Another Post on Overlooked women.

 RHYS BOWEN:  Today's post was all ready to go. It was on the places I was going to visit on my upcoming trip to England and France this week. Unfortunately that's not going to happen. John had a medical emergency a couple of days ago and has come home from hospital too weak to travel. Obviously I am not going to leave him, so the trip is no more.  

So this is a last minute post. 

Laura’s post yesterday highlights not only the bravery of young women during both World Wars but the cavalier and unfair way they were treated. The nightingales were provided with no parachute because they were expected to stay with the wounded if the plane crashed? Oh, right.

I just read an article about the Hello Girls. These were American girls who signed on to be telephone operators the first world war and were posted to the trenches with the soldiers. There they not only relayed messages from the front to the generals but sometimes had to translate those messages from French to English or visa versa. And after the war they were not considered proper army and thus given no veterans benefits, no GI bill.

The same was true of the women in WW2 who ferried planes from the factories where they were made to the various air force bases. Other young women flew crashed or damaged planes to bases to be repaired. They were not considered part of the military. If the plane crashed the girl’s family had to pay to have her body shipped home. After years of fighting for their rights some eventually did get a pension and military honors but most by then had died.

The way women were overlooked and ignored was one of the reasons I have written about several of them in my novels. (The Paris Assignment was the most recent of these).   I don't think men can understand that we women have to fight to be recognized on every rung of that ladder.  My daughter's best friend in college became an OB/GYN. When she came into the operating room the anesthetist looked up and said "Oh good, you're here."  Cheryl smiled until he said, "Now you can run and get me some coffee."  He had taken for granted that she was lesser, there to serve.

When I was in the BBC drama department I once had some producer make the same mistake. I told him quite firmly that my job was to run a studio and not get coffee and if he wanted his microphones to work and his actors to be heard he'd bloody well better be nice to me. (I've never been the shrinking violet type).

What examples do you have of having to fight for rights or being overlooked? (Perhaps with a woman president things might start to change???)

In Praise of Overlooked Women. A post by Laura Jensen Walker

RHYS BOWEN: It is my pleasure to host Laura Jensen Walker today. A lady after my own heart, writing about overlooked women in WWII. I am also determined to highlight bravery that has long been ignored and in this book Laura features some of the very bravest of all. What's more, Laura is the real deal, an airforce veteran herself. Tell us about them, Laura:

LAURA JENSEN WALKER:

Thank you, Rhys, and the rest of the Reds for having me here today—my first time on Jungle Reds! (And thanks to dear Catriona McPherson, for introducing me to Rhys.)

I’m thrilled to bits to share that my historical debut, DEATH OF A FLYING NIGHTINGALE, releases on 9/10. It is my privilege to shine a spotlight on a group of WWII women heroes that history has overlooked—the Flying Nightingales.

As an Air Force veteran formerly stationed at an RAF base in Oxfordshire a lifetime ago I was captivated to discover these courageous, forgotten women on an episode of Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages. On this episode Britcom star Penelope interviewed a woman named Lilian West in the village of Down Ampney in the Cotswolds. Lilian, then in her late-nineties, thought she might be the last living member of the Flying Nightingales—air ambulance nursing orderlies—from World War II.

I was gobsmacked as I listened to Lilian relate that at the age of seventeen she joined the RAF as a volunteer nursing orderly in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Lilian shared how she and the other air ambulance “nurses” were given only six weeks of training before being sent to combat zones—including the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy one week after D-Day—to bring home the wounded and care for them on the flights home.

Since the planes the nursing orderlies—dubbed “Flying Nightingales” by the press—flew on carried supplies and munitions, they couldn’t display the Red Cross emblem. Which made the Nightingales open to German gunfire. On the flights back to England, the nursing orderlies weren’t allowed to wear parachutes. They were expected to remain on board with the wounded if the plane crashed—twenty-four wounded men to a plane with a single nursing orderly on board to care for them all. The Nightingales changed bandages, emptied colostomy bags, cleared tracheotomy tubes, wedged sick bags beneath the chins of the wounded, and provided tea and comfort to soldiers with horrific injuries.

As a squeamish person who can barely stand the sight of blood, I couldn’t have borne the sights and smells those brave women endured: men with missing limbs, eyes, ears, noses… Horrible burns treated with butter. Gaping holes in chests and stomachs. Unimaginable. And yet, these courageous, British women kept calm and carried on, and never lost a man in their care.

Lilian West turned out not to be the last remaining Flying Nightingale—sadly, she died a year before I began writing this book—but her introducing me onscreen to this brave band of sisters made me say, “This needs to be a book!”

It was the honor of my life to meet via email Edith “Titch” (Lord) Joyce, in Australia, the last remaining Nightingale, it appears. Edith (106 years old) and I corresponded regularly through her daughter Colleen with Edith graciously answering my myriad questions about life as a Flying Nightingale. She kindly gave me permission to include her anecdotes in my book and I sent her a small token of thanks. Colleen filmed her mum thanking me across the miles. When I saw this unassuming, lovely lady on my phone say, “I’m very happy about all that you’re doing and hope the book is a success…” I burst into tears.

It was my fervent desire for Edith to hold a copy of DEATH OF A FLYING NIGHTINGALE in her hands. Sadly, she died a few months after her 107th birthday long before the book’s release, which broke my heart. Luckily, I had emailed her daughter an early version and Colleen read it aloud to her mum. I am forever grateful that Edith got to hear the story of her and her fellow Flying Nightingales in this novel before she left this earth. I wept when Colleen said her mum “loved” hearing the different anecdotes she’d shared with me in the book.

Fly high, Edith. 

Three very different young women serve as air ambulance “nurses,” bravely flying into WWII combat zones and risking their lives to evacuate the wounded: Irish Maeve joined the RAF after her fiancé was killed, streetwise Etta fled London’s slums in search of a better life, and farm girl Bety enlisted to prevent the wounded from dying like her brother.

Newspapers have given these women a romantic nickname, “The Flying Nightingales.” Not that there’s anything romantic about what they do. The horrific injuries they encounter daily take their toll, so when one of the Nightingales is found dead, they wonder: Was it an accident? Suicide? Or something else? After another nursing orderly dies mysteriously, it becomes clear that someone is killing the Nightingales.

Inspired by true events, this novel is a tribute to a group of overlooked WWII heroes who kept calm and carried on while the fighting raged about them. These courageous women proudly did their bit for King and country and found solace and camaraderie in the lasting friendships forged in war.

Bio:

Former journalist Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of several books including the bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Captivated by the tales of an overlooked group of WWII RAF women—the Flying Nightingales—Air Force veteran Laura knew she had to tell their story. You can find Laura at https://laurajensenwalker.com.

Five Things I can do that Others Can't!

 RHYS BOWEN:  I was at my health club the other day. When I came out of the shower there was another woman in the locker room, getting dressed. I took my clothes out of my locker, dressed, brushed hair and was about to go when she said, “How can you be ready so quickly? You just got here.”

        I replied, “When you’ve had four children you learn to be quick at showering and dressing. I perfected the one minute shower. Turn on. Soap all over. Rince off. Out and dry before anyone could draw on the walls with marker pens, feed their sister dog food, find the scissors or any of the other awful things clever young children can do.

So then I thought: this is a skill most people don’t have.

Then I tried to list other skills that I possess that most people don’t. I don't mean I can play the piano in Carnegie Hall or win the Olympic skiing type of skills. Nope. Don't have those.

Here is my list of five:

1: Shower in one minute.

 2: Can say the longest place name in the world in Welsh (I speak some Welsh)

 3: Play the Celtic harp (not brilliantly but enough to satisfy myself)

 4: I can put boiled eggs in cold water, set on the stove, go away and do something else and then think “those eggs must be ready” and they are always perfect: soft yolk and firm white.  When I’ve tried timing them it’s never as good.

 5: Write 2 and half books in a year. (okay, I know Jenn can trump me on this. But one of my is over 400 pages).

So Reds: what are your five things?

LUCY BURDETTE: I can think of three to four, and maybe there are more…

1. Spread my toes and then intertwine them like fingers.

2. Eat a bushel of peaches with minimal help in 10 days

3. Make a fried okra dish that would win over any northerner.

4. Buy more books when I’ve already got thigh high stacks–oh wait, that’s most of us!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: (Lucy? How did you learn you could do that toe thing?) 

      As for me.  Hmmm. Let’s see.

1. I can sing a song using only the first letters of the words. OSCYS? Btdel… (There is not much call for this.)

2. I always know what time it is. Always. No matter if clocks or not, I can tell,  This is probably from TV.

3. As a corollary, if you say: talk for one minute. Or ten. Or twenty. Or  seven. I can do that.

4. If there is a cord to trip over, I will trip over it.

5. I can put things in alphabetical order really quickly. There is not much call for this, either. 

JENN McKINLAY:

I am feeling very deficient presently. I don’t think I can do anything unusual but here goes…

1. I can always accurately guess the plot of every movie/show I watch. Always. My people do not allow me to speak anymore during viewings.

2. Like Hank, I always know what time it is. Probably from working on a reference desk for years where we changed out every hour on the hour. 

3. I’m an extraordinary packer. I can live out of a carry on for a month. I can pack an entire house (okay, slight exaggeration) into the bed of a large pick up truck. It’s like Tetras for me. I’m very very good at it.

4. I can always devise a work around. If something is broken or wonky, I can always figure out a way to MacGyver it until it can be properly repaired. Seriously. This is probably a skill left over from being a poor college student. 

HALLIE EPHRON:

I definitely cannot come up with five. And most of my feats are easily replicated.

1. I can recite from memory the children’s book MADELEINE (“In an old house in Paris, all covered with vines…”) and MR. BROWN CAN MOO (“Mr. Brown is a wonder… Mr. Brown makes THUNDER!”)

2. I’m another one who can guess the endings (and twists) of most mysteries on TV, and I have a hard time shutting up about it.

3. I can get 95% of the meat out of a cooked lobster with my bare hands.

4. I make a great version of Julia Childs’s bouillabaisse and also her onion soup.

RHYS:  What a talented bunch we are. Which talent should we use to audition for America's Got Talent. I vote not me taking a one minute shower. Not a pretty sight!

Who has the most unusual talent (a prize for the best!)

Metaphor

RHYS BOWEN:  I’ve never been good with orchids. People give me lovely plants. Eventually the flowers die and I can never make them flower again. I have read all the suggestions. I’ve done all the right things. Water with three ice cubes every week. No direct sunlight. Feed as directed. Every type of tender care and… nothing.

So I had this one orchid that stood on a sideboard and was carefully tended for months but no more flowers. At last I tired of coaxing it. I put it on the deck, left it there and forgot about it. Full sun. Scorching hot. And I didn’t water it. Its leaves got burned and I was about to throw it out in a deck cleanup when I noticed a tiny shoot coming straight up.  I brought it inside, gave it some water, cut away the dead leaves, and the shoot turned into a flower stem. Within two weeks this had happened.

Amazing, right?

This was the roots a few days ago

 and now this is the roots.

So I’m looking at it as a metaphor. A symbol of rebirth? Of hope coming from despair? When all seems lost a tiny shoot can emerge and blossom?

Or

If you want to coax something or someone to do their best you ignore and punish them to the extent that they want to impress you?  I don’t like that one. But maybe it is true concerning the writing of our characters. When we create a character in our books we make them suffer, we imagine what would be the worst thing that could happen to them and we make them experience it.  When I was writing Constable Evans I found out he was claustrophobic and then in the next book I sent him seven stories down a slate mine! We are quite sadistic. But then they come to life, show us their true grit, and they bloom, like my orchid. 

Here it is now:

And the flowers are twice the size they were previously. 

So what do you think is the right message that this is giving? At the moment I want it to be one of hope.

Ah, The Joys of Being a Writer

 RHYS BOWEN:

As all of you know by now, I've just had a new book published. This has meant almost daily Zoom interviews, including one scary one in which I just had to talk to the little camera on my Mac with no interaction with the audience until questions at the end. Was anyone there, I wondered. What had I already said? Wasn't it completely boring? 

The interviews are better, but by the end of the day I tell John that my cheeks hurt from so much smiling. You can't look grumpy on Zoom.

So no in person book tour this time. It did not make sense to visit Phoenix and Houston when the temperature was too hot to venture outside. So... the stores send me books to be signed. I lug in heavy cartons. I sit. I sign. I repack.

When I was a teenager I wrote a poem about a writer.

It began, “He sits in his lonely garret.

Night and day his fingers pound the keys… and there was something about words escaping from his churning brain.

But that was how I thought of a writer in those days. Alone. In his garret. Creating madly.

The funny thing is that the creating madly is only a small part of what we do today. Before we write we have an idea. This leads to a proposal, or outline that my agent, then editor has to approve. Then comes the creating madly part.

But then the work starts. Publicity wants blogs, and videos and gives us graphics to put up on our social media. It is expected that we have a Facebook page, Instagram, X… I draw the line at Tiktok. Oh, and a newsletter for which we have to harvest subscribers. And answer endless fan mail, and send off review copies, and hold contests and mail stuff to winners. This means  buying padded mailers, writing envelopes, ongoing trips to the post office. All of this, of course, takes time and energy.

Usually there are book tours. When I was newly published I dreamed of these… being whisked around in a limo, stepping out to adorning fans, staying at posh hotels, flying to the next town.  All of those are true, but they are exhausting. A few days are fine. By the second week I can’t remember the name of my hotel, let alone my room number (I’ve learned to take a picture of the door so I won’t forget). An airport a day is not fun. Neither is being crammed into a plane (usually one of those regional aircraft with five inches of seat space). And there is never a time to eat. Five o’clock before the event is too early. Nine thirty after the event is too late. Most nights it’s cheese and crackers and a glass of wine to help me sleep. That fancy hotel restaurant never sees me. And the car comes at six in the morning to fly on to the next town so breakfast is oatmeal at Starbucks as I wait for my plane.

I don’t want this to sound like whining because I realize how very grateful I am. I know many writers would love to have this chance, and what’s more I love, love, love, meeting the fans, hearing their stories. I am so touched when I hear that my books made a difference at a tough time in their lives.

In my early days I was not sent on a publisher’s tour. I set up a tour with other writers and what fun that was. We’d get back to the hotel room at night, flop onto our beds, and laugh at the absurdity of what had happened that day. We’d drive through thunderstorms and, on one occasion, because I was navigating pre-smart phones, I directed Lyn to drive into the center of Manhattan by mistake. It was comforting to have a buddy to commiserate with when the crowd was two people and to cheer with when things went well. I miss those happy times!

All Jane Austen had to do was send off her manuscripts then take a nice walk through a charming little wilderness nearby. I wonder how many books she would have written if she’d had to do all the social media for Pride and Prejudice?

Authors, what do you dislike most about social media and publicity? And readers what do you like best about staying in touch or meeting your favorite authors?

Thoughts on Bouchercon.

RHYS BOWEN:  This year I did not go to Bouchercon.  In case you don't know, this is the world mystery convention, the biggest assembly of all things mystery. This year it felt too close to my trip to Europe in early September and already I'm regretting not going. I see the pictures of my friends having fun and I wish I could have been there.

I've been attending Bouchercons since 1998. That first time I knew two people. I was going to meet one of them for dinner when the other included me in a group that was chatting. They were going to dinner. "Are you coming?" one of the men asked. I told him I was meeting someone else. As I left my friend muttered, "I can't believe you turned down Jeffrey Deaver."  I was clueless at the time!

Since then I've become part of the mystery world and enjoyed every moment of it. I love hanging out with friends at these conventions, especially meeting up with the other Reds.  The last time we were all together was in Dallas in 2019.

All of our Jungle Red game shows have been a hoot. They are always the highlight of any convention.

Other fun memories are, of course, my event with Louise Penny and Debs, where we are billed as Conversation with Three Goddesses. That's pretty cool, isn't it? They put three chairs on the stage and we just sat and chatted, unscripted. It was amazing how easy it was and how everyone loved it. ( wish we could have coordinated our outfit choices!)

We repeated this several times at subsequent Bouchercons.

Other fond memories are the time I was part of an anthology called the THE MERRY BAND OF MURDERERS. We wrote or used a piece of music and the story to go with it. Fabulous cast of characters, and at Bouchercon we ended our panel with Val McDermid singing Long Black Veil, with me and two others as her back-up group. Let me say it brought the house down!

As well as meeting Reds and friends it is a time to meet up with fans. It's always exciting to see a big audience of excited people, and lovely to meet up with our Reds family as we did last year at the San Diego Bouchercon.

I don't have any really bad memories although some hotels have not bee the best. (remember Bouchercon in Las Vegas in a hotel about to be imploded. The only seating was in the casino, the bar was in a gent's clothing store and they had a receptacle for used needles in my hotel room) The only things that's weird for me is when I'm waiting in line for the ladies toilet and someone yells out, "Oh, there's Rhys Bowen." And all I want to do is pee!

So what are your happpiest (or scariest) convention memories? Who went to Bouchercon this year?

Our Morning Ritual

RHYS BOWEN:  Do you have a morning tea or coffee ritual? We do at our house. Tea is made in the ceramic teapot with boiling water and tea leaves mixed by the lord of the manor himself: Darjeeling, Ceylon, short leaved Indian and Keemun Chinese. It is steeped for six minutes. We take it with milk and a little sugar.

This is our regular choice of teapots. We do have the silver one, the antique Georgian one and the Wedgwood wrapped up and stored for special occasions.

But recently a second ritual has joined the first: the choice of mug. My children and friends have given me so many mugs that I adore that it’s hard to choose the correct one for a particular day.  The latest is the Jane Austen mug. It has quotes from her books and the box it came in said: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a mug.  How can you not love that!
I’ll use this mug when I’m feeling content with the world and easily amused.

When I’m feeling in a more feisty mood I’ll switch to another Jane Austen quote:

Obviously that daughter knows me well.

And this one is equally feisty!

And who could resist this one from my ultra feminist daughter?

I have lovely mugs that I don’t often use: 

the elephant is too heavy, 

the unicorn puts me in danger of poking an eye out and my favorite is the little hedgehog cup my daughter Jane brought back from Germany. It’s too small and I don’t want to risk breaking it.

I do have a Wedgwood tea set that I use for special occasions but the cups are so small. Did people drink less tea in those days or did they have to keep refilling the cups?

How about you? Does it matter which mug you drink your tea or coffee in? Or are you elegant enough to use a bone china tea set?

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m caffeine-limited, so I can afford only one good cup of coffee in the morning. I want it to count! I don’t grind the beans, but I choose high quality, hopefully organic coffee and make it by pouring the hot water through a filter. We became so spoiled after having a cafe con leche every morning in Key West, so we must have hot frothed milk when we aren’t there. Milk frothers are notorious for breaking down so I have a brand new one. 

PS I have beautiful Emile Henry mugs in green, red, blue, and yellow. At the moment, I will only drink from the yellow ones:). 

JENN McKINLAY: I am a bean grinder. I buy them whole from a local fair trade shop. Like Lucy, I am caffeine limited to two cups and I’ve been a milk frother since my trip to Italy in 2008 because it just feels like more of a treat (although now I use oat milk). I do have a cup of tea sometime between 3 and 4 in the afternoon to power through the last of the day, but it’s not fancy. I order PG Tips in the pyramid shaped tea bag and drink it with a dollop of honey. I have no preference in my mugs so long as they accommodate my beverage. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Morning tea ritual here, too, Rhys. I also, like the lord of the manor, mix loose leaf teas. The morning blend is a tea called Lover’s Leap, a Ceylon variety, with a malty Assam (commonly used in teas like English Breakfast.) I use tea sacs and steep the tea in my biggest Liberty mug (photo) then top with frothed milk. (And of course I have a milk frother!) But when the tea needs to be rewarmed, I have to pour it into a microwavable mug. My current fave is a William Morris pattern, bought for 4 pounds at the hardware store at Notting Hill Gate. Irreplaceable.

When I occasionally switch to coffee, it’s one shot of espresso in the same big mug, frothed milk, then mug topped up with hot water. 

HALLIE EPHRON: I rotate through chai tea, coffee, and cocoa. All sweet, heavy on the milk. And as it will come as no surprise, my favorite mugs feature birds (Hoopoes, Grebes…) and Minions.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Tea drinker here, though without the ritual of a home-blended mix: like Jenn, I’m a PG Tips fan. No milk, way too much sugar (you know those infographics that show Americans consume 34 teaspoons a day? That’s me.) I drink it all day, adding boiling water and making a fresh pot as necessary. 

Mugs are chosen for size, not design. They need to be large enough to hold a generous 12 oz. of tea, but not so large that the tea cools off before I get to the bottom. I like mine at roughly the same temperature as magma, so heat-retention is important to me. 

RHYS: So how about you, dear Reddies? Favorite mugs? Morning ritual?

A Brief Question about Social Media

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am flying home from Nashville today, and yes, I know those are song lyrics. Do you recognize the song? 

But I’ve been thinking about social media, and how much time I spend on social media, and I think the answer to that is: too much.

Watching funny videos of cats and little kids is incredibly entertaining, but so easy to fall into the rabbit hole of entertainment, you know? When I am supposed to be writing?

And yes, it is really truly fun to see what everyone else is doing and what everyone else's lives are and their coming and goings and ups and downs and successes. And failures, sometimes we hear about those as well.

But how much time is the right amount of time to spend on Facebook and Instagram? And, I suppose, Twitter, if you must.

Can you give me some ideas about how much time you spend on social media? What you do and where’d you go? How’s your use of social media changed?

I will be home this afternoon, and cannot wait to hear what you all say!