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The Third Son of a Duke

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It was the golden age of travel, where the opulence of the Titanic filtered down into the ships that went in the opposite direction.

It was also the golden age for migration from England to Australia, with ships leaving from a number of ports, a wave that had started in the mid-1800s.

I discovered which ship my grandmother took from Tilbury to Melbourne, the RMS “Orama”, over 10,000 tons and the latest iteration in the design that saw four of five similar ships before it, run by the Orient Shipping Line, and these ships departed every 14 days.

First class, second class, and third class, which sounds so much better than steerage.  The second-class ticket cost 40 pounds, which could be regarded as a small fortune back then, when wages were about 80 pounds a year.

My grandmother had a little inheritance money, and having cousins living in Australia, I am sure her intention was to simply visit them for a while and then go back home.

Of course, there was just one problem.

World War One was brewing in Europe. 

Perhaps if she thought it might all blow up, she could have stayed at home. But I think there was another reason why she was making such a journey.

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1610 words, for a total of 9620 words.

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The Third Son of a Duke

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I have been on an ocean voyage.

Once.

It might not seem like that when I say it was supposed to be an overnight crossing from Devonport to Melbourne in a ship called the Princess of Tasmania, and the stretch of water was Bass Strait, one of the top five worst stretches of open seas in the world.

I know that for a fact.

We had stabilisers and still corkscrewed while facing into the huge seas for eight or six hours before it subsided enough for us to continue.

Everyone was seasick.  It was a terrible crossing, and all I remember was wishing I were dead after dry reaching for hours.

So, here we are, March 1914, leaving Plymouth after a rather rough crossing from Tilbury and maintaining contact, just, with the southern British coastline, just leaving for Gibraltar, about to cross the Bay of Biscay.

Those passengers have no idea what they’re in for, but I do.  Rough seas, corkscrew motion, and questions why the Line said that the ship could handle this sort of ocean weather, and by day two, more than half the ship is down with sea sickness.

And, if you’re not, then good luck trying to eat in the dining room with the ship’s motion.

Four days later, off the Portuguese coast, a semblance of normality returns, though by this time a new benchmark for normal had to be set.  The sun is out, the weather is less blustery and wet, and the seas are calmer.

I have a copy of a seagoer’s diary for a similar ship at the same time.  For me, it would be fun.  I’m not so sure what those who had never been on a ship before might have thought of it.

At least in the second class, they were above the waterline.

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1785 words, for a total of 8010 words.

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The Third Son of a Duke

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So, here’s the quandary that research can dump on you.  Trains in 1914 traditionally left from Fenchurch Street Station for Tilbury, but there is other evidence that special Tilbury trains ran from Paddington.  What do you pick for your story?

The thing is, once you start poking around, looking for dated photos of the dock at Tilbury that was at the end of the railways, the fact that there was a shed when the shipping agents were waiting for baggage that wasn’t sent ahead. And passengers who would show their tickets and be directed to the correct gangway, if, of course, the ship was tied up at the wharf, because there is evidence that the ships were moored off the pier and people were taken by tender to the ship.

What is the truth, what is inferred, what is known?  Research sometimes can leave you with an incomplete picture.

Then, we have to get the passengers aboard the ship, boarded by the correct gangway for their class, because the class system was alive and well in Edwardian England, and then, well, you get the picture.  Travelling on a state-of-the-art 10,000-ton vessel that took about 1400 passengers, much have been some undertaking.

How I would have loved to have been there in person.

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1245 words, for a total of 6225 words.

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The Third Son of a Duke

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I get started on the first few chapters

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We need a central character around whom the story will revolve.  For the moment, it is in the first person.  This might change later.

We need a reason for him to travel on the ship, other than it was the same one my grandmother on my father’s side travelled to Australia on.  I have access to diaries, and I have a very good idea of what it was like on board, where everything is, samples of the menu for dining, and activities.

I know when it was stormy, when it was calm, what ports they stopped at, and when it was hot.  I can also see in my mind what it was like travelling from Port Said to Aden through both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and how hot it could be.

When I close my eyes, I am on the ship.

But we’re not there yet.

Our third son of a duke, is home for Christmas when he gets the news he’s going to Australia to check on his father’s investment, and one in particular, a cattle station in remote Queensland. 

His girlfriend, the woman that his parents had made arrangements for him to marry, is there, knows of his travel plans, and she is not going with him.  It is, perhaps, the death knell of that arranged marriage.

Christmas 1913 will be memorable.

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1955 words, for a total of 4980 words.

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The Third Son of a Duke

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WE needed a central character

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So, in writing the outline, I came up with a premise that might change, but it seems a likely scenario, given that the title of the book is The Third Son of a Duke. It means that he is like having a spare tyre, or in the same position as the younger brother who is heir to the throne.

Here, it’s nothing quite so radical, just that he will inherit the title or the estate, which goes to the eldest son, yes, no equality, because I set it to start in the year 1913, that is, the Christmas before the First World War.  Remember, I was going to wrap something big around the story, and you can’t get any bigger than a world war. 

It’s a time when the classes were starting to break down and the aristocracy was becoming less relevant to everyone else.  It’s the Edwardian Era, and everyone is clinging to the last vestiges of the ruling class and the working class.  What was eminently workable in the 1800s is no longer viable. Nobility is finding it harder or impossible to maintain their lifestyles, fortunes are being lost, and a new class of wealthy people are emerging.

In 1913, there were still first class, second class, and third class.  On ships, on trains, and in life.  And something else is in the air, the coming of the Suffragette.  Women no longer want to stay at home, do as they were told and have no say over their lives.

We are going to start in that small world of classes, travelling together on a ship, one of the biggest for that time, with over 1300 passengers.

Soon.

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Today, 1235 words, for a total of 3025 words.

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The Third Son of a Duke

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Where do I begin?

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Like the words to a song, it’s just getting the ball rolling.

Perhaps at times, the easiest part of writing the story is to have that one paragraph premise around which all else revolves.

So,

A chance encounter brings together a group of people who in other circumstances may never have met.  The time they spend together changes some in ways they could never have imagined possible, and others, a chance to be someone else, if only for a short time.  In one case, however, it brings together two unlikely people who will find that anything that can keep them apart will.  Until, of course, fate intervenes.

Sounds good, and I could see myself pitching this to a movie studio because as I was writing it, I could see the characters assembling, I can see the expressions of both curiosity and interest, but not in a bad way, and then the ongoing interactions where the wall begins to fall, just a little.

It needs to have something big wrapped around it, but today, it will just be an outline of how it will start, and maybe a few lines, just to get the feel of pen in hand again.

Yes, we’ll be writing the first draft in longhand.

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Today, 1800 words, for a total of 1800 words.