Golden Sponge-Stick Results!

.
some excerpts from this year's winning entries:

After a good feast of dates and honey the five children had a long, catch-up conversation about their time over the hot, sweaty summer. Axius had no parents, but was looked after by the group of actors that were well-known in Pompeii... Felix and Sophia had also been away, travelling to the islands of Sicily with their wealthy mother and father on their ship. Olivia had spent her summer in luxury at the local baths and her family had bought two new slaves, one of which could do elaborate hairstyling and make up. Lucius was the only one of the five friends that had stayed with Pompeii's normal activity over the summer. He had been winning all the street fights and scavenging money with his friends from the attendants at the local baths where his father worked.
from The Missed Cue by Florence Fowkes, 11
1st place in age 9-11

The play was now getting to the exciting bit, the death scene. Ilucas relaxed and watched as Julius ran off stage. There was a fracas in the wings. "This is where Julius will be replaced by a condemned man so we get a real murder on stage. This is one murder that will be no loss to the theatres of Rome," he mused. Suddenly the two actors rushed back on stage. "I'm not supposed to die!" one called, as the other stabbed him through the heart.
from The Theatre of Jupiter, by Stuart Quinnell, 12 (at time of writing)
3rd place in age 11-13

Demetrius raised his head, and squinted into the distance. He gasped as, brightened by the pale moonlight, a building rose up from the horizon. Its stone body loomed out of the darkness at an astonishing height, and, at its pinnacle burned a bright golden beacon. The light gave Demetrius new hope as it glared out from its point, and illuminated the stretch of sparking sea ahead. Despite his exhaustion from the arduous journey, Demetrius smiled and praised the gods. "The Pharos," breathed Lorendes.
from The Two Friends, by Josephine Thum, 14
2nd place in age 14+

A spark, a cat-like hiss then a sudden roar and a wave of heat as the fire caught and shot across the courtyard with a fury. The mob fled frantically as they realised the blaze was out of control. Thin beams of yellow and blue seeped through the cracks in the door, settling on their faces. Iacomus cried out as the heat in their small space intesified and quickly became unbearable.
from Trouble in Thysdrus, by Eilidh Avison, 14
1st place in age 14+

That night, Caius caught a fish; and I cooked it and stripped it bone dry; but there our luck ended. "To the chewing of your tables"-yes, like Aeneas we would have slaughtered the pack-animals and chewed our very crockery, except we hadn't any to chew. Like greedy Erysichthon we would have gnawed our fingers and tried to eat ourselves; unlike him, we never would have finished.
from Fragments: a Roman Happening, by Kailas Menon, 16
best international entry

...Captain Proteus had the misfortune to captain a crew of the most wretched reprobates - pirates, criminals and monsters, the lot of them! His crew's reputation, however, was in no way wretched or unfortunate - his ship was after all the Myoparo Mortis - fittingly named "the galley of death", the most notorious pirate ship in the Mediterranean, where, so they say, even the galley-slaves' pockets brim with gold, and the captain feasts on roast meat and Falernian wine - every night.
from The Aesculapian Eye, by Diran Bodossian, 16
3rd place in age 14+

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In September of 2008 classics teacher Jeremy Pine set up a competition for children to write a Roman mystery short story in the tradition of Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, Simon Scarrow and others.

Jeremy was inspired by a talk I gave to girls at his former school - Royal High Senior School Bath - in 2008. I mentioned that a little girl in Year 3 thought my sponge-stick (Roman toilet paper) was an award for my books! I said perhaps a 'Golden Sponge Stick' could be an award for the best Roman Mystery. And ecce! the idea of the competition came to Jeremy, like Athena leaping fully-clothed from the head of Zeus!

You can read more about the Roman spongia HERE.

You can read Jeremy's account of the first year of the Golden Sponge Stick Competition HERE.

Now Jeremy teaches Latin at Burgess Hill School for Girls, but he decided to hold the competition for the second year running 2009.

According to the rules set by Jeremy, the story should
1. be set in Roman times.
2. be written by an individual child with no outside help.
3. not exceed 1500 words.
4. include some period detail about Roman life and/or the Latin language.
5. have a clear plot with a twist and striking ending.

There were four age categories: under 9, 9-11, 11-13, 14 and above.

The Golden Sponge Stick competition was open to children all over the world, and in any kind of education.

Entries had to be in by 11 December 2009.

(You can see the full rules HERE.)

This year, Jeremy had 276 entries. He spent the Christmas holidays judging the entries and at the beginning of February he chose the winners. A few weeks ago he sent me a letter telling me about the competition:

Again the calibre of writing has been excellent with the stories revealing a lucid, imaginative and humorous approach, allied to painstaking research and high emotion.

The variety of storytelling was rich with duplicity and murder at the theatre, double dealing in Alexandria, ‘oily’ revolution in Africa , exotic red sands and kidnapping of beautiful slave girls topping the bill this year!

The wealth of young storytelling talent is undeniable and many thanks to the bubbling enthusiasm of the students and their teachers alike. Pleasingly, in addition to the widespread receipt of entries from UK, there were some international stories received from USA, Australia and Hungary and this exciting dimension to the competition will hopefully expand later this year in the 2010 Burgess Hill School for Girls Golden Sponge-Stick Competition.

Today Jeremy sent me half a dozen examples of the winning entries and I have put excerpts from them at the top of this post.

Here is the official list of all the prize winners :

Under 9 age category
1 : Catrin Parry, Alderley Edge School for Girls
2 : Nico Ferrari, St Bernard’s Preparatory School, Slough

Age 9-11
1 : Florence Fowkes, St James Senior Girls’ School
2 : Sophie Wilkins, Fairfield School, Bristol
3 : Emma Russell, The Royal High Senior School, Bath (GDST)

Age 11-13
1 : Benjamin Thorne, Kings Monkton School, Cardiff
2 : Surina Fordington, Norwich High School for Girls (GDST)
3 : Stuart Quinnell, Berkhamsted School

14 and above
1 : Eilidh Avison, Harris Academy, Dundee
2 : Josephine Thum, Kendrick School, Reading
3 : Diran Bodossian, Hampton School

Best International entry :
Kailas Menon, Stanford University Online Education Program for Gifted Youth (USA)

Participating schools and colleges :
Alderley Edge School for Girls, Berkhamsted School, Birchwood Grove Primary School, Bristol Grammar School, Central Newcastle High School (GDST), Denny High School, Falkirk, Ellesmere College, Shropshire, Emmanuel College, Gateshead, European School, Culham, Exeter School, Fairfield School, Bristol, Feltonfleet School, Cobham, Haberdashers’Aske’s School for Girls, Hampton School, Harris Academy, Dundee, Henry Box School, Witney, Kendrick School, Reading, King Edward VII School, Kings Lynn, King Henry VIII School, Coventry, Kings Monkton School, Cardiff, King’s School, Worcester, Leweston School, Sherborne, Mills Hill School, Inverell, Dublin, Newcastle College, Norwich High School for Girls (GDST), North Devon College, Nottingham High School for Girls (GDST), Portsmouth Grammar School, Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, St Bernard’s Preparatory School, Slough, St Columba’s College, St Albans, St James Senior Girls’ School, St Joseph’s RC High School, Newport, St Mary’s School, Cambridge, St Paul’s Girls’ School, Stanford Education Program for Gifted Youth, (USA) , Sevenoaks School, Shrewsbury High School (GDST), The Junior King’s School, Canterbury, The Leys School, Cambridge, The Manchester Grammar School, The Meadows School, (USA) , The Red Maid’s School, Westbury-on -Trym, The Royal High School Bath (GDST), Windermere St Anne’s School, Cumbria, Wrekin College, Wellington, Telford.

In his letter to me, Jeremy thanked:
My family (Lisa, you would have enjoyed this!), Burgess Hill School for Girls, Association for Latin Teaching, Verity Barber, June Bent, Lynda Bevan, Classical Association, Friends of Classics, Dr Mark Golder, Will Griffiths and CSCP, Barbara Johns, JACT, Caroline Lawrence, Gwenda Manners, Andrew O’Donnell, Hanna Prynne, Lorna Robinson and iris Project, Cressida Ryan and Oxford University Classics Outreach, Adrian Wink and Armamentaria.

I would like to join Jeremy in congratulating everyone who won and also everyone who entered, as well as the teachers and parents who supported you. Just getting an entry in shows the self-discipline and drive required to be a successful author.

CONGRATULATIONS!

The Third Golden Sponge Stick Competition will run from September 2010.

:)

Recipe for a Revolver

Any writer knows that you can read about something as much as you like, but it's not until you've actually tried it out that you really understand it.

In Virginia city last year I went on a stagecoach ride. Ten minutes was enough to show me how claustrophobic and uncomfortable and even scary it would have been.

I also visited the jail and a mine. Both of them made me feel clammy and prickly and trapped.

In Death Valley I went horse riding for an afternoon. OK, an afternoon on a plodding horse is not a cattle drive like in the old Westerns, but you get the feel (and smell) of being on horseback in the west.

Some things I don't want to experience: getting shot, going down a deep mine, drinking alkali water or 'tarantula juice' (homemade mezcal), being in a real shoot out, getting scalped.

One thing about the 1860's I must know first-hand is how to load and fire a cap and ball revolver.

Until the 1870's, the majority of handguns were cap and ball. This meant you had to put all the components of a bullet in the chambers of your cylinder. Like putting the ingredients of a little meal in a pan to cook them. (All except for the cap, which is the frosting on the cake)

Luckily the main character in my new series owns a Smith & Wesson Seven-shooter model 1. This was one of the earliest guns to have a metal cartridge with the cap and ball and powder all inside.

But in Virginia City in 1862, the time my book is set, very few people were lucky enough to own a gun which took cartridges. According to Mark Twain, who was there at the time, almost everybody in wore the 'universal Navy revolver'. This popular gun was 'cap and ball'. So were the many models of Colt's Pocket Pistol. So was the bigger Colt's Army Revolver. The only difference was the size of the bullet or 'ball'.

At the Ham & Petersham Rifle & Pistol Club one Sunday, I saw why they call it a 'ball'. It really is a big metal ball.

A .22 caliber ball is tiny, about the size of a dried pea.
A .36 caliber ball is the size of a normal pea.
A .44 caliber ball is about the size of a chickpea. And it's heavy. You wouldn't want one of those to hit you.

I went with my 'research assistants' - my husband Richard and his friend Charles - on a cold February morning. The Gun Club is down a one lane dirt track by the River Thames. The parking lot is muddy. The architecture is shed-like. The interior decoration non-existent. My mother used to go to gun clubs with my grandfather in the 1930's and she says things were just the same then in California.

It is a guest day, so we pay our £10 entry and £5 for a few rounds of ammo.
They have to make us up some packs, so we sit watching Derek (top) as he assembles the components.
Big metal .44 balls. Check.
Little circular wads. Check.
Tiny round boxes of caps. Check
Where's the black powder?
'Out in the shooting range,' says Derek. 'We don't use black powder. We use something called Pyrodex. It's safer and more predictable.'
'Oh,' I say, crestfallen. 'I want the full black powder experience. The bang and the smoke.'
'You'll get the black powder experience,' says Derek. 'Don't worry.'

We collect our 'ear defenders' (no charge to borrow them) and follow Tony across the muddy parking lot to the 25 yard range where they fire cap & ball firearms. Derek and Tony and all the other helpers are members who cheerfully donate their time to help guests one Sunday a month. The gun club is a non-profit organization.

A long wooden shed - a bit like a horse's stable - has places for six shooters.
25 yards away are six targets. Behind the targets an earthen bank and a tall brick wall.
'If you aim too high', says Tony, 'You might hit a tourist in the grounds of Ham House.'
He is joking.
I think.

Richard and Charles and I are going to be using the club's guns, some replica Rogers&Spencer .44 revolvers, made in Italy.
Apparently, if you want a good working replica of a Wild West gun, that is where they make them. You can also get working replicas from places like the Dixie Gun Works.The original Rogers&Spencer revolver was manufactured in bulk for use in the Civil War, but by the time it came out the war was over. It's a few years after the date of my first book, but it will give me a good idea of how to load and fire a period firearm.

First Tony shows me how to load the Rogers&Spencer revolver.
You take a brass powder flask filled with black powder. There is a special way of filling the nozzle with exactly the right amount for a charge. You hold the flask in your right hand, with your forefinger over the open end of the nozzle and your thumb on a little lever. You push a little lever, hold the flask upside down, tap powder into the nozzle, let the lever go, turn the flask upright, remove your finger from the top of the nozzle and tip the measure of powder carefully into an empty chamber of your cylinder. Then you put down the flask. Take a disc of felt - the wad - and push it in on top of the powder. Then comes the lead ball. It is slightly too big for the chamber so you have to use the ramming rod to push it right in.

The ball needs to be big to grip the rifling in the barrels. Rifling is the term for the curved grooves that make the ball spin, for greater accuracy. So there's your lead ball, sticking out of the business-end of the chamber. Now you have to turn the cylinder and center the ball under the ramming rod (a metal rod attached to the underside of the barrel) and ram it in. This can be quite difficult to do. The ramming rod is stiff for a gal's fingers, and if you don't center it just right it doesn't work. But once you've rammed it right down, you are ready to repeat the process in the next chamber.

Once you have put a measure of powder a wad and a ball into each of the six chambers, you put the flask well out of the way.
'That powder flask is essentially a hand grenade,' says Tony cheerfully. 'One spark and it will blow up.'
I put it in a large tupperware box and press the lid down firmly.

Now for the caps. These are little copper cylinders smaller than a tic-tac. Your fingers feel big and clumsy as you try to fit six of them on the six nipples at the back of the cylinder. When the hammer of the gun strikes these copper caps, a spark ignites the power and the explosion pushes the lead ball out of the barrel at several hundred miles per hour. The wad is to stop the powder sparking and causing what is called a flashover.

A 'flashover' is where a spark from one chamber ignites the powder in all the other chambers and all six bullets go off at once. Either that, or the gun explodes.
Neither scenario is desirable.

When I had finally filled all the chambers with the required ingredients and fit the fiddly cap on the backs of each one I was FINALLY ready to try it out.
Get your stance right.
Breathe in.
Take aim.
Squeeze the trigger.
BAM!
A satisfyingly loud report and a slight kick upwards and sparks fly out and there is a gratifying cloud of grey fog: gunsmoke!

You have five more bullets to fire.

It is over too quickly.

Now you have to load it all over again.

Imagine doing this under enemy fire. Or with a pack of redskins whooping down on you. That would take a cool head.

No wonder there was a waiting list for Smith & Wesson's model 2 .32 revolver, with its all-in-one metal cartridge.

Here are ten fascinating things I learned at the shooting range as I tried out cap and ball and powder:

1. The bang would have been even louder in the Old West when they used at least twice the amount of powder we were using.
2. If you accidentally load an extra ball you can't turn the chamber on.
3. If you don't put in the powder the cap will push the ball into the barrel but not out of it...
4. So when you fire your next shot the barrel can explode!
5. You get powder smears on the base knuckle of your index finger.
6. You can get speckly powder burns that are like a tatoo, an expert called Dave showed me his.
7. Sometimes a little spark follows the bullet out, that is the remains of the wad.
8. You can use axle grease or bear fat instead of the wad, anything that will form a seal against sparks.
9. In the heat of battle you can dispense with the wad, but then you risk flashover.
10. In a battle, the cloud of gunsmoke would soon obscure your vision.

The best part about our morning at the Ham & Petersham Rifle & Pistol Club was when I met an expert on firearms of the 1800s. Dave let me try out his replica Winchester 66 and he also had a sweet little .22 revolver. He promised to bring his own Smith & Wesson seven-shooters the next time we meet!

Watch this space...
.

More about the Western Mysteries

Over the past few years I've been working on a exciting new series very close to my Californian heart.

The Western Mysteries will be set in wild and wooly Virginia City in the fall of 1862.

Why 1862?

Back east the American Civil War is in its second year.

Out West the Silver Boom is taking over from the Gold Rush.

And in the final days of September, a dusty prospector walks into the offices of the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper to take up a postition as a 'local' reporter. His name is Sam Clemens but within half a year he will begin writing under the name 'Mark Twain'. But Mark Twain isn't the only exciting thing about Virginia City in 1862. There are also gamblers, miners, con-artists, hurdy girls, prospectors & gunmen galore.

Here are some of the original ideas I had for The Western Mysteries.

1. The series will be for children aged 8 - 14+
2. The detective will be a loner: the western hero is always a loner.
3. The detective will be a kid.
4. The detective will own a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter.
5. Real historical figures will appear in the books.
6. The bad-guys will be gunfighters, tricksters & newspapermen.
7. The mysteries will be based around real historical events.
8. The books will be told in the first person.
9. My detective will love black coffee and layer cake.
10. I am going to have a lot of fun writing these books.

Here are some of the things which have made it into the first book:

1. A hero like nobody you've ever met before.
2. A terrifying, sadistic bad guy...
3. ...and his two side-kicks.
4. A terrible massacre, apparently by Indians.
5. An exciting stagecoach chase.
6. A beautiful hurdy girl, a Chinese boy & a handsome gambler.
7. Shootouts galore and some Bowie knife action, too.
8. A Pinkerton detective. Kind of.
9. A heart-stopping showdown in a deep mine shaft.
10. An ending that promises more.

Even if you don't like Westerns, I think you'll like these books. For more news, watch this space!

:)

A Western Tragedy

In 1961, Ox-Bow Incident author Walter Van Tilburg Clark left a teaching position in San Francisco and returned to his boyhood home Nevada to take on the job of editing The Journals of Alfred Doten.

These 79 leather-bound notebooks were written by one of the original 49ers, Alfred Doten. Spanning half a century, they are one of the best primary sources of the American West.

On Sunday March 18, 1849, the 19-year-old Alf starts his first diary on board the ship to California, where gold has just been discovered at Sutter's Mill. After a six-month voyage 'round the horn' he steps off the ship in San Francisco as an innocent, observant young man who disapproves of heavy drinking, violence, womanizing and greed. Over the next dozen years he roves across much of Northern California, trying his luck in mining camps and 'diggins' with names like places like Hangtown, Fort Grizzly and Spanish Gulch, and then moving on as he fails to strike it rich. He begins writing letters about the Wild West to his home-town newspaper in Plymouth, Mass.

In 1855 Alf suffers a mining accident when he is caught in a cave-in. For a while he is paralyzed from the waist down but gradually recovers. This incident knocks the stuffing out of him. He limps back to San Francisco, where his sister lives, and he tries to settle down at farming and ranching.

With his physical recovery comes copper fever, and then silver fever. In 1863, he crosses the Sierra Nevadas into the Washoe Valley for the great Comstock Silver Boom. He settles in Como, a new mining camp south of Mount Davidson, makes a final stab at prospecting, and fails again. Alf tries to set up a newspaper in Como, which also fails, but as a result of this journalistic foray, he is asked to join the Daily Union newspaper in Virginia City. Here he overlaps with another prospector-turned-Virginia-City-reporter, Mark Twain, by a few months.

In May of 1864, 29-year-old Mark Twain leaves for San Francisco. 43-year-old Alf settles down in Virginia City and is soon drawn into the amoral lifestyle of a rough mining town which inspired TV's Deadwood. By his mid 40's Alf has become a debauched, adulterous, greedy alcoholic who relishes lynchings, bear-baiting and cock-fights. He marries and has four children, puts on weight through heavy drinking, makes some bad business decisions and finally ends his life in Carson City as a 'bitter and lonely old bar-fly, the town drunk and figure of fun.'

As he copied out the Alf Doten journals by hand - and collated the numerous articles, certificates and photographs in the Records of Alfred Doten - Clark became caught up in the life of the aging 49er. He writes that the diaries presented in graphic and often moving detail the tragic course of single representative life through the violent transformations enforced by the... amoral life of the California Gold Rush and the Nevada Silver Rush. know of no other account of the kind, or fiction either, for that matter, which even begins to to this as fully and memorably as Alf's Journals.

For a time, Clark entertained the idea of writing a novel based on the life of Alf Doten, but he suffered terribly from writer's block in his later years. This was partly caused by his perfectionist streak, but may also have been partly due to the depressing nature of the Doten Diaries, in which he was immersed. In the forward to the massive three volume diaries, Clark's son writes that after a long day transcribing the diaries his father often wondered whose life he was living, and whether he would outlast Doten.

It must have been hard for Clark not to be affected by the decline and fall of Alf Doten. Clark himself said: '... I am so much the walking dust of Alf Doten now that I fear even high breezes will dispel me.'

On the few occasions when Walter Van Tilburg Clark surfaced from the diaries to give public lectures, he held audiences enthralled for hours. One contemporary wrote: 'He lectured for three hours. Nobody left. Nobody left and it is a crime that we did not tape that...'

Clark died of cancer in 1971, just as he finished editing Doten's journals.

It had taken him ten years.

It is a tragedy that Clark never wrote his novel about Alf Doten. But at least he has left three fat volumes of one of the most fascinating accounts of what life in the wild West was really like.

The Ox-Bow Man - a biography of Walter Clark by Jackson J. Benson
The Journals of Alfred Doten edited by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
.

Ox-bow Incident

.
In 1940, a young high school English teacher named Walter Van Tilburg Clark published his first novel, one of the first anti-Westerns. The Ox-Bow Incident is the story of two Nevada cowboys - Gil Carter and Art Croft (the first person narrator) - who get caught up in a lynch mob and its tragic results. The book became an immediate classic and film rights were bought within a year of its publication, then re-sold. In 1942 20th Century Fox produced a film also called The Ox-Bow Incident, starring Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan, Dana Andrews and a delightfully young Anthony Quinn.

When I was at high school in California, The Ox-Bow Incident was required reading. I remember I found it hard-going. I recently picked it up again, and still found it hard-going. Although I love Clark's vivid descriptions of the Nevada desert, by today's standards the plot is very slow-moving. For me the biggest flaw is the great number of characters, each described vividly the first time but never again. I had trouble keeping them all straight and found myself flipping back to see who was who.

For me, the film overcomes many of the book's drawbacks. The twenty-plus characters are easily identified when you see and hear them. The interiors and exteriors are dramatic. (Although some of the outdoor scenes were glaringly filmed on a set and not on location.)

In the book, the contents of a letter written by one of the hanged men is never revealed. In the film, Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) reads the letter aloud to all the men in the lynch mob in the penultimate scene in the saloon. (below) In this moving scene, Carter's eyes are obscured by the hat brim of Art Croft (Harry Morgan). This is obviously a carefully framed composition. What does it signify? That justice is blind? That the characters were blind? That we can't always see the whole picture?


The final scene of the film is a perfect bookmark to the opening scene of the film.

Though dated, I found The Ox-Bow Incident deeply moving. It was a nominee for the Academy Award in 1943, but lost out to Casablanca.

Clark taught creative writing at the University of Missoula in Montana and San Francisco State before moving to Reno to become the writer-in-residence at the University of Nevada. A strikingly handsome man, even into his 60's, Clark often wore the same clothes: blue socks, grey slacks, a blue turtleneck and a maroon jacket. He died in Virginia City in 1971, aged 62.

Clark wrote several other novels, as well as some poetry - and he edited the extensive diaries of Alf Doten - but he never wrote anything as acclaimed as that first novel. I suggest you see the film The Ox-Bow Incident first, and then read the book.
.

Fun Chariot Facts

by Caroline Lawrence, author of The Roman Mysteries

1. Circus is Latin for circle. In the context of racing, it means the chariot racing-track or hippodrome. The Circus Maximus in Rome was the biggest one and seated nearly a quarter of a million* (250,000) people.

2. Unlike the heavy chariots used in most Hollywood depictions, (including all the Ben Hur films), racing chariots were very light and small. They needed to go as fast as possible, and were probably made of wicker and leather. Driving one would have been like surfing a basket on wheels.

3. Most chariots were pulled by ungelded stallions; two for a biga (2-horse chariot) and four for a quadriga (4-horse chariot). As many as 12 teams ran in each race.

Re-enactor from Nîmes should have reins round his waist

4. A charioteer would tie the leather reins around his waist and put a sharp knife in his belt. If he was thrown from his chariot he would try to cut himself free as he was being dragged along. Whenever a chariot crashed, the crowd would yell out 'naufragium!' which means 'shipwreck!' in Latin.

5. Chariots completed seven circuits, marked by dolphins (sacred to Neptune, god of the sea and also of horses) and eggs (sacred to Castor and Pollux).

Charioteer of the Blue faction from Ostia

6. Charioteers wore leather helmets and jerkins in green, blue, red or white: the colours of their factions (teams).

7. Some charioteers began training while they were still children, and many stars of the hippodrome would have been in their teens.

8. A charioteer or horse who had won over a thousand races was called a miliarius.

9. Chariot racing was the most popular spectator sport in ancient Rome – even more popular than gladiatorial combats. Races were not held every day, but only on special occasions or festival days.

10. The Circus represented the Cosmos and every aspect of the hippodrome was symbolic:

The obelisk on the spina (central island) represented the sun.
The water of the euripus (canal in the spina) represented the sea.
The race track itself represented the earth around the sea.
The 4 faction colours represented the four seasons:
(red = summer, blue = autumn, white = winter, green = spring)
The 7 laps the horses had to run represented the days of the week.
The 12 carceres (starting gates) represented the months of the year.
The 24 races held per day represented the hours of the day.
(Yes, Romans divided their days into 24 hours, too)

11. Boys called sparsores had the dangerous job of running onto the track to sprinkle water on the track to keep down the blinding, choking dust. They got the water from the central reservoir and used pots, bowls or water skins to sprinkle it. It was a dangerous job and they sometimes got trampled. 

12. Winners in a chariot race received three things: 
A palm branch to symbolise victory.
A 'crown' (usually a wreath) also standing for victory. 
A purse of money as a prize to be spent, perhaps split between charioteer and the owner of the faction. 


The title of my 12th Roman Mystery, The Charioteer of Delphi, is based on a famous statue from Greece. But it was still buried at the time my book is set, so I couldn't refer to it in the story. Instead, I tell the story of how a Greek youth from Delphi named Scopas might have become Scorpus, one of the most famous charioteers in Roman history.

You can watch modern re-enactors playing with chariots HERE.

illustration by Richard Russell Lawrence © Copyright Roman Mysteries Ltd.

*At a conference in London in June 2014, scholar Tayfun Oner says this figure is far too big. He reckons the Circus Maximus could take only 100,000 people. You can watch his visualisation of a race in the hippodrome of Constantinople HERE.

Read about the only circus found in Britain (so far) HERE.

Four factions clearly visible in this mosaic from Rome

[The Charioteer of Delphi and all the Roman Mysteries are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans as a topic in Key Stage 2. Carrying on from the Roman Mysteries, the Roman Quests series set in Roman Britain launched in May 2016 with Escape from Rome.]

P.S. This blog was updated August 2016 for the 6th screen adaptation of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ 

Mystery of Topless Twain

by Caroline Lawrence, author of the Western Mysteries

I was reading Paul Fatout's Mark Twain in Virginia City the other day and came across this interesting observation: 'Among the many pictures of Mark Twain, not one is smiling...'

I looked through my own archives and found that indeed, there seem to be no pictures of Mark Twain smiling. How surprising for America's foremost humorist, dry humorist notwithstanding...

One explanation might be that Twain's bushy mustache - adopted in around 1864 - hid any upturning of the corners of the mouth.

Another explanation might be that like certain actors of the 60's - the 1960's, that is: not the 1860's - he had bad teeth and was loath to expose them. My dad once told me that is why the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant rarely smiled.

scar on his upper lip?

Or do I detect a scar on the right upper lip in this photo of him still in his teens? Where did he get the scar? Was it an embarrassing reminder of something?

Another explanation might be that Victorian subjects did not often smile for photos.

However, neither did they take off their shirts to reveal manly, hairy chests.

When I tweeted for help, asking if there really were no pictures of him smiling, @TwainHouse came up with the startling image at the top of this post. (I have used my usual photoshop filter to make it look more striking. You can see the original, undoctored image HERE.)

Now I know that American photographers of the 1860s - 1890s often photographed corpses and bawdy girls, but never have I seen a topless literary lion like Mark Twain.

Why, oh why?

Olivia "Livy" Clemens

Had he just emerged from a hot mine? Or a hot bath?

Was this a medical picture for the benefit of his doctor?

Was it a romantic Valentine's Day photo for his wife, Livy?

Was it because he lost a bet? Or won a bet?

Maybe he was just proud to be in such good shape at the age of 48 or 49.

One clue might be the date of the photo.

@mtpo, the Mark Twain Project at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, say the photo was taken in 1884 by Towlueson in Hartford, Connecticut. What was Mark Twain doing in 1884? According to the excellent TIMELINE at Mark Twain House, he was on a lecture tour. Huckleberry Finn was to be published in the last month of that year. Could it be that Mark Twain decided to take his own raft trip down the Mississippi?

Perhaps someone from The Mark Twain Project or the Mark Twain House will enlighten me.

In the meantime, I can't help recalling one of Mark Twain's funniest quips: 'Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.'

[The Case of the Deadly Desperados features the 26-year-old reporter Sam Clemens who will soon  take the nom de plume Mark Twain. This Western Mystery for kids aged 9 - 90 is available in hardback, Kindle and audio download. It will be published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in the USA in February.]

Dark & Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night in the Roman port of Ostia, and Flavia Gemina was in a bad mood.

‘Oh, Pollux!’ she cursed, as she pricked her thumb with a needle. ‘I hate mending. And I especially hate mending by lamplight.’

Through the latticework screen of the bedroom window came a chilly gust of night air. It brought the fresh damp smell of rain and it made the flame of the oil lamp tremble. The wind moaned and a distant rumble of thunder growled ominously.

Flavia squeezed her thumb and watched with grim satisfaction as a bead of blood appeared. ‘That will show pater to ask me to do my own mending. Now his only child is bleeding.’

As Flavia looked up to see what Nubia’s reaction would be, she caught a glimpse of herself in the new hand mirror propped up on her bedside table. It was made of tinned bronze, and was twice as big as her old one. The reflection showed a girl’s scowling face. Framed by long, light brown hair, the face had a largish nose, wide mouth, and grey eyes: dark in the dim light of the oil lamp. Displeased, Flavia gave the table a nudge with her elbow and the mirror fell face down.

Its clatter made Nubia look up. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, grooming her dog Nipur with a boxwood comb. ‘It is better to mend in daylight,’ she said mildly, ‘lest the needle prick you.’


‘I know.’ Flavia squinted down at her mending, ‘but I prefer to use daylight for more important things.’

‘Like reading,’ said Nubia, with a smile.

‘Exactly,’ said Flavia, pushing the needle into the hem of her tunic. ‘I don’t know why pater hired Aristo to teach us Greek if he expects me to spend all day doing needlework. Anyway, Alma should be mending this, not me.’

‘Your pater says every Roman matron should know how to sew and weave.’

‘I hate the word “matron”,’ grumbled Flavia. ‘It sounds so old and stuffy.’

A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the room in eerie silver and black, showing two narrow beds, one with fair-haired Flavia and a golden dog, the other with dark-skinned Nubia and black-furred Nipur. From outside came a deep rumble that ended in a resounding crack of thunder.

At the foot of Flavia’s bed, Scuto lifted his head to give his mistress a reproachful look.

‘Don’t blame me, Scuto,’ said Flavia, without looking up from her mending. ‘This storm isn’t my fault.’

‘I like rain,’ said Nubia, as she worked out a burr from Nipur’s smooth black fur. ‘And I like storms. When you are warm and cozy inside,’ she added. ‘Not when you are outside.’

Suddenly Nipur sat up, growled and gave a single bark.

‘Oh Nipur!’ said Flavia. ‘You’re as bad as Scuto. You’re both as timid as two old mice. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’ As she glanced up at him, she saw the shape of a large man filling the doorway.

Flavia gasped, then pressed her hand to her beating heart. ‘Oh, Caudex,’ she said. ‘You nearly frightened us to death!’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled the big door-slave. ‘Only there’s someone here to see you.’

‘Someone here to see us? At this hour?’ Flavia stared at Nubia in disbelief. ‘And in this weather? Isn’t pater back yet?’

Caudex scratched his armpit and shook his head. ‘He and Aristo are still out,’ he said. ‘Besides, the boy is asking for you by name. Says it’s a matter of life and death.’

‘Life and death?’ Flavia looked at Nubia, and for the first time that evening she smiled. ‘That sounds like a mystery.’ Flavia put down her mending and took her wax tablet from the table. ‘Mysteries always cheer me up. Come on, Nubia. Let’s see what our night visitor wants.’

excerpt from 'The Five Barley Grains', a new mini-mystery from The Legionary from Londinium & Other Mini Mysteries, out early March 2010

:)

Bedbugs Cause Fire!

Virginia City in the 1860's was a tinderbox. Frame houses, tents, open flames and the "Washoe Zephyr" (the strong breeze that often blows for a few days) meant that fire was a constant threat. Reporter Alf Doten was living in Virginia City in 1865. One Sunday evening in August he was attending a show at Maguire's Opera House (below: the big building between the flag and the church) when everyone heard fire alarm bells and rushed outside to see what was burning. Here's the story in his own words, from his Journal:

Sunday, Aug 6 [1865] Clear & pleasant - a little breezy... Evening went to Maguire's - performance commenced & got nearly through to the Walk around when about 9 o'clock the fire bells rang, & all hands rushed - I with the rest - Clark was with me - fire was on east of C st just south of Taylor among a lot of wooden buildings - commenced in an upper story of a paint shop - lodging room, occupied by Sam Brose (formerly of Como) and others - Sam says he was hunting bedbugs with a candle on the wall - wall of cloth and paper caught fire, and he couldnt put it out, it burnt with such rapidity - He caught up what he could and skedadled - Engines were on the ground very promptly, as usual - fire spread to buildings on each side, but it was soon subdued and extinguished - paint shop pretty well destroyed - other buildings but little damaged - loss two or three thousand dollars - Winnie Wright and Pat Barry of the H-L got hurt by some of the falling of an awning upon them - Clark & I went to Music Hall & saw the performance out...

A Western Xmas - 1864

Alf Doten was 19 when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California. He sailed from Plymoth to California to seek his fortune. He spent the next two decades trying to strike gold (or silver) in California and Nevada. Finally in 1864 he went to join the staff of a newspaper in Virginia City Nevada. He overlapped another prospector-turned-Virginia-City-newspaperman by only a few months. That man was Sam Clemens, who had just started to write under the pen name, Mark Twain.

Alf Doten was not as witty or successful as Mark Twain, but he kept detailed journals of his experiences from the day he stepped onto the ship bound for San Francisco until the day he died, in 1909. He left 79 leather-bound journals, with entries in pencil. In 1973, the respected scholar and author of The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter van Tilburg Clark, published The Journals of Alfred Doten in three huge volumes. They offer fascinating glimpses in to the daily life in the American West in the second half of the 19th century.

Here for example, are some of his entries from December 1864, his first Christmas in Virginia City.

above: Alf Doten in 1866, two years after he wrote the entry below

Dec 22 - Clear and pleasant - Went up to Morton's to Forefather's dinner - some 10 or 12 sat at table - chicken roasted, succotash, pies, cakes etc, cider, wine &c - I took a bottle of that champagne along that I stole from the office - jolly time... at 6 1/2 ocl'k went to Consolidation meeting & reported it... in the evening I attended the Ladies Fair for the benefit of the Sisters of Charity...

Dec 24 - Stormy - blustery with light sprinkles of rain occasionally - Christmas eve - after got through work about 11 oclock our boys all pitched into the egg-nog, two pitchers full of which were sent into us by the saloons - sang songs & had a jolly time - drank it all up & then started out - got all the Enterprise boys out - some 15 or 20 of us in all - Dan De Quille also along - visited all the saloons - free drink with all of them - printers on the rampage - went down to Chinatown and kicked up thunder - came back - at 4 oclock Dan & I made out to get clear from the crowd & home to our beds. -

Sunday, Dec 25 - The same - blew like the devil all day - stripped several roofs of tin - blew down buildings and did much damage - Light rain most of the day - rose at 11 - turkey, pudding etc at Mrs Dill's - went up to Morton's dined there also - chicken, pudding, succotash, etc - Evening we attended Sabbath school Festival at St Pauls Church - went from there to Music Hall - then to Great Republic - I slept with Sutterly [sic] at his room -

Clem Sutterley (pictured) was a photographer and friend of Alf Doten

Dec 27 ... Was down with Higbee to visit Jessie Lester who was shot last Sunday night - had to have her right arm amputated at the shoulder joint this afternoon - poor creature, she was just recovering from the taking of chloroform during the operation, and was shrieking with pain - and in her delirium, calling on her mother...

Dec 31 ... I got through about 1 o'clock - run about town couple of hours longer, with Higbee & other policemen - lots of pistols, guns, &c being fired off to welcome in the new year. All over the City - bed at 3 or 4 - So ends 1864

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR 145 years on!

Stagecoach #2

In the 1860's there were at least half a dozen stage coaches in and out of Virginia City every day.

In a book called Resources of the Pacific Slope, J. Ross Browne gives details of the routes of a dozen stages in the 1860's. For example, Route #1 went to Sacramento California via the Donner Pass and North Lake Tahoe. It cost $20 to Sacramento but $25 back because that was the most popular direction of travel in the 60's. Another stage went down to Dayton and from there to Como across the Carson Valley. Some stagecoaches went up to an area called Humboldt and from there to Salt Lake City and the east.

As our time in Virginia City is now over, we decide to follow Stagecoach Route #2 to California. J. Ross Brown tells us exactly which towns it passed through: Gold Hill, Silver City, Empire, Carson City, Genoa, Van Sickles Station, then up the Kingsway Grade to Dagget Pass at the summit and down into California via Strawberry, Placerville and Shingle Springs, all the way to Sacramento.


It's a beautiful September morning as we get in our convertible 'stagecoach' and set out from Virginia City to follow this route. We leave at 10.00am, and five minutes later we go over the hump called 'The Divide' which marks the boundary between Virginia City and Gold Hill. The Civil War re-enactors staged a mock battle here in a quarry beside the train tracks. Of course the Civil War never got this far west, and the V&T train wasn't here in 1862, when my first book will be set. However, the Gold Hill Hotel was. It's the oldest hotel in Nevada. Sam Clemens, Dan De Quille and Alf Doten all ate there.

Down the hot, winding road through a pair of dramatic rocks (above) called Devil's Gate. This was a popular place for bandits to lie in wait to rob the stage. An old illustration exaggerates the size of the rocks by putting tiny people between them. Exaggeration was rife in the 1860's... We breathe a sigh of relief as we pass through Devil's Gate into Silver City without incident.

As we pass an abandoned mine just out of Silver City we wave to our friend 'Irish'. He runs the Comstock Gold Mine and Stamp Mill and we met him when he demonstrated how the ore stamps worked and sounded. He is a colourful character who first came to Virginia City as a 16 year old in 1958. LIke many others, the popular TV show Bonanza was what brought this region to his attention. He went back to California to be a roadie for The Grateful Dead and Willie Nelson, but now he has ended up back here in a fabulous 'boys' fort' type of dwelling on the golden, sage-dotted hills.

After Silver City, the road flattens out into the wide flat Carson River Valley. We join Highway 50 here. If we were to go left we would reach Dayton, which might be Nevada's oldest town. My great-grandmother Corinne Prince grew up there. Her father was a teamster, one of those men who drove eight to twelve-mule carriages with loads of ore going out and timber coming back. Corinne probably went to school in the Dayton School house, which was built in 1863 and is now a museum.

But our 'stagecoach' doesn't go left to Dayton. It goes right, west, to Empire. We can't really see any signs of old Empire; New Empire is a suburb of Carson City. But in Carson City we see the old mint, where my great-grandmother worked for a while, and the governor's mansion. Stages might have changed teams here in Carson, as it's about 20 miles from Virginia City.

A road west takes you towards the Sierra Nevada mountains, which are barren and rounded and steep on this side. Then the flat road curves south to Genoa. Originally known as Mormon Station, Genoa is a pleasant surprise. It's green and shady with excellent information about the pioneers and local characters like Snowshoe Joe, who was a mail carrier. Genoa and Dayton have a little rivalry going on as to which of them is the oldest town. Let's just say they are both old, founded in 1851. Richard and I stop for an espresso on the rocks at the delightful Genoa Coffee & Candy Company. We go to see the famous hanging tree before setting out south with a 'fresh team of horses.'

There are hot springs south of Genoa and today David Walley's Hot Springs is a popular place to get married. Half a mile south, on the right of the road, is Van Sickles Station Ranch, now a private residence. Van Sickles was a commissioner and in the early 60's his hotel was the first port of call once you crossed the mountains. With hot water and good food, it must have been a joy for the weary traveller. In winter you could sledge down the eastern Sierras. Van Sickles was famous for shooting a desperado called Sam Brown who had killed half a dozen men. After Sam fired on Van Sickles, the hotel owner went after him with a shotbun. He was later tried and a jury passed a verdict of 'self-defense'.

The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains come straight down and stop dramatically at the flat plain of the Carson Valley. One minute you're on the flat, the next you're climbing the Kingsbury Grade. This wagon road was built by two men named Kingsbury and MacDonald in 1860, it shortened the distance between Virginia City and Sacramento by 15 miles. The road cost $585,000 to build and the builders charged a toll to pay for the road. A wagon and four horses had to pay $17.50 for a round trip from Shingle Springs to Van Sickles Station. The Pony Express used this road, too, for the short period of its existence between 1860 and 1861.

The four-horse team strains as it pulls our stagecoach and up over sparsely wooded eastern slopes with dizzy views down to the flat Carson Valley. Once over Dagget Pass, tall pines and smooth grey granite boulders take over. The summit is over 7400 feet, then down to Lake Tahoe, blue and peaceful in the warm September sun. When we were in Virginia City, we took a ten minute stagecoach ride with Gary. What you don't realise until you try riding as a passenger in one is how claustrophobic it can be. You can't see what's coming and the scenery whizzes by. If you were sitting facing backwards it might have been quite disconcerting. Not good for people who are easily travel-sick. The idea of taking a bone-rattling stagecoach all this way is almost inconceivable. Especially knowing that they sometimes travelled at night around the precipitous bends. Eeek!


After the pass, Richard and I stop at South Lake Tahoe for lunch. In the 1860's people were often malnourished because fresh fruit and veg were almost impossible to find apart from the autumn. We know from J. Ross Browne and others that staple foods were corn-meal, lard, bacon, eggs, potatoes, cabbage, cheese, sugar and coffee, When Sam Clemens arrived in Virginia City in 1862, a man called Rollin M. Daggett remarked that he 'had been living on alkali water and whang leather...' This is an exaggeration, of course, but gives you an idea of the monotony of food back then.

Strawberry was one of the most famous stopping places on the western Sierra Nevada Mountains. There were no strawberries there, but according to some reports, a man called Berry owned the inn and he had straw for the horses. Another article by J. Ross Browne, first published in Harper's Monthly Magazine, December 1860 documents the first wave of prospectors coming over the Sierra Nevadas to mine gold and silver on the Comstock. Some of his most hilarious anecdotes take place at Strawberry.

The illustration above right shows 'Dinner at Strawberry', an illustration from 'A Peep at Washoe'. A light at length glimmered through the pines, first faint and flickering, then a full blaze, then half a dozen brilliant lights, which proved to be camp fires under the tree, and soon we stood in front of a large and substantial log-house. This was the famous Strawberry', known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the best stopping-place on the route to Washoe...

Soon the road shows glimpses of the American River on the left. Further down in Coloma gold was discovered for the first time in 1848 with the cry: 'Gold. Gold in the American River!' The road down the western Sierra Nevadas is a much gentler grade. It takes us into the hot valley and Placerville, which was once known as Hangtown. Placerville was named after 'placer' mining, the method where you pan for gold in an open stream or creek. Placerville's Main Street still has buildings dating back to the 1850's and you can see Stage Coach Alley. You can also get a hot dog at Hangville Hot Dogs. This was another staging place for horses. After Placerville it is on to Shingle Springs.

We tried to find the old train station at Shingle Springs but only founded traces of the old track in a cutting of earth red with iron. The train arrived here in 1865, but until then you would carry on in your stagecoach to Sacramento, another 30 miles on. At last you could emerge and take a different method of transport: boats plied daily from here to San Francisco. I'll bet plenty of travellers vowed never to sit in a stage coach again!

TIPS FOR STAGECOACH TRAVELERS

The best seat inside a stage is the one next to the driver. Even if you have a tendency to sea-sickness when riding backwards - you'll get over it and will get less jolts and jostling. Don't let "sly elph" trade you his mid-seat>

In cold weather, don't ride with tight-fitting boots, shoes or gloves. When the driver asks you to get off and walk, do so without grumbling, he won't request it unless absolutely necessary. If the team runs away - sit still and take your chances. If you jump, nine out of ten times you will get hurt.

In very cold weather abstain entirely from liquor when on the road, because you will freeze twice as quickly when under its influence.

Don't growl at the food received at the station - stage companies generally provide the best they can get.

Don't keep the stage waiting. Don't smoke a strong pipe inside the coach. Spit on the leeward side... Don't lean or lop over neighbours when sleeping. Take small change to pay expenses. Never shoot on the road as the noise might frighten the horses. Don't discuss politics or religion.

Don't point out where murders have been committed, especially if there are women passengers.

Don't lag at the wash basin. Don't grease your hair, because travel is dusty. Don't imagine for a moment that you are going on a picnic. Expect annoyances, discomfort and some hardships. (Omaha Herald 1877)

P.S. Listen to a fun audio account of a young Englishman's stage journey across America in 1859 on the Wells Fargo History site.

Slippery Gulch

In September 2009, I spent four days in Virginia City, Nevada, researching a new series of books.

Virginia City was a wealthy and rowdy mining town in the 1860's and 1870's. On the famous Comstock Lode, it produced billions of dollars of gold and especially silver ore. Mark Twain was a reporter there from Sept 1862 until May 1864. The town had gunmen, prostitutes, native Americans, miners, con-artists, saloon-keepers as well as bankers, lawyers, mine managers, journalists and speculators. There were even a few respectable women and children. Mark Twain once remarked that his days there 'were full to the brim of the wine of life.'

By the early 20th century, however, Virginia City was in danger of becoming a ghost town. Then in the late 1950's, something happened to revive interest in it. A hugely successful television show called Bonanza made Virginia City popular again. However, the show got several things wrong about Virginia City. Because it was filmed in Los Angeles, Virginia is shown as a flat town. But one of the most distinctive things about Virginia City is that it is built on a steep hillside. This is something you have to experience to believe.

No photo really shows you how radical the steep streets are. Imagine a city built on the slope of a pitched roof. Or a city built on stairs. The stairs are the north-south running streets, named after the letters of the alphabet. 'A' street is high up Mount Davidson, 'B' Street is further down, then the famous 'C' Street, with all the saloons and shops. In the olden days 'D' street was where the 'soiled doves' had their 'cribs' and 'F' Street was Chinatown, etc. But the east west running streets are ramps on almost a 45º angle! Now they are paved, but in the olden days they were just dirt. Imagine trying to walk on a muddy, icy street, or worse yet, trying to drive a carriage!

My great-grandmother grew up near Virginia City and remembers how a man and his wife were riding in a carriage when the horses lost their grip. Down they went, down and down and right over a cliff. The horses and the husband died. The wife was in a coma for several days and when she came out of it she discovered her broken and reset left arm was two inches shorter than her right. Apparently runaway carriages were almost daily occurrences in the 1860's. One of the many nicknames for Virginia City is 'Slippery Gulch'...

Another thing they never tell you about Virginia City is the physical effect it has on you. It is over 6000 feet high and the air is thin and dry. The first time I went I felt slightly sick and dizzy and had heart palpitations. This time I noticed the extreme dryness. My eyes felt scratchy and my nose prickled. You get used to it after a while but it really has an effect on you physically.

From the time of the late 1950's, Virginia City has attracted bikers. They love the scenic roads up to Virginia City and the saloons once they get there. Sometimes the streets throb with the sound of Harley Davidson motorcycles. In one bar you get leather-clad patrons and heavy metal music, in the saloon next door cowboys and Country Western music. Mostly everyone gets on with everyone else.

It was fun that Labor Day Weekend to see equal parts bikers and Civil War re-enactors. And sometimes both combined.

There really is nowhere in the world like Virginia City.

The Western Mysteries

I've been visiting Nevada and California to research a series of history mystery stories I hope to write. They will be set in the Comstock region of Nevada in the autumn of 1862, the beginning of the big silver boom there and the time of Mark Twain's arrival at the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper.

left: Sam Clemens - not yet Mark Twain - when he arrived in Virginia City in 1862 aged 27

I don't want to say too much because it is a fantastic idea - and nobody else has done it - but here are a few clues.

1. The series will be for children aged 8 - 14+
2. The detective will be a loner: the western hero is always a loner.
3. The detective will be a kid.
4. The detective will own a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter.
5. Real historical figures will appear in the books.
6. The bad-guys will be gunfighters, tricksters & newspapermen.
7. The mysteries will be based around real historical events.
8. The books will be told in the first person.
9. My detective will love black coffee and layer cake.
10. I am going to have a lot of fun writing these books.

So watch this space!