Ruth: Thank you, Jenni! It’s a pleasure to be in touch. Good luck with the blog! Our library, like yours, is closed to visitors at the moment, and it’s great to see the imaginative ways staff are finding to connect with library users over the Internet.
Me: I was reading about your inspiration coming from Hadrian's Wall, and how the Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry the local women but could have relationships with them. I was wondering if you have always been interested in the history of Ancient Rome, in particular their occupation of Britain?
Ruth: No, not at all - even though I went to school in Colchester, which Rome initially chose as the capital of Britannia. Colchester was also the first target of Boudica’s rebel warriors, who burned it down and massacred many of the residents before heading off to do the same thing to Roman London. Somehow, despite the school bus taking us past the Roman walls every morning, this all passed me by completely. I don’t remember anybody ever mentioning it in school Latin lessons, but perhaps I wasn’t listening.
Me: Along with that, I was wondering what sources you use for your research, and what are some of the more interesting things you have learned?
Ruth: Well as you’ll have gathered, I started from a position of almost complete ignorance! I began with the local library, taking out all the relevant books I could find and then putting in requests for the titles in the “further reading” lists at the end. Large chunks of what I read made little sense to me because I didn’t have the background knowledge that most of the writers assumed (it would have saved me a lot of confusion if somebody had explained that Octavian and Augustus were one person, while Pliny was two people) but there was enough that was interesting to keep me going.
I also joined a local archaeology group, and for many years I was part of a team excavating a Roman villa in the English midlands. I still wield a trowel when I get the chance. I loved helping to reveal the rooms of an ancient bath-house (still with much of its underfloor heating system intact!) and seeing little hints of forgotten lives - finger-marks in pottery, or the pawprints of a dog who ran across a new roof-tile before the clay had hardened. But for me, the real revelation was how “Roman” and native ways combined. That smart modern villa was built with the native-style roundhouse still standing very close by. The Romans and their culture were received very differently in different parts of Britain and it certainly wasn’t always a case of “them and us”.
These days the Internet has made research very much easier, but I still don’t think there’s any substitute for exploring locations on foot, visiting real sites and museums, and seeing things in context.
The other rich sources of knowledge are re-enactors and experimental archaeologists. It’s all very well knowing what Roman soldiers’ armour looked like but the only way to appreciate how ridiculously heavy it was is to get your hands on a modern reproduction. Illustrations of legionaries on the march don’t give you the relentless rhythm of the tramping boots and the jingle of the belt-straps. Meanwhile, away from the army, realizing how many hours it takes to spin just one fleece on a simple “drop spindle” demonstrates just how precious clothing would have been to ordinary people. And my favourite little gem of knowledge is that while the remains of many “grain dryer” buildings have been found on rural Romano-British sites, when some archaeologists tried to recreate one they found it was rubbish at drying grain—but it made a very good malting-floor, producing the key ingredient for brewing beer.
Me: Covid-19 has had a huge impact on all of us, and has disrupted our daily lives; has it impacted your writing or reading habits in any way? Is there something you are currently working on?
Ruth: When the lockdown started, I fondly imagined that having no outside commitments meant I would get far more writing done—but apart from “Authors Without Borders” (of which more in a moment), it doesn’t seem to have happened. I’ve heard the same from several other writers and I’m beginning to wonder if we only have a limited ration of imagination each day. Or perhaps it’s a limited ration of willpower!
I’m currently working on a new “Medicus” novel and I’d really like to go and revisit some of the locations and check a few things. As that’s out of the question, Google Street View has become my new best friend. Still, I’m very lucky: as I’ve worked from home for years, I’ve had to adapt far less than many other people.
In terms of reading, I’ve been bingeing on audiobooks (free audiobooks from the local library are a godsend!) but have found myself losing interest in anything excessively glum or gruesome. There’s enough of that in the real world at the moment.
Me: I saw that a couple of your books are collaborations and I was curious how collaborations worked if you found it to be an enjoyable experience, (the pros and cons)?
Ruth: I was one of seven members of the History 360 ( https://www.facebook.com/History360Presents/ ) group who wrote “A Year of Ravens,” a novel about Boudica’s rebellion, and Simon (SJA) Turney and I published a long-ish short story together called “The Bear and the Wolf” about one of the Roman incursions into Scotland.
By the time “A Year of Ravens” came along, some of the team had already put together a novel about Pompeii (“A Day of Fire”) and they were very well organized. Each of the main characters was allotted to a different writer. We all then wrote our own short stories from our characters’ points of view, but of course, many of the characters carried through from one tale to the next and in the end, the episodes combined to make an overarching story from start to finish. As you can imagine, this involved a huge challenge of co-ordination with online meetings and reading and critiquing each other’s drafts. Then we all threatened to lock Kate Quinn in a cellar and not let her out until she had edited the whole thing together.
It’s hard to imagine a traditional publisher having the flexibility to accommodate this sort of approach, but because we were publishing ourselves, we could do whatever we jointly decided to do. Of course, this meant we had to share out all the back-room jobs as well, and my role was Fact-Checker. Or more accurately, Chief Nitpicker. My greatest (possibly my only) achievement here was to stop the Roman army setting off down the wrong river and changing the course of history by drowning in a sea that the author hadn’t realized would be there.
“The Bear and the Wolf” was originally written as a gift for the Saturday evening dinner guests at the Alderney Literary Festival, where Simon Turney and I led opposing sides on a “Romans versus Britons” debate. I wrote the beginning and Simon wrote the end, but there were a lot of discussions. Simon is a joy to work with because he’s endlessly inventive and flexible and has lots of technical skills that I don’t have, but he has a strange reluctance to admit that Britons are best.
I saw that you have contributed to Authors without Borders; could you share a bit on what that is all about and your experience with the project?
Ruth: Authors without Borders was originally the idea of fellow-novelist Ben Kane. Back in March, he gathered a group of writers who all agreed to write stories in installments on their Facebook pages as a way of keeping readers entertained during the lockdown.
At the time we thought we might publish them later as a collection to raise money for charity. Since then some of them have turned into full-length novels, so it’s going to be a mightily long collection. Luckily a kind web designer created a site for us, so all the stories are there with links to our chosen charities if anyone wants to donate. (https://authorswithoutborders.org)
I must admit I was apprehensive about this project. Partly because I’m a terribly slow writer, and partly because we were writing “on the hoof” and publishing as we went, so there was no chance to go back and change anything if we had a better idea later. This is especially challenging, I think if you’re writing a crime plot. The clues and the culprit have to be in place early on if the ending is to make any sense. Fortunately, it seems to have worked. But it’s left me with an even deeper admiration for Dickens, who did this sort of thing all the time.
Me: Lastly, what are your future goals with your writing?
Ruth: The next Medicus novel is about one-third done, so finishing it and knocking it into shape will keep me busy for the next few months. After that—well if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the current world crisis, it’s that making predictions is very unwise.
Dixon Public Library - Ruth Downie Collection
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