'Swallowcliffe Hall'
Jennie Walters
is an accomplished author who is currently writing the 3rd book
in the series of 'Swallowcliffe Hall'. She has only recently found
out about the village of Swallowcliffe, and coincidentally there
have been many similarities between the books and area...
What's in a name?
It seems strange to think that there was a time,
a couple of years ago, when the word 'Swallowcliffe' didn't mean
much to me - now it seems to dominate my every waking moment. I'm
a children's author and the first story in my new trilogy is about
to be published. The books are set around a large house in the English
countryside (somewhere in Kent, although it's not based on an actual
place), the aristocratic family who live there and the servants
who look after them. The first story, House of Secrets, is told
from the point of view of Polly Perkins, who arrives in 1890 at
the age of fourteen as under housemaid.
I was rather anxious when I read that the heroine
of a film starring Gwyneth Paltrow was also named Polly Perkins,
but luckily the film doesn't seem to have been a great success,
so no confusion there. What to call the house, though? This was
important,
because the name of the house was also going to be the overall title
of the series, so it had to evoke the right kind of feel. I sent
off a list of about thirty possibilities to my editor: Alderney
Manor was one, I think, and Meadowrise House, Spyway Grange, Lanchester
Place
you get the idea. She much preferred the fourth or
fifth name down - Swallowcliffe Hall - and now it seems impossible
to imagine the house and the books called anything else. 'It sounds
so light and airy,' somebody said, and I agree.
I still don't know how the name came into my
head. We'd lived in Bulford Camp and Larkhill when I was about nine
or ten (I went to school in Netheravon), so maybe I'd seen the word
on a map or signpost and it had lodged in my head ever since. Somehow
the fact that there was an actual place called Swallowcliffe passed
me by, though. Then after I'd set up a website to go along with
the books, I suddenly came across a site with a very similar name
- and there was beautiful, real-life Swallowcliffe right in front
of my eyes! The fact that a Swallowcliffe Manor exists gives me
goosebumps. Perhaps the strangest thing of all, though, is that
when I rang the phone number given on the website, the person on
the other end of the phone had the same surname as the heroine of
my second book: Polly's daughter, Grace Stanbury. (I think Chris
Stanbury was pretty surprised too!) So now I've accepted that Swallowcliffe
and I have some kind of fateful connection. One day I'll have to
come and visit - and I'll be half-expecting to bump into some of
my characters walking down the street. Very unnerving
By Jennie Walters
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