecting Mandy or even telling the truth. And how all of the social structures of home and school and church fail to protect and support.
The bewildered girl is sent to Wales to live with her aunt and uncle. Mandy changes her name, rejects her birth family, and reinvents herself as Lisa. But that’s only the beginning of the story. As the two girls grow up, we can see that their split-second reactions in a moment of trauma are actually reflections of the people they will grow to be.
Both leave their broken family, and very soon come to life-changing forks in their separate journeys. Angie starts down a dark path where the only piece of herself she sees as valuable, her appearance, is regularly sold.
QUOTE: “There was a moment when Angie had a chance to change her life: that first time she stepped through the door of that house, that first night, that first week, that first time, that first man… But she didn’t.”
At almost the same moment, Lisa steps up to prevent a little boy being kidnapped. She recognizes that protective spirit as her life-calling, and begins training to become a child advocate.
QUOTE: “That day with the little boy, I knew I’d never have a choice if I saw a child in distress. And I knew what I wanted to do with my life.“
The meltdown of Mandy/Lisa’s nuclear family, the way everyone fails each other and her in a moment of ultimate stress— that was the story I expected to read. But it wasn’t the story Sisters had to tell. Instead, as the years pass, we see each sister tentatively begin to rebuild their lives, to unfold their personalities and characters from the smashed wrecks of that devastating moment.
Raised by her loving Aunt Barb and Uncle Chris in far-off Wales, Lisa finds her own strengths and life purpose. As she grows, she rebuilds some of the tattered relationship with her mother, and becomes a strong woman unafraid to love. The frightened little girl who keeps silent to protect the big sister who has betrayed her, channels that strength to protect other children.
But Angie’s path is one where that first instinctive cowardly betrayal sets the pattern for her inability to stand up for herself. It leads almost inevitably to a shameful existence and an abusive marriage.
When their mother dies, the two sisters finally meet up again. And this is where my expected story turned around completely. Instead of vindication for Lisa, we see a family whose core has disappeared, leaving each of them fundamentally lost. Each one has to forgive themselves for the all-too-human failings of being weak, angry, judgemental, scared. Along with each member of the family, the reader has to decide if it’s even possible to reclaim their humanity by reforming the family bonds shattered by tragedy, weakness, and time.
For me, Sisters is more than a story about a family destroyed by tragedy. It’s an exploration of how much we can give up in the face of devastating betrayal and loss, and how much we must give to reclaim our identity in the face of our imperfections.
I was particularly drawn to the settings. I enjoyed the contrasting descriptions of the family home, and the very different worlds the two sisters flee to, from the comfortable chaos of Wales that welcomes Lisa, to the sterile, compulsively bleached home that imprisons Angie. And yes, there was a bad guy, but somehow he lacked substance for me, an outline of nastiness rather than a fully-rounded villain. Instead, the true antagonists are the human failings in each member of the family, and even more their inability to forgive themselves and each other.
Sisters is a slow simmer, an intimate look at a gradually unfolding train wreck. It invites the reader to examine the effects of tragedy in the moment, but also as those effects ripple outward across the years, and especially the amount of strength and determination needed to swim against those ripples until feet finally find firm ground again. It’s not an easy read, but readers willing to explore the collapse of a family will be rewarded with characters who ultimately redeem their lives, reclaim their humanity, and most of all, affirm their båonds of love and family.
I unreservedly recommend this beautifully written, devastating, but ultimately hopeful story.
Ann Hatton and her older sister Sarah, were the daughters of Roger Kemble and Sarah Ward, who led a troupe of travelling actors. Sarah was born in Brecon in July 1755, Ann, otherwise known as Ann of Swansea, in Worcester in April 1764. There were ten other siblings.
All, except Ann, were early performers on stage with their parents.Considered by her family to be unsuitable to be on stage, owing to a disability (she had a slight limp), Ann was more or less excluded from the family. Later in life she often said she received little love from her parents, and that her education wasneglected.
In contrast Sarah was well educated, adored by her parents, and performed her first major Shakespearean role, as Ariel, at the age of nine.
Yet both fell in love with men whom their mother and father thought unsuitable.Ann, at the early age of sixteen, married a man called Curtis who was actually already married, and was later convicted and jailed for bigamy. She was considered to have brought disrepute on the family and was cast out by them; their only concern was their determination to validatetheir respectability within the theatrical world.
Sarah was dealt with in a different way. Initially sent away to work as a lady’s maid because she began a relationship with William Siddons, (one of the members of her father’s troupe), she was soon forgiven by her parents, who gave their blessing for her to marry William. Sarah was then allowed to continue her acting career. She was so outstanding that she was noticed by David Garrick, actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer, who took her to London to appear on the stage at Drury Lane, although her first role at Drury lane wasn’t a total success.
Rejected and isolated Ann became increasingly depressed and suicidal, actually attempting suicide in Westminster Abbey. She lurched from one catastrophe to another. After her failed marriage she attempted to earn her own money by working for a Dr James Graham, a sex therapist, who ran a business called the Temple of Health and Hymen,in Pall Mall.Her family was enraged to discover he advertised the lectures Ann gave as “given by Mrs Curtis, Mrs Siddons’ younger sister”.
In 1783, Ann produced her first volume of poems, (Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects). Again she gained her family’s wrath; she published the collection under the name of “Ann Curtis, sister of Mrs Siddons”.
The Kemble family was determined to disassociate themselves from Ann, so Sarah, joined with one of their brothers, granted Ann a yearly allowance, but only with a condition that Ann lived at least a hundred and fifty miles away from London.
The annual payment meant that Ann’s reputation and station in society became more acceptable, and in 1792 she married William Hatton.
They emigrated to America, and it was here that she wrote her opera libretto Tammany (otherwise known as The Indian Chief), which was given its première on Broadway. This was the first known libretto written by a woman.
Following the triumph of her libretto, Ann and William returned to Britain, and by 1799, had settled in Swansea in South Wales, where they ran a bathing-house and lodgings near the coast until William’s death in 1806. She then moved to Kidwelly.One of her poems, Swansea Bay, describes her emotions as she left Swansea. Eventually, she returned to Swansea in 1809 where she settled down to write her poetry and Romantic novels. These encapsulated themes of social and moral parody,(sometimes with gothic leitmotifs). She used the pseudonyms of “Ann of Swansea” and Ann of Kidwelly.
Many of her books were set in Wales; Cambrian Pictures, published by my publishers, Honno, is one of them.
Sarah and her husband William, took up the life of a travelling thespian, playing many parts all over the country. She cleverly chose roles that made her more popular, that protected her image and preserved her reputation as a wife and mother of five children, as well as an actress. This helped her to avoid any rumourmongering and scandal that usually plagued actresses at the time. She ultimately became Britain’s most renowned and highly paid actress in the 1780s, much sought after by equally famous painters, such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, to sit to have her portrait painted. She even gave private readings for the king and queen at Windsor Castle and Buckingham House. Reputed to have a striking stage presence she became most famous for her role as Lady Macbeth; a role she was reported as played to perfection, and she was also called the Queen of Tragedy.
But, after thirty years the marriage between Sarah and William became strained and they separated.
She retired from the stage in June of 1812, playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. So enthralled by her performance were the audience that they continued clapping when she finally left the stage and the play ended there.
She died in 1831 and was buried in St. Mary’s, Paddington. Her funeral was attended by thousands, and a statue of her was later created by Francis Legatt Chantrey and erected in Westminster Abbey (ironically, as I said, earlier, the place where her sister, Ann attempted suicide after her first marriage to the bigamist, Curtis, and when she was both ostracized by her family, and desperately poor). .
Ann died and was buried in 1838 in a churchyard in High Street, Swansea. She left most of her belongings to her servant Mary Johns, executor of her will, as a “very small remuneration for her affectionate, honest and undeviating conduct” for almost 16 years.
At no time in my research for this post, did I discover that the two sisters ever met again.
It occurred to me that, sometimes, it is only through fate and coincidence that estranged families are forced into contact. And so it is for the two sisters, Angie and Mandy (later known as Lisa) in my next book, Sisters.Due to be published by Honno on the 26th January 2023, I’m thrilled that it’s now available to be pre-booked.
Judith Barrow 