Daisy Ashford

 

I am not the first Ashford to be a writer. My ancestor Daisy Ashford was born on Tuesday 7^th April 1881. She left us on Saturday 15^th January 1972.

Following on from my blog post PAPERBACK WRITER let me tell you of something I have been working on across the month of August which will soon be finished and be my first work within Dave's Wrtite In

Daisy was an English writer who is most famous for writing The Young Visiters, a novella concerning the upper class society of late 19th century England, when she was just nine years old. The novella was published in 1919, preserving her juvenile spelling and punctuation.

When I was writing my book THE BRIDGE HOUSE between 2016 and 2018 I felt I had Daisy looking over my shoulder.

The Bridge House is a love story spanning ninety years beginning in the year of the death of Queen Victoria. The two central characters come from working class and landed gentry but love has no recognition of class as existed in the late Victorian and Edwardian ages.

Daisy later wrote a book The Hangman’s Daughter which she claimed was her best work. I found a copy on e-bay and splashed out a few pounds to

add it to my collection of family items. I never did get round to reading it and now as I am working in my current prohect I am deliberately not opening its cover.

Over many years I have studied cases where lives were ended with the hangman’s rope. I am old enough to remember when capital punishment was in use in our country. I met someone my father knew who was a high court judge, it was he who had pronounced the death sentence on many a convicted murderer, including John Reginald Christie the 10 Rillington Place killer. I discuss the rights and wrongs of capital punishment in my book BEHIND THE NOOSE OR KNOT.  (It features in my collection THE ENID FACTOR)  Daisy is now tapping me on the shoulder telling me to write a book drawing from her title. 

On Thursday 11th August I began writing my own story THE HANGMAN'S GRANDSON. On that first day I tapped out 463 words, At the start of today, Tuesday 30th August 2022 the word total stands at 38,799 words. Another two or three days and I will be submitting it to Amazon for publication. It will then become the first in my Dave's Write In project supporting children who are sick in hospital, sending love to their

families and thanking our NHS staff who are caring for them.

When it is published will you read my story ? It's a slightly eccentric time travel adventure, I am not sure that adventure is the right word, taking people out of celebrated criminal cases and turning them into real people.

I will tell you more later.

For now please check out my Amazon Bookshelf.