Marcia is often asked,
‛Are your characters based on people you know?’ The invariable
answer is, ‛No. Now, with the dogs, it’s different. I know every
one of those.’
So, just for fun, I
thought that I would tell you something about some of the real dogs
and doggy moments that have crept into her novels.
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| Marcia as a young naval wife with Cassie |
Marcia’s first dog
was a golden retriever called ‛Cassie’ so it is not terribly
surprising that one of the main characters in her first novel Those
Who Serve was called Cassandra
and that Kate bred goldens. Marcia became very friendly with Shirley
Crick who bred goldens up on Dartmoor – where, incidentally, they
tend to have pink noses because it is so wet. One of Shirley’s
champion dogs was Mugwump Morquest – those who read The
Chadwick Trilogy may remember
‛Mugwump’.
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| Marcia with my collie cross shortly after we got together. |
When
Marcia and I met, I had two dogs: a pedigree cairn terrier that had
been given to me as a Christmas present by the breeder and a year-old
collie cross that had been dumped on me by a friend. That was meant
to be a temporary arrangement but . . . Anyway, we meet the collie
under the name of Nellie in The GoldenCup. The
cairn, as far as I know, has yet to appear. He was terribly old when
Marcia and I got together and had already lost most of his sight and
hearing. Within a week or so he life ended. It was a terrible day for
me, we had been almost inseparable for nearly eighteen years.
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Marcia and Bessie up on Dartmoor on a windy day. 'You can't use that one,' she said.
Rarely is Marcia wrong! Anyway, I love it. |
Then
came our Newfoundlands: Lyddie (mad as a hatter), Huggy (big and
macho), Bessie (with whom I was totally in love), Shrimp (housed for
the breeder for some months when she was a ‛teenager’) and
Trubshawe.
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| Marcia and Trubshawe enjoyed a very special realtionship |
Trubshawe,
Admiral Jellicoe to you, was without doubt Marcia’s dog. When he
eventually died (in his sleep: his heart just gave out) she was
broken hearted. Then came the tapestry. Completely out of the blue
there was a letter saying that someone had a present for Marcia and
could they please send it. Well, yes, of course. When it arrived it
was a beautifully worked tapestry of a Newfoundland dog – and it
was the spit image of Trubshawe. It turned out that the reader who
embroidered it had been looking at various Newfoundland options and
was always drawn back to this one. Very odd, spooky and entirely
wonderful. Don’t ask how these things happen – it is probably
safest not to know! It really does feel as if he has come back to
live with us.
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| Jossie |
Our
last dog together (and that does sound horribly final) was, of
course, Jossie. Those of you who have followed this blog for a long
time will know that Jossie belonged to the mother of Marcia’s
closest friend. She is now immortalised as the terrier called Pops in
The Sea Garden who had
the same temperament but was somewhat smaller so that she could sit
on Lady T’s lap.
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| We revisit The Bedford Hotel in Tavistock in The Sea Garden and here is Marcia on the hotel steps with Wellie, a friend's old English sheepdog. Wellie - a very patient soul - is still waiting to find out in which book he is destined to appear. |
Lastly,
there was a scene in that book where Kate drives up onto the moor –
Plaster Down to be exact – and she watches a young father playing
with his two small boys and another golden retriever. That was taken
from real life. We were researching for the book and retracing Kate’s
steps though the years and were on our way to Pew Tor when we
witnessed this scene exactly as Marcia described it.
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At the signing a few weeks ago in Torbay a reader came along with photographs of other dogs from the Morquest line.
This is Argus, a splendid looking chap. |
