Click here for the Bigtime Blooper podcast

3 minutes 9 seconds

A home made recording by Tom and Ingrid during their book 3 (untitled as yet) writing spur in Scotland; January 2019.  (with a wee apology for the sound quality. It was a sponteneous act)

Location: Bargany’s B & B, Troon

Continue reading for the full text:

Tom narrating: One of the joys of writing as co-authors is that you get to laugh at your own writing mistakes. Three examples spring to mind that left us simply in stitches; serious laughter, tears in our eyes, hiccups, The Lot!

Here’s example blooper number 1:

Ingrid narrating: We are in the habit of reading finished chapters out loud to each other, so the other author can listen intently for errors, sentence structure and so on.

It so happened that Tom was reading out a chapter where character Laird Gordon Macpherson was explaining over dinner what had happened to the gamekeeper’s son, Alexander Stewart. Suddenly, halfway a sentence Tom stopped, looked at me if he’d seen a ghost and said:

“Ingrid, this is not right; this can’t be happening’

‘Why?  Ingrid asked, a bit annoyed (sounding like Cathy the cop) What’s up? It’s good! I heard nothing wrong!

‘ Except for the fact Gordon can’t be making this speech’ Tom replied. ‘He died two chapters ago”.

Ingrid narrating: Bloopers Number 2.

Another blooper that got us into a fit involved a chapter about Laird Angus Macpherson. Whenever we read a chapter out loud we very much follow the exact spelling without thinking too much about what we literally read. All went fine until I came to a line where a typo had left the G out of Angus. So here I was; reading out very convincingly what supposedly this Anus Macpherson had said. We laughed till our jaws ached.

Tom: ‘Those Scottish lairds are so clever! I’ve heard of the expression, talking out of your backside but we sure had to correct this error.’

Ingrid narrating: A third example of what can go wrong is when we were reading out a long stretch of narrative on Alexander Stewart; just to see if the chronological order of events had been put in the right chapters.

Tom continuing: Alexander’s Journey was quite arduous, leaving Ballindalloch, visiting the Lagmore Stone Circle, boarding a train; sailing across the Atlantic. It was when we were reading all these adventures in one go that we discovered Alexander desperately needed a doctor.

While writing, we had failed to notice that if Alexander’s stomach churned once, it gurgled twice, it heaved three times and his belly ached at least four times, he felt sick, his skin was sticky and moist, he must have a fever, his throat was sore and as the Scots would say, he had ‘the dry boke’. How he ever made to the other side of the ocean in one piece was basically a miracle.

Ingrid: And we never used the expression ‘his stomach churned’ ever again.

With Family History Greetings,

Tom and Ingrid

••••••••

It all started because authors Tom McKerley and Ingrid Schippers, each in their own way, have an interest in family history. Tom researched his ancestry going back to northern Ireland circa 1780, while Ingrid has a natural  and partly professional interest in people’s life stories

In 2009, following a conversation between Tom and Ingrid on how ancestry influences who you are today, Tom came up with a synopsis about a feisty American cop, Cathy Macpherson who gets lured to the Scottish Highlands where her husband travel writer David Stewart wants to find out what prompted his great great great grandfather, Alexander Stewart to leave Ballindalloch Castle in 1895. In turn this inspired Ingrid to create the lifetime of Victorian character Katherine Macpherson, daughter of the Laird of the estate where Alexander was born.

It is all pure fiction, yet to the authors it became very real. They felt the characters tugging at their sleeves as if they were real and wanted their life stories told. Sometimes it seems to be the story that seeks the storyteller.

In these blogs and podcasts, Ingrid and Tom recount the high’s and low’s they’ve encountered du quest of writing.

To listen to the recorded introduction click here: introduction bloodlines blog

Saturday January 19 we’ll be signing books and talking about genealogy from 12 Noon till 4 PM at:

WHSmith,
34, Main Street.
KA30 8AB Largs

Download our Free Bloodlines  Family History Guide November 11 2018 HERE
and explore the past guided by your very own ancestors.

• The Why and How of Family History Research; with excerpts from the Scottish American Genealogy Mystery novels Bloodlines-Touch Not the Cat and Bloodlines -Traces,
  by McKerley & Schippers
• www.touchnotthecat.com

One of Britain’s most famous Victorian novelists, Thomas Hardy, was born in this landscape of absolutely stunning rolling hills with their lovely country walk trails and produced many of his writings here.

Even though I treasure my spot by the sea in The Netherlands, I have to say it was a delight to be away for a few days and exchange the hectic overcrowded environment of The Hague, for the easygoing quietness of this sheep-spotted area of England. I utterly enjoyed the surroundings I found myself in. Accompanying me on my country walks, was the title of Hardy’s fourth and probably most famous novel, as it kept ringing in my head:

‘Far from the madding crowd’ .

Inspired and curious I did some research on Thomas Hardy and found he was very much a defender of the country life-style and even feared for what he called ‘the decline of the rural class’  within the rapid developments of the Victorian Age and its industrial revolutions.

That in turn, made me think of our characters Katherine McPherson and Alexander Stewart in Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat and  Bloodlines -Traces, who are both very much involved opposing the downsides of Victorian Times. As their co-author I am quite convinced they would both have admired Thomas Hardy for his ideology.

Someone who totally opposed the views of Thomas Hardy was his contemporain, Henry James. This American-born author – he only became a British subject a year before his death in 1915 but spend much of his lifetime in Europe – could well be called ‘a model victorian’, supporting the Victorian idealism of progress.
This expressed itself in the review Henry James wrote about ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’

‘….the work has been distended to its rather formidable dimensions by the infusion of a large amount of conversational and descriptive padding and the use of an ingeniously verbose and redundant style. It is inordinately diffuse, and, as a piece of narrative, singularly inartistic. The author has little sense of proportion, and almost none of composition (…) The only things we believe in are the sheep and the dogs’

(source: wikipedia)

Not exactly a review an author would like to read. From what I’ve researched however the two gentlemen were known to oppose each other on many occasions; one just as much as the other.

In the article Approaches to Fiction: Hardy and Henry James, on Springer.com,  author J.T, Laird describes it as follows:

Thomas Hardy and Henry James approached the task of writing fiction from very different theoretical positions. The literary preconceptions each of these novelists brought to his task were sufficiently strong as to cloud his powers of critical judgement at times, particularly when the literary issue at stake concerned the work of the other writer. As a result, most of their observations and pronouncements on each other’s writings are marred by a kind of critical myopia, which takes the form of a brusque intolerance of the other’s fictional achievements and an unwillingness to understand his fictional theory and aims (or to give sufficient weight to these matters) in order to arrive at a just and balanced assessment. This critical myopia, unfortunately, has been transmitted through successive generations of Hardy-lovers and James devotees and is still found today.

After having been in Dorset however, my sympathies are more with Hardy than with James. In line with what Katherine Macpherson would have herself say as character in our genealogy mystery novels, my vote goes to the supporter of the rural lifestyle.

Ingrid Schippers, November 2018

Here’s one more picture from my personal archive; the lovely town of Lyme Regis; where time still has patience…

Wedding picture of my parent’s July 13, 1957.
Could not help but notice the ’7′ on the right side

Today held an intriguing coincidence. The date is November 11, 2018,  the day Thomas McKerley and I celebrated the 7 -year anniversary of our first born genealogy novel  published on 11.11.11.

In the afternoon, I was also invited to a concert in the village of my childhood days, to commemorate all villagers who passed away between the dates of November 2017 and November 2018.

The reason I was invited was because of my mother. She passed away on December 7, 2017. The local undertaker from the relatively small community where my mother spend most of her 83 years, organizes a gathering like this every year at the local church, so family members and friends alike, can share their tears and laughter and commemorate their loved ones. One of the advantages of old and smaller communities

It so happened I was seated next to the lady who sat next to my mother for 3 full years at high school, from 1945 to 1948. ‘Days back when’ girls wore ribbons in their hair, television and telephone in each household were non-existant, food was still simple and nutritious and candy or other extra’s were only consumed on Sunday.

It goes without saying that as co-author of a genealogy mystery novel, interest in family history comes natural to me. And in the Family History Guide Tom & I published this November 11th, to celebrate our 7-year Bloodlines-Touch Not the Cat anniversary, we advise family history researchers to talk to old friends of the family, as they sometimes have stories to tell, you would otherwise never hear about. Yet in spite of all this natural interest and well meant advise, I sometimes tend to overlook the true treasure chests of family history.

As my mother’s school friend pointed out to me, my mother and she shared all big events of a life time. Not only did they sit next to each other at school; they also attended their weddings; witnessed the birth of their children and supported each other after the death of their husbands.

I vowed I would come to her house soon to look at old photo albums and listen to her stories.
To myself I vowed to stick to that promise, It is regrettably easy to forget about these kind of promises in the turmoil of daily life; until suddenly…it is too late. I was grateful to realize today’s commemoration had ‘forced’ me to take some time out from busy life and stand still at the lifetimes of my mother’s generation.

When I returned home and switched on the television, I travelled even further back in time to the days of my grandparents and world war I, the war in which we had our fictitious Bloodlines – Traces character, Alexander Stewart, perform great feats in Gallipoli and save the lives of many. Looking at the television documentary, with original footage from 1914 to 1918, it felt almost as if I was given a glimpse into what ‘our Alexander’s’ life had been like.

For that’s what happens when you write a genealogy novel; the characters become like family

Ingrid Schippers, November 11 2018

Family History Guide November 11 2018

Click the link to download for free

Trace the characters from the Scottish American Genealogy Mystery novels, Bloodlines-Touch Not the Cat (WYBT Publishing 11.11.11) and Bloodlines-Traces (WYBT Publishing 21.06.16),
in their quest through the labyrinth of family history research

On November 11, 2018, it is exactly 7 years ago , the debut Scottish American Genealogy Mystery Novel by McKerley & Schippers, BLOODLINES – TOUCH NOT THE CAT was launched.

To celebrate, FREE KINDLE COPIES are given away during  5 day period between the dates of November 11 and November 15, 2018

Get your Free Copy through:

Bloodlines- Touch Not the Cat Free Kindle Copy.

Bloodlines- Touch Not the Cat is the Prequel to Bloodlines- Traces.

Behind the Scenes of the Bloodlines – Series

The year was 2011, the 11th of the month November.  Tom McKerley and Ingrid Schippers could hardly believe it. Two years before, they had started writing on the theme of family history and now, 11.11.11, their debut novel was seeing the light of day.

The sequel Bloodlines-Traces, was to follow 5 years later, June 2016

With Tom having recorded what he could find on his own genealogy, going as far back as 1780 and Ingrid interested in the existential question of how family history determines who you are today; the authors started a narrative, ‘simply for the fun of it’.

Tom went on the Internet and chose the existing Ballindalloch castle in the Scottish Highlands as a stage, adding his own cultural inheritance to the scene.  It turned out to be fertile soil for the Bloodlines characters to be born on.

“It was as if the characters began to tell us what they wanted to have written about their lives”, the authors comment. ”  They seemed to come alive within our research. Before we knew it the narrative took us past important historical events in Victorian and Edwardian times on both sides of the ocean, Scotland and the USA.  Birth, Death and Marriage certificates became treasure chests of historical fiction inspiration.

While writing Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat seemed to be directing itself; the birth of Bloodlines – Traces was another matter completely.

The authors:

“We had never written a sequel. Even more so, Bloodlines – Touch Not the cat was the very first novel each of us ever wrote. How to write a second book in a series without giving in to the urge to explain what happened in first? It posed a huge challenge. Nothing was ever planned. Basically we started writing Bloodlines – Traces, because we had a lot of material left over and our readers were asking us what happened next in the lives of our characters.

On a personal level, we had ‘other’ lives at different sides of the English channel. When we started working on Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat, Tom was still working and living in The Netherlands. While writing ‘Traces’ we had to bridge a whole lot more.

In the end it all really comes down to 10% inspiration and 90% hard work, although it has to be said we laughed a lot as well; like the time we discovered we had a Victorian character make an announcement at dinner, when we had already killed him off two chapters before. Apparently, he wasn’t ready to leave us yet.

We also disagreed at times about character or narrative development. And rather than keeping our creative process to ourselves, we had announced ‘Traces’ was being written; even when we hardly knew where we were going. An enthusiastic beginners mistake. But…we made it happen.

Bloodlines -Traces differs from Bloodlines – Touch Not the Cat in that it contains more historical facts and goes deeper into the subject of heritage. Even when the first book has often been described in reviews as very well written and researched; the authors certainly show their writer’s development in the sequel.

As a spin off from the genealogy novels Tom McKerley tours Scottish libraries and bookshops to deliver talks on family history research. (For more information on this please contact Tom via: info@touchnotthecat.com)

Another direct result from writing the Bloodlines novels is a Family History Guide, giving information on how to do family research, using excerpts from the books describing the way the characters explored ‘real life’ certificates and other genealogy tools.

The Family History Guide will soon be made available to be downloaded for free.

On book 3: Yep, Tom and Ingrid are writing and certainly back in the flow, but the drumroll will have to wait for a while. Uncle T. has a few tricks up his sleeve to be considered.

Join Tom McKerley on Wednesday November 21, 11 a.m. 2018 at St. Leonard’s Library in EastKilbride South Lanarkshire Scotland for a talk on family history research and the ‘Bloodlines’ genealogy mystery series.

Join Tom McKerley on Monday November 22, 2018 at Prestwick Library in Prestwick, SouthAyrshire, Scotland for a talk on family history research and the ‘Bloodlines’ genealogy mystery series.

Picture left:   William of Orange, 1650-1702, King Willam the III of England; King William the II of Scotland; nicknamed King Billy in Scotland and Ireland.

———————————————————————

When authors Tom McKerley and Ingrid Schippers met for the very first time some 13 years ago; the writing of Bloodlines -Touch Not the Cat and Bloodlines-Traces was still a long way from happening.

Still, even then one of the very first discussions between Tom and Ingrid, was about a historical fact that led to surprising findings.

It was about a Dutch prince, who had been King of Scotland for a while. He was known in Scotland and Ireland as ‘King Billy’, officially as King William the II; in England as King William the III and in The Netherlands as stadholder of the Dutch republic.

To complicate matters further, King Billy was generally known as ‘William of Orange’, which is very confusing for someone from The Netherlands, as Dutch history books detail another 117-year younger ‘William of Orange’, born in 1533, as ‘father of the fatherland’.

Royal name mix-up however is not uncommon in historical research. The name ‘Edward’  in England, ‘Louis’ in France and ‘William’ in The Netherlands can cause quite lengthly conversations, as well as confusion on who lived where and when. Tom and Ingrid’s first debate on historical facts and figures concerning William of Orange and the part he played in history, more or less went like this:

Tom to Ingrid:
‘When your William of Orange was King of Scotland, he had his summer residence where I live these days; in Troon. Apparently it was one of his favorite summer retreats.’

Ingrid to Tom:
‘You must be joking! William of Orange never had anything to do with ruling Scotland.’

Tom (stubborn, you know what Scots can be like) ‘Yes he had; and so did his friend the Baron of Bentinck. Bentinck even became the first Duke of Portland, as a reward for fighting alongside William of Orange.’

Ingrid (further confused). ‘Bentinck? Nooo! You’re wrong again! He lived on an estate in The Hague; which is about a mile away from where I live these days, in The Netherlands!’

Tom: ‘And I live on ‘Bentinck’ drive in Troon. Now how do you think that came about? And one of the golfcourses Troon is famous for is called ‘The Portland’.’

Intrigued, Ingrid dug herself into the narrative of this Scottish-Dutch connection unknown to her and found she was in for a surprise or two. As it turned out,  ’King Billy’ was the leading character in a few MAJOR Scottish historical events. Perhaps a little preliminary explanation is at place here.

The William of Orange Tom was talking about (for it was indeed another William of Orange than the ‘father of the fatherland’ born in 1533) became related to the Scottish Crown, by marrying Mary, daughter of Scotland’s James VII, who became King in 1685. James was a Catholic; his son in law William a protestant. What happened next is not pretty.

To quote wikipedia:

The son in law supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, invaded Britain in what became known as the “Glorious Revolution.

Subsequently William of Orange became William the III of England and William the II of Scotland, ousting the catholic King James the VII of Scotland.

Why William of Orange had so many of Catholic faith in his army to this day remains a mystery and is one of the many historical bits and pieces we will probably never get to hear the truth of.

The second big revelation to disclose itself following the ousting of James VII, was that the Dutch King William the II of Scotland, nicknamed ‘ King Billy’, was directly responsible for what might well be one of the most appalling massacres in Scottish history on February 13, 1692.

Apparently the Chief of the MacDonalds had been overdue pledging his allegiance to King Billy. The weather conditions had prevented him from undertaking the arduous journey to see his new King, or so MacDonald said.
This resulted in a Robert Campbell of Glenlyon being given the order to set an example out of the MacDonald clan and warn the Scots what would happen to people who did not pay the right amount of respect to their King.

After staying the night as guests of the McDonald’s, the Campbells killed 38 of their hosts. Allegedly the MacDonald Chief remarked he’d rather not be killed under his own roof, causing him to be butchered in the open air.

After these killings, many women and children who were left behind, perished in the harsh weather conditions as their houses had been burned down. All this became famously known as the Glencou massacre.

The Dutch Baron of Bentinck indeed played an important role in all this as longtime and most trusted advisor of William of Orange. In fact it was Bentinck who in 1677, procured the marriage between the future King of Scotland and Mary, daughter of James; then Duke of York.
It was also Bentinck who rallied for support for the invasion leading to the Glorious Revolution and arranged all the 17th century marketing for it.

Quoting Wikipedia again:

Bentinck superintended the arrangements for the invasion, including raising money, hiring an enormous transport fleet, organising a propaganda offensive, and preparing the possible landing sites, and also sailed to England with Prince William.

Knowing now what havoc Dutch King Billy caused; one may wonder how a Dutch author from The Hague dared to embark on a historical writing enterprise with a Scottish author from Troon, but as far as is known, no killings have taken place in real life…only in their fiction.

While the genealogy mystery novels, co-authored by McKerley & Schippers, Bloodlines-Touch Not the Cat and Bloodlines-Traces do not go as far back as the Kings William and James, mentioned in the article above; they do give a gripping account of what life was like in Victorian times on both sides of the ocean, in Scotland and America, switching back and forth between past and present; with leading character Cathy Macpherson finding out intriguing details about the life of her ancestors.

For more information on the books, their narrative and historical fact incorporated in Bloodlines Touch Not the Cat & Bloodlines- Traces , the website www.touchnotthecat.com, offers a picture gallery, personal research pictures and blogs from the authors and accounts of some interesting historical events.

To buy the books go to: www.touchnotthecat.com/the-books/where-to-buy-the-books/