Shropshire writer pens children's novel about Great Fire of London
A writer has penned a debut children's novel exploring 1666 and the Great Fire of London - a year after the Great Fire of Newport.
Catherine Randall, who was brought up in Newport where her father David Taylor was headmaster at Adams' Grammar School, has written The White Phoenix.
It is set in London, 1666. After the sudden death of her father, 13-year-old Lizzie Hopper and her mother take over The White Phoenix – the family bookshop in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral.
But England is at war with France and everywhere there are whispers of dire prophecies. As rumours of invasion and plague spread, Lizzie battles prejudice, blackmail and mob violence to protect the bookshop she loves.
When the Great Fire of London breaks out, Lizzie must rescue more than just the bookshop. Can she now save the friend she wasn’t supposed to have?
Catherine's father, who was very well-known locally, died in May this year, and she has reconnected with Newport and the wider Shropshire community as a result. Her mother, Ruth, taught history at Newport Girls’ High School, where she was head of history in the 1980s.
In the Great Fire of Newport, 162 families lost their homes, and many houses were destroyed, although no one died. King Charles issued a Letters Patent to encourage his other subjects to send money to help Newport rebuild. A similar appeal to help London rebuild took place the following year.
Interest
An entry in the Newport Parish register finishes with the line: "Newport sin no more, lest a worse punishment b’fall thee."
Catherine said: “I’ve been fascinated by the Great Fire of London since I was a child, and the first place I ever remember visiting in London was the monument to the fire.
"My mother was a history teacher and I used to read and re-read the passages about the fire in her copy of Pepys’ Diary. I have always wanted to be a writer, and I’ve always particularly loved children’s books.
"Somehow, I never got around to actually writing until I did an MA in Children’s Literature. While studying this, I heard one of Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ Radio 4 programmes about the re-building of London after the fire, and it rekindled my interest.”
She added: “I was initially going to write about St Paul’s, but then I realised that it would be more fun to write about the many bookshops that clustered round St Paul’s, especially as it was possible that a woman and her daughter could run a bookshop by themselves.
"When I discovered that England was also at war at this time, that people were nervous of bad omens about 1666, and that there were lots of opportunities to explore conflict, I realised that I had a story I wanted to write.”
