#1936Club

 I've really enjoyed Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings | "Vivre le livre!" (wordpress.com) 1936 book club. As it goes it's probably the year that I've read the most popular fiction from just in the general way of things. I got to revisit a couple of favourites, read something that was if nothing else, at least thought provoking, and realise that I've got a whole pile more serious things to look forward to from 1936 at some point in the future (I think it might be interesting to read Djuna Barnes Nightwood and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Summer Will Show together some time when I'm in the mood for lesbian and modernist classics).

There's a lot to be said for looking at the books expected to be popular though, at least if you want some insight into the kind of thinking that might have been taken more or less for granted back in the day. Heyer's Talisman Ring is as full of 1936 attitudes as her Behold, Here's Poison. Both have something of the screwball comedy about them and The Talisman Ring particularly suggests an intellectual equality between men and women that feels quite fresh.

It also makes passing mention of Jewish money lenders that I'd happily see amended to read loan shark, or indeed money lender, in modern editions as it's more or less a throwaway slang description. Add it to Dorothy L. Sayers comments about Jewish money lenders in 1935's Guady Night, some observations Angela Thirkell makes in High Rising (1933) (these come immediately to mind, but I don't think I'd have to read very far into 1936's popular fiction to find more examples) and then look again at Rafael Sabatini's particularly troubling Captain Blood chapter and I have a whole new picture of how prevalent and ingrained anti-Semitism clearly was in the period.

All of these writers, along with P G Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, and Nancy Mitford share a particular sort of snobbery too. In some cases it's more engaging than others. I enjoy it more in Heyer and Wodehouse than in most of the others, perhaps it's the comic elements in both, and the romantic conventions Heyer employs that make me feel so. It's also a reminder that the society pages must have been much more like celebrity gossip columns than I'm currently used to.

That Sabatini book is bothering me too. I'm not sorry that I read it, but it has made me wary of picking up anything else by him again. If you read old books your always likely to encounter views and tropes that are now completely unacceptable. Sometimes I don't much care - I did after all choose to read the book knowing it was a risk, other times it really bothers me. This one bothered me for the casual asumption that the public would find a slave trader a sympathetic character.

Sabatini was a successful author at this point, Captain Blood (the first book in the sequence) had been made into a film in 1935, a few of his books had been adapted for silent films in the 1920's. Sabatini must have known his audience, and they must have known him. It's certainly an eye opener. I'm also left feeling unsure about how books like this ought to be treated now. I doubt The Fortunes of Captain Blood is likely to see another serious reprint, so questions about whether that particular chapter ought to be cut or not are moot. It was interesting from a social history point of view, but I kind of feel that some sort of content warning to that effect would have helped. 

Anyway, thanks to Simon and Kaggsy I feel like I've had some of the best and worst of what 1936's popular fiction has to offer, and it's definitely been one of the most interesting book club's to date 

Bodies from the Library, Shetland Wool Week and Dean Street Press

A round up of three free things. The new Shetland Wool Wook hat pattern is now available. Wilma Malcolmson is carrying on as wool week patron so this is a second opportunity to admire her really inspired colour blending. There is a face book group dedicated to knitting this hat which is really helpful if you're new to Fair Isle techniques, knitting in the round, or all of it. It's a really good pattern to take as a template for your own experimentations, a great place to start if Fair Isle is new to you, and a fun thing to be involved in.

This years pattern is called Da Crofter's Kep, and can be downloaded Here. It's worth looking at some of the other things in the Wool Week shop too - the annuals are an excellent mix of patterns and articles, they also feature projects suitable for every skill level - so don't be put off if you're an absolute beginner - and things which I find I want to knit. Which is not the case with every pattern book I pick up. 

The Bodies from the Library conference is back this year in Zoom form. I'll miss going to the British Library for it with all the chance meetings and conversations that brings (along with biscuits in individual packets, really not very good tea and coffee from dispensers, and the book buying opportunities) but being able to watch for free with good tea or coffee, excellent biscuits and the ability to order books as I listen is a very attractive prospect. It starts at 1.30 on the 15th of May, there will be breaks, and registration details are Here.

Finally it took me long enough to start realizing just how generous Dean Street Press are with ebooks, if you keep an eye on their website and Twitter there are weekly offers of something interesting you can download for free, as well as all the other things they're doing. This press is a gem for anyone interested in Golden Age Crime - and beyond. The occasional free eBook is just the cherry on top and a bonus for anyone feeling the pinch. 

I have been buying books now that bookshops are actually open again, but as I'm still job hunting it's been very restrained - A Copy of Maria Dahvana Headley's new translation of Beowulf, and Mark Diacono's Herb book. I made a really satisfying Pineapple and Sage upside down cake from the latter, and am enjoying reading the book possibly even more than I'm enjoying eating the cake - which is a lot. It's enough shopping for now, and I wasn't short of things to read before, but it really has been a pleasure to be able to go back into a bookshop and just browse for a bit. Tomorrow I might go and see what the Charity shops near the university have and just be pleased to have a reason to walk across town (the enough shopping for now statement is clearly already exposed as a bit of a fib).  

The Fortunes of Captain Blood - Rafael Sabatini #1936Club

I have a small handful of Sabatini's books re-printed by House of Stratus and bought about 20 years ago. I remember enjoying them in all their old glory back then, and have wondered since how I'd feel about them now. By chance I had 'The Fortunes of Captain Blood' published in 1936 on my shelf, I'm fairly sure unread until now. It's not very long and it seemed like a great book to compare to Georgette Heyer's The Talisman Ring.

I'd read somewhere that Heyer was a Sabatini fan - which I can well believe, and curiously despite being a good generation older, and writing for several years beforehand, his breakthrough success 'Scaramouche' was published in 1921, the same year as Heyer's 'The Black Moth'. Both writers were prolific throughout their lives, both are writing historical adventures with an element of romance - although the emphasis is different. 

'The Fortunes of Captain Blood' is the last of a trio of books featuring Peter Blood, Irish surgeon accidentally caught up in the Monmouth rebellion - which places the action sometime right at the end of the 17th century, sent to the Caribbean as a slave, and now exceptionally successful buccaneer/pirate. Sworn enemy of the Spanish, snappy dresser (trade mark outfit - black satin, silver lace, periwig, hat with a scarlet plume - which I can only imagine would have been very sweaty in the Caribbean heat), chivalrous in the face of feminine distress, and endlessly inventive. There are six episodes in this book which are loosely linked but more or less stand alone.

The first four stories were reasonably fun. There are loving descriptions of various outfits - a lot of men swaggering around in purple taffeta or satin - or half naked, even more loving descriptions of gunnery strategy and boat maneuvers, plenty of adventure and a little bit of humour. The descriptions of slavery felt odd to read now, especially as they came without much commentary but as observations of a system there was nothing more offensive than you might reasonably expect to come across if you read books of this vintage.

That changed in chapter five in which Blood encounters an angry Yorkshire man. He's a slaver who has been cheated out of his cargo of people by the Spanish in Havana. Captain Blood vows to avenge him by getting both the value of the slaves back for him, and then something extra in the way of compensation. There's a hefty chunk of anti Semitism thrown into the mix as well. I feel it would have been a questionable line to take in 1836, for 1936 it's more than shocking. Why a reader should be expected to feel sympathy for a slaver is absolutely beyond me, why he ought to be avenged even further beyond me. There's nothing casual about the prejudice here and to be honest I see no reason why the chapter couldn't have been cut from the collection by 2001.

It's certainly changed my view of Sabatini who I had been mostly enjoying up to this point but now feel more than disappointed in. I'm glad to have read the book, it was genuinely interesting to compare to Heyer, but I won't be keeping it and I'm not recommending it.

Behold, Here's Poison - Georgette Heyer #1936Club

It turns out that Heyer published 2 books in 1936 (a bonus for me this week). The Talisman Ring, covered in yesterdays post, and a contemporary detective novel, Behold, Here's Poison. I can't really argue with the general opinion that Heyer's detective fiction isn't in the same league as her historical novels, but they're still pretty good and probably deserve a bit more love than they've had. 

To be fair Arrow have started reprinting these in smart new jackets - normally around Christmas and presumably thanks to the continuing enthusiasm for nostalgic Golden Age crime, so maybe they're getting a bit more love than I've noticed. There are 11 of these crime novels (one of which, Penhallow, is a bit of an outlier in terms of style) and I think it's a shame there aren't a few more. There might have been some level of collaboration with Heyer's husband, a barrister when she was writing these who apparently supplied some plot details, but I doubt his contribution was particularly significant.

The characters are pure Heyer, and very much part of her stock in trade. She also has a couple of mysteries (more thriller than murder) in her historical novels, including The Talisman Ring so the two strands of her writing are not so dissimilar. Behold, Here's Poison shares other things with The Talisman Ring too. Almost all the action takes place in a few interiors - a substantial house in a wealthy London suburb, Grinley Heath, and a smart London flat off St James, and there are the same very evocative descriptions of certain scenes. 

The one thing I'd remembered really clearly about this book was it's opening. The under housemaid is taking tea up to the still sleeping household, and looks out of a window. She muses about the neighbours but mostly is thinking about the weather - it's going to be sunny and she has the afternoon off. It's a small thing but so very relatable. 

Unfortunately her plans are ruined by finding the master of the house dead. Initially it looks like natural causes - his doctor is certainly ready to say so, but then his doctor also had reason to want him dead, and then Mister Matthews most forceful sister turns up and demands a post mortem. Unfortunately for another sister, a niece and nephew, their mother, an uncle, the doctor, and possibly others who had reason to want Mister Matthews gone, it was murder. Unfortunately for the police it's 5 days later and much of the possible evidence has been destroyed. 

There is a smooth and very intelligent nephew who exists to annoy the rest of his family, whilst running his own parallel investigation to the police - he wants to preserve the family name if possible. He also becomes a slightly unlikely, but eventually oddly convincing love interest for  Stella, Mister Matthews niece and one of the few more or less likable characters amongst the suspects.

Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a couple of quite generous reviews of Heyer's detective fiction. She notes that the plots aren't the best, but that the characterisation and humour are. The relations between two sisters and a sister in law are masterfully handled here. They might be caricatures but Heyer makes them live, or at least she does when it comes to showing how incompatible they are, so that even though they're not likable I still feel sympathy for them having to deal with each other.   

There's an emphasis on dress as well, both male and female which is very Heyer, and also very 1930's. Reading these books makes me realise how much the ideal of masculinity has changed over the last 100 years. Intelligence and elegance seem to be the most important attributes a hero can have. I guess this says a bit about the preferences of the Queens of Crime too. 

In short this is a satisfying mystery, the murder method is clever, Heyer's detective is likable (also very intelligent), there's plenty of her trademark humour and a few twists along the way. If you're new to Heyer and doubtful about historical romance, her mysteries are a great place to start. They come with a slightly different set of expectations, and possibly a bit less genre prejudice attached to them. 

The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer - #1936Club

I had forgotten about the 1936 club until I saw a reminder from Simon a couple of weeks ago, and then got quietly excited when I realised I could read two Georgette Heyer's for it, one of which is an all time favourite - The Talisman Ring. I've been using Simon and Kaggsy's book club as a Heyer enabling tool since they started it and I'm not going to break with tradition now when she's been such a solace in the past year.

This has mostly been due to the #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong on Twitter. Every Sunday we work through 3 chapters of whichever the current book is with plenty of mostly entirely relevant discussion. It's a particularly friendly group of readers with plenty of differing opinions and reading the books like this has been really illuminating. I don't think we've done Talisman Ring yet (I didn't join the group until it had been going for a few months), but I took a lot of what they've made me think about into this umpteenth read of it. 

One reason I love this particular book so much is that although there are romances in it, it's essentially a comedy thriller in fancy dress. An old man (Sylvester) is dying, he's rescued his granddaughter from the dicey position of being an aristocrat in revolutionary France at about the same time that his grandson was suspected of shooting a man in cold blood to get back the talisman ring which had been lost over a game of cards. Ludovic (the grandson) is promptly shipped out the country with almost everybody assuming his guilt. Sylvester has summoned his great nephew, Tristram, to his death bed in the hope that he'll marry his much younger cousin (the granddaughter) who will otherwise be alone in the world.

Tristram isn't especially enthusiastic but he needs a wife and isn't especially enthusiastic about anybody else either. Eustacie seems to feel much the same - although after a few hours in each others company it's fairly clear that they really won't like each other much. Then Sylvester dies, Ludovic turns up as a smuggler in which guise he meets Eustacie escaping the prospect of a dull marriage. There's some shooting in a moonlit forest, Tristram realises that Ludovic is innocent, another cousin suddenly looks suspicious, and a woman who makes him laugh turns up. There are a lot of jokes, and it's all very enjoyable.

Reading Heyer slowly it also seems crazy that her work was never adapted for film. Most of the action here takes place in a handful of different interiors and a bit of woodland, the dialogue, and running around is very reminiscent of the screwball comedy's of the era, and the cast is limited. It should have been a gift to film - and a well made contemporary adaptation would be delightful (the only book of hers that was adapted was not well served - you can find The Reluctant Widow on you tube - it's an absolute mess compared to the source material) even if it wasn't entirely faithful. 

As it is there are wonderful scenes - such as Sylvester's death bed - lit by 50 candles, furnished with rich brocades, with an old man in his wig and a great ruby ring at the centre of it determined to have the last word. I feel like I'm watching rather than reading, and Heyer invites her readers to be amused as well as entertained by the vision she's created. 

What I hadn't really noticed before this year, but am coming to see as more of a feature of her work is how loosely Heyer sketches in the details of her main characters. Tristram is described as tall, dark, lean, and we know he's good in a fight - but otherwise it's up to the reader to decide on the details. Ludovic is tall blond and handsome, Eustacie is small dark and beautiful... There isn't really a lot about their personalities either beyond humour and intelligence. Her secondary characters by comparison are much more richly detailed. This has to be a big part of why her books have aged relatively well (there are bits which haven't), it's so easy to project yourself into the heart of them. 

Overall The Talisman Ring is lighthearted, well written, fun. It doesn't expect to be taken particularly seriously, it's function is solely to amuse and entertain which it does very well indeed. I'm very happy to have had a reason to read it again right now. 

In The Garden - Essays on Nature and Growing

It was the 14th of January 2020 when I last went to London, the purpose of the trip was to get a readers card for the National Art Library (housed in the V&A). It was a preliminary for a piece of research that's back on indefinite hold now, and even when it's possible to revisit London for nothing much more than pleasure it's going to be a much longer time before I want to go there (or consider the exorbitant train fare worth while). I've never been to Daunt Books - there's never been time. 

It's London that 'In The Garden' mostly evokes for me though, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Individually each essay in this collection is excellent - there's not a weak link in the chain. Not even Nigel Slater who is not a favourite writer (I can't deny the quality of his writing, but I can't relate to it either - everything in his written and photographed world feels too perfectly curated, too aspirational, for me - even the imperfections, it leaves me cold). Collectively there's a metrocentric feel about the book that I think leaves it feeling a little unbalanced.

Kerri Ní Dochartaigh describing the garden she's growing in Ireland, and Caroline Craig's 'Just Call Me Alan' where she describes her families farming and gardening in Provence, both towards the end of the collection somewhat redress the balance, but a couple more essays like this to add to the mix would have been welcome. 

It's not that I'm unsympathetic towards London bound millennials struggling with high rents and shared housing, longing for a garden to find and ground themselves in. I live in a city centre flat, the lack of a garden of my own is a constant small grief, but I also know plenty of millennials who didn't go to London, who by their mid twenties had mostly bought houses and gardens with their partners, who got allotments and started families before they were 30. I want to read something which reflects what a garden means to these people too.

What is here is excellent though, and there are at least a good number of voices that I don't think we often see in garden and nature writing. How a garden might tie together generations of immigrant families - from the first generation trying to assimilate or recreate a little bit of home through 2nd and third generations making their own identities or reaching back to find links with different parts of their heritage.

Zing Tsjeng's 'A Ghost Story' is a favourite piece for the way she talks about how her garden bridges gaps between her and her mother, and all she has to say on how we transfer our feelings into something like a garden. Francesca Wade is very good on London Square gardens in 'A Common Inheritance' too - but then I'll say again, there isn't a weak essay here. There's no shortage of things to think about either, I guess this is what happens when you chose writers to talk about gardening rather than gardeners to write about it. 

I've also been a little bit on the fence about buying both Kerri Ní Dochartaigh's 'Thin Places' and Francesca Wade's 'Square Haunting' too, but I'm now much more interested in both based on what I've read here. It's definitely a collection to have a good look at.

There's No Story There - Inez Holden

These are more of the war time writings of Inez Holden, this time from 1944-45 after the earlier collections of Blitz Writing: Night Shift & It Was Different at the Time which covered 1938-1941. There's No Story There is a novel, or something between a novel and a fictionalized account of Holden's war time observations. She did work in a munitions factory in Wales although I'm not clear if it was on the scale of 'Statevale' - which covers seven miles, has 30,000 employees, and is an enclosed world of it's own.

I found Blitz Writing interesting, Holden is too good an observer and too good a writer for it not to be, but it's not as compelling as There's No Story There which given that the construction of the two isn't so very different kind of surprises me. There's an extra something about this book, a subtle sort of alchemy that makes it work in a way I can't pick apart.

There are 13 loosely connected chapters - vignettes really, of life at Statevale from the perspective of varied characters, the final chapter presented as a letter a newish arrival is writing home ties everything together. There are also 3 final chapters which are unrelated, but all add to the war time picture, especially Musical Chairman.

This book came out with Margaret Kennedy's Where Stands A Wingèd Sentry and it is absolutely worth reading both together because both feel like they show a part of war time history that's under represented. In  Where Stands A Wingèd Sentry it's Kennedy's willingness to share her fears and prejudices, in There's No Story There it's all about the behind the scenes work and this time I was really surprised by my own ignorance.

Holden was a Bright Young Thing who ended up as a socialist, and reading this book there's more than a suggestion that conditions at Statevale verge on being a socialist utopia - sort of. there's a place for everybody - jobs for people to damaged to go into, or back into the army. Conditions in the hostels are basic but good and for a portion of your wages every need is taken care of. What I hadn't realized is how little choice people had in how and where they were employed.

There's comedy here - especially in chapters 7 and 8 (Factory Tour and Visit) when the visitor who turns up isn't quite the visitor expected, and then something much darker in 9 (Check Up) where a Jewish man finds persecution where none is intended. His paranoia has good foundation of course, which adds to the bleakness of his situation.

There are chapters about being snowed in to the factory, and out of it, Snowed In is perhaps my favourite in the book - it's where I think Holden's magic touch is most evident. She creates images which have an almost mythic power here without being heavy handed about it. It's something about the other worldliness of a snowy landscape and the warmth of a boiler room contrasted with each other. 

There's also a casual look at the strain that war time years apart put on marriages, all the human frailties and weaknesses and how we accommodate them in a community, hints of a mystery, and above all the extraordinariness of ordinary people. Readers will recognise as clearly as Holden did that there is a story - the curious thing is that in all the endless stories of the war that we keep remaking and rewriting how seldom this one seems to be told.

Castle Skull - John Dickson Carr

I’ve been saving this Rhineland Mystery as a treat – I thought the combination Of John Dickson Carr and a suitably gothic Germanic setting to let himself loose on would be quite something. The promise of an Aleister Crowley like figure was also hopeful, but in the end I either wasn’t in quite the right frame of mind, or John Dickson Carr was showing a certain restraint. I think it’s more likely to be that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind because Carr does provide a castle full of secret passages perched high above the Rhine, and shaped so that it looks like a giant skull – which can hardly be thought of as restrained.

This is another Inspector Henri Bencolin mystery, Bencolin is lured from Paris by the great Belgian financier Jérôme D’Aunay, after the equally mysterious and horrifying death of his friend and host, Myron Alison (Carr definitely wasn’t holding back, Myron turned out to be almost as hard to kill as Rasputin). Both men were friends with the charismatic, unpleasant, and very successful magician, Maleger who’s body was supposedly found in the Rhine 17 years previously with yet more mystery attached.

Odd things happen on the way to the Rhine, and when Bencolin and Jeff finally arrive there’s a massive thunderstorm, all the better to appreciate the skull shaped castle in. The suspicion is that one of Myron’s house guests must have murdered him, and as everybody has been stuck in his house together suspecting each other for several days they’re not very happy. An old friend and adversary of Bencolin’s is also on the scene – his German counterpart, officially in charge of the case. The two had been spies on opposite sides during the first world war and have retained a good deal of respect and friendly rivalry.

As I describe this book I realise I’m going to have to read it again at some point, because it sounds better and better, and hopefully next time I’ll be in a better mood to appreciate all the details – of which Carr is a master. As it is the moment I really perked up was near the end when he’s describing a somewhat macabre dinner party and does a role call of Vermouth’s and Amaro’s – which made me long for any sort of aperitif suitable occasion – even a dinner party designed to flush out a murderer in a ghastly castle shaped like a skull with black onyx floors (especially such a dinner party – it would be one memorable way to end lock down).

There’s also a delightfully incongruous cocktail in production at this point – it’s not one I’m familiar with, and a quick look in my own books on the subject and online doesn’t throw up any references for it from 1931 – there’s a similar recipe that claims to be from 1960’s. At some point I’ll dig a little deeper on this – Carr’s version is simple, and I think it would be very drinkable, although I can see why Jeff Marle opts to change to Pernod after his first one. I haven’t made it yet as I don’t have an open bottle of apricot brandy to hand – but it’s 2 parts gin, 1 part apricot brandy, 1 part freshly squeezed orange juice, shaken over ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

It sounds like a decent cocktail for spring – it should allow the apricot brandy to really shine, be quite fruity, and have a hell of a kick to it. As Carr’s characters have been stuck in their own mini lockdown, a couple of relationships have come to a messy end as well as the matter of the murder under investigation it’s a clever choice – so at odds with the rest of the Gothic atmosphere and high emotion.

 

Kulich - Russian Easter Bread from Red Sands

The sun has been shining, we're allowed to meet  friends again without the pretense of exercise, and to celebrate that I made the Kulich from Red Sands to take to a park with a flask of tea for a properly long chat with a very dear friend who I've missed seeing regularly more than I can say over the last year.

I think this Easter bread first caught my eye in Darra Goldstein's 'Beyond The North Wind', although I can't shake the feeling that I've seen it somewhere else recently, as well as in 'Red Sands'. If I have I can't find it now, although there's also a version in Olia Hercules 'Mamushka' so I have at least three recipes I can refer to in my kitchen alone.

Darra Goldstein tells me superstition holds that the success of this bread is mood dependent and not to try making it if you're feeling impatient or bad tempered. I was in a very good mood this morning between the sun and the prospect of seeing R, but there was something about this dough which made me happy as well and it behaved beautifully for me. It's a superstition I'm inclined to adopt.

Every recipe I've looked up for Kulich (I've gone through a pile of them online as well) is different, and although they're all versions of an enriched spiced dough with fruit that's about it. The advantage of the Red Sands recipe from my point of view is that it makes a relatively small quantity. It's enough dough for four breads baked in 400g tins (the sort that have had tomatoes or beans in). That's a good individual size and not to many to find homes for if you live alone. The bigger challenge was using enough tins of things the right size over the last week and remembering to keep them. 

There are other advantages to the small size version - the modest quantities of ingredients are easy to deal with, which is helpful when you're handling a sticky dough like this one - it was very happy in a food mixer which is a bonus if you have carpel tunnel issues and the alternative is a solid 10 - 12 mins of kneading by hand. I didn't get through endless eggs and it was an excellent way to finish up some of the dried apricots left over from Christmas cakes. Same with the mixed spice as well which saved me making another batch and having half of it hang around for months. Smaller tins cut the baking time too, and these little Kulich are easy to handle as they come out of the tins - instructions for larger versions sound like it could all go wrong at the last minute.

Flavour wise to say they're somewhere between a pantone and a hot cross bun but denser is accurate enough, they also strongly reminded me of the tea loaf of my childhood, a sort that seems to have been particular to Shetland - and also made from an enriched dough, studded with raisins, sometimes spiced, soft in the middle, crusty on the outside. A link doesn't seem impossible, although delicious bread is delicious bread the world over.

Altogether these were a lovely thing to make, fitted well enough around a morning routine, and appeal more to me than either Simnel cake or even chocolate eggs (although I like those too). I really like their mushroomy appearance and the feeling of Sunday best they have about them. I absolutely recommend Red Sands, both for the travel journal elements and the recipes - I've found myself cooking a lot from it this year. I would normally include the recipe, but as every one I've read seems so particular to it's writer it doesn't feel quite right to do it this time. 

Work Place Harassment

I've been debating for a week or more about writing this post - it's something I've been thinking a lot about against the background of the ongoing Sturgeon V Salmond drama. One of the more annoying aspects of this is the number of people who will smugly declare online that Salmond was acquitted of the charges bought against him last year, and ignore his own admissions about how inappropriate his behavior had been. That your man isn't actually a rapist seems like a very low bar to set. The what about the Tories response which either swiftly follows or has preceded this is frustrating too. Damning corruption and lying on one hand, and then using it as an excuse for more corruption and lying on the other isn't a good look. 

Something else I see a lot of is people who questioning how Sturgeon apparently didn't know what was happening earlier, and asking why it wasn't called out earlier. I don't know what her experience, or that of the other people working in Holyrood at the time was, but I can share mine in the hope that it might be a little bit helpful to someone somewhere.

Around 20 years ago I was an assistant manager in an off license. At the time it had a heavy drinking culture, and once you exclude the weekend staff, a lot more men working for the company than women (my experience was that about 1 in 5 of us were women). Regardless of the ratio I've generally found the wine trade to be a reasonable place for women to work in, with a lot of great role models at every level to show you what's possible.

There were a few uncomfortable incidents along the way - a van driver who used to like to make me blush by describing his sex life in explicit detail whilst he stared at me. It was bullying, but everybody treated it like a joke and it seemed easier to go along with that. After he left for another job I said something about how relieved I was he'd gone and why. My then boss was appalled - I should have said something he told me, he would have sorted it out. Which reinforced that it was sort of my fault, but he was right there in the room, chose not to see how uncomfortable I was, gave permission for that drivers behavior by laughing along with it, and never seemed open to a conversation that might have made him uncomfortable.

Another manager was an alcoholic. Drinking at work was a sackable offence but at the time almost everybody did to some extent - tasting samples of whisky in your tea, a bottle of wine split at the end of the day after cashing up. Mostly quite innocent and how we learnt so much about wine. There were plenty of checks and balances to discourage it getting out of hand, but in this case they weren't robust enough. Our working life with this manager started like this, but then the bottles got opened earlier and there were more of them - but he shared everything with us, so we were complicit, and initially it was fun. 

It was less fun the couple of times I had to get my mother to drive him home because he was too drunk to trust to the bus, less fun when he started getting a bit handsy, no fun at all when his wife would come and sit with him in the back of the shop when she finished her work for the day, drinking with him and laughing whilst he asked 18 year old girls for their bra size, but her unwillingness to pull him up on his behavior coupled with her own spiteful remarks towards us made it so much harder for the rest of us (not so much older or more experienced) to know what to do. And then it was Christmas and anybody who has worked in retail will know what that's like.

The penny dropped for me far to late, I came back from a couple of weeks off and saw very clearly how out of hand things had got. A training day in another branch talking to my peer group led to a lot of raised eyebrows and worried looks, and then everything came to a head. None of the younger girls would work a shift alone with this man, and after a staff tasting event one of them asked if I would back her up if she complained about things said to her. I'd heard them, they were completely out of line, so there was only one answer.

The first result was my female area manager, who I had every reason to believe knew about the drinking problem, asked me if I could get this girl to withdraw her complaint. She wasn't pleased when I said no. We were all asked to write statements which we were told would be completely confidential. They were later turned over to out manager. I took the brunt of this - my contract said I had to work as many hours as it took to keep the shop running which meant whilst he was suspended I worked 60+ hour weeks without any overtime. It was exhausting, there was constant pressure to drop the complaints, cover up the evidence, and of we wouldn't, explain our own behavior. Meanwhile colleagues who had known this man in previous roles would tell me what a great guy he was, how the problem was this or that, and was it fair that he'd lose his job over this. What would it do for his marriage, he was trying to start a family. All of it.

He wasn't a bad man as such, and if he'd admitted he had a drink problem the company would have bent over backwards to get him help. He didn't and it became our problem, not his. We were treated as if we were more of a problem than him - we were responsible for the paperwork, the investigations, his mistakes, and our own. When I say I had every reason to believe our area manager knew there was a problem it's because her predecessor told me in front of her to speak up if things got out of hand, but when it came down to it there was no support for anybody speaking up.

He lost his job, got another one somewhere else, moved on. I hope managed to knock the drinking on the head. The rest of us where more or less marked as trouble makers. I've seen the same sort of situation unfold many times since then. The details change but what's constant is people getting sucked into difficult situations incrementally until speaking out can feel impossible, and a lack of support when you do speak out. Worse when people are actively discriminated against for speaking out and predatory individuals are protected. It's also behavior that's dangerously ubiquitous online.

I've tried in my working life to be someone that will listen too and support people who want to blow the whistle, sometimes that's included pointing out how difficult it might be to do so, that there are often more repercussions for the victims of inappropriate behavior than there ever will be for the perpetrators. The older I get the more angry it makes me. That alcoholic manager was mostly his own victim, but every case I've seen since then has been someone exploiting the people around them, pushing the bounds of what's okay bit by bit, picking their victims and undermining them at every turn. It's calculated and unforgivable behavior.