Victoria Seymour
 writes . . . . . . .



photo: Ivor N. White

"In her retirement, Emilie shared a house in Hastings, England, with her two friends,
Clare and Edith and their much loved cat, James. The almost one hundred letters Emilie sent to her Canadian cousins were intially of thanks for the food parcels they had supplied to the Lavender Cottage household in WWII and throughout the following years of harsh austerity.
The letters also detail the lively and kind-hearted Emilie Crane's domestic and personal life and follow the joint fortunes of the three ageing women."

 

 

"Letters to Hannah" looks at WWII on the Home Front through the eyes of those who lived in Hastings and South East England, from September 1939 to December 1945. The book visits the lives of ordinary people, who endured extraordinary times and is rich in anecdotes and information on food rationing and shortages, the blackout, air raids, population evacuation and civil defence.

 Letters to Hannah is a moving and factual account of wartime Hastings,  the town which features in the ITV, WWII detective fiction series,
"Foyle’s War".

Victoria Seymour links this, her second WWII social history, with a series of autobiographical letters to the future, describing her war-troubled childhood to her newborn, 21st century granddaughter, Hannah.

 


A collection of recently discovered letters, posted from Hastings to  Canada  between 1942 and 1955, inspired
Victoria Seymour
to compile a  part-biography of their writer, Emilie Crane.



Victoria Seymour has rounded the story by adding contemporary national, local and autobiographical material.


"Letters From Lavender Cottage" is a touching, human story with an informative narrative. 


If you have already read "Letters From Lavender Cottage" you must get Victoria's second gem . .




Article and photo by courtesy of Hastings and St.Leonards Observer

Click on the book cover to see pictures from the launch
of LFLC and order your copy/copies now !

 


AND THEN . . .

Victoria Seymour’s Court in the Act, which completes her trilogy, concentrates on the work of the police force, the magistrates’ and other courts in WWII Hastings. As the effects of war took hold, there was hardly any aspect of home front life that was not controlled by some Government Act, Regulation or Order, putting even more pressure on already overworked police officers.

There passed before the magistrates’ courts a parade of ‘spies’, aliens, pacifists, looters, wartime racketeers and small-time criminals. Added to these were hundreds of usually law-abiding people, who found themselves in court for flouting often not properly understood laws. Sentences were handed down that sounded like something out of 19th Century history: A fine for stealing one onion from an allotment, a few apples from a tree or vegetable peelings from a dustbin or a month in prison for allowing light to escape from behind a curtain.
 

Meanwhile, the formidable Government Enforcers stalked the land incognito, seeking to trap unwary traders and citizens and bring them to justice. Police Court reports from the period 1939 to 1945 give an insight into a little discussed aspect of the locality in WWII. “Vigilant”, The Hastings and St Leonards Observer’s 1940s columnist, provides background, with comment on the foibles and morals of a seaside town under fire.

 

Fact met fiction, when in 2004 Victoria Seymour was asked by Greenlit Productions, who film Foyle’s War, the WWII detective television drama set in Hastings, to assist in re-creating a Hastings’ wartime magistrates’ court for series three. 


 

        
     
                 
 Click on the book cover to see pictures from the launch
                  and order your copy/copies now !
   
   Articles and photos by courtesy of Hastings and St.Leonards Observer
    
  

AND NOW. . .
Victoria Seymour recently had a tea-party to celebrate the publication of her latest book 


 
The now famous occupant of Lavender Cottage, Emilie Crane, returns, to let us back into her life and the daily doings of her neighbours on the Ridge. What was the truth about the supposed nudist colony opposite Lavender Cottage? Was the guest house close by really a haven for left wing agitators and a bolt hole for the scandalous occultist, Aleister Crowley? 

Victoria Seymour has meticulously researched the background and history of a period and place that was peopled not just by locals leading ordinary lives but by notable figures from the worlds of literature, religion, the arts, healing, politics and entertainment - the famous and infamous.

 

We are given glimpses into the Ridge’s former large Victorian houses, cottages, farms, institutions and businesses and the lives of their occupants in peace time and war. The Long Road to Lavender Cottage also reveals dramatic events in Emilie Crane’s daily life that she was not able to write about in her wartime letters, for fear of the government censor .
 

                  
          Victoria with Guest of Honour Wendy Johnson,   and another satisfied customer
 

                   
 


Victoria with David Milne who is the son of Sybil Crane Milne, one of Emilie's nieces.
(Picture by Wendy Johnson)
 

The books are available from:
www.victoriaseymour.com 

Olio Books, Robertson Street, Hastings.
Hastings Information Centre.
Albion Books, George Street. Hastings
Hastings Old Town Museum.
and www.amazon.com