A Character a day: (15) John Wesley Jumbie, extortionist

 Idris Elba as John Wesley Jumbie?  Well, why not?  A nice little cameo for him.....

Jumbie is one of the key characters in “Conspiracy of Angels”. He makes a dramatic appearance, and at the end of the story he exits with a bullet in his heart. He’s a negro of vast stature, brutal and yet very intelligent — and a worthy adversary for Martha. He is a freed slave who was active in the anti-slavery movement until he spotted opportunities for extracting large sums of money from slave-owning families and from the owners of slave trading vessels. He lives in some luxury, with his own carriage and a considerable bodyguard. As his affected name might imply, he sees himself as a righteous man seeking to undo the unspeakable evils associated with slavery — and he becomes the leading member of a cult called The Sons of Obeah. 

 But then what starts as something designed to undermine evil becomes evil itself, as Jumbie and his friends embark upon kidnappings and murders. He first sees Martha as an enemy, but then when he discovers that she is herself heavily involved in the attempts to abolish slavery and the slave trade, the two of them come to an uneasy truce. In spite of warnings from Martha, Jumbie ramps up his activities and it becomes clear that his prime target is now General Sir Thomas Picton, in revenge for his “reign of terror” when he was Governor of Trinidad. Out of the blue, Martha’a help is enlisted by none other than the Prime Minister, who tells her that if Jumbie succeeds in assassinating Picton, and the news gets out that the assassin is a black man, that would set back the abolitionist campaign by at least a generation. The scene is set for a climactic end to the story on a dark night at Picton’s residence, Poyston Hall………

A Character a day: (14) Skiff Abraham, wheeler and dealer

Is Rhodri Meilir just the man to play Skiff?

At the beginning of the tale Skiff is the roughest of the ruffians who control the local petty crime scene in Newport and the surrounding district. He is a friend of Will Owen, the tearaway (and rather intelligent) son of the Plas Ingli housekeeper. The two of them are involved in petty crime, extortion and blackmail, and the smuggling of contraband goods and wrecking activities whenever the opportunity comes along. Martha, like many other members of the gentry, is a good customer of theirs. In dealing with their enemies they stop short of serious bodily injuries and murder, but in their line of business things are occasionally brutal, and people do get hurt.

One day Skiff is on the run from the customs officers while in possession of valuables from a local shipwreck, and he is saved by Martha from deportation and possible execution for grand larceny. Thereafter Skiff is in Martha’s debt, and he becomes her spymaster and protector. They become good friends, and on many occasions Skiff’s spy network in the town saves Martha and provides vital information on the activities of her enemies. Martha encourages him to use his wits in pursuit of a legal fortune, on the right side of the law — and he takes her advice, to the extent that by the end of the narrative he is the wealthiest merchant in the district, owning and operating a number of trading vessels and local warehouses handling goods from all over the world.

A Character a day: (13) Isaac Morgan, pillar of strength

William Thomas would do very well as Grandpa Isaac

Isaac is David’s grandfather, but at the beginning of the story he is still a relatively young man, 57 years old, having married at the age of eighteen. He is fit and active, and acts as David’s mentor in all things to do with the management of the estate. He should, of course, be Master of the estate himself, but he is penniless and homeless, having declared himself bankrupt after giving the whole estate to his son (and David’s father) William some years before the commencement of the story narrative. That was done to save the estate from passing by default to Squires Watkins, Rice and Howell as a consequence of a fraudulent mortgage arrangement. 

 Isaac quite enjoys being a pauper with no responsibilities, and after David’s death he becomes Martha’s fierce protector and mentor. He knows everything that goes on in the local community, and he is still a magistrate with a good knowledge of the law. His sympathies are very much with the poor and the downtrodden, and this sets him on a collision course with other squires and magistrates who use the petty sessions to terrorise those who have committed minor offences and who live in conditions of squalor and deprivation. He has his cronies too, and enjoys nothing better than a few jars of ale in the company of colleagues and old friends in one of the Newport inns. He is an avid reader of whatever newspapers he can get his hands on, and is surprisingly well informed about what is going on in London, on the Continent and on the other side of the Atlantic. He and Grandma Jane make a formidable couple, doing their best, rather too frequently, to keep Martha out of trouble.

A Character a day: (12) David, Martha’s only husband

Tom Rhys Harries might play David rather well......

David is almost too good to be true. As Martha’s first love and only husband, he figures prominently in the first two volumes of the saga, and then he is gone — murdered in cold blood during a Cnapan game on Traeth Mawr, Newport. But before his death he fathers Martha’s first four children and he is a devoted parent and a passionate husband — and Martha loves him dearly.

But he is a man who is deeply traumatised by the fire that killed his parents and three of his siblings right at the beginning of the story — so we don’t know what he might have been like, were it not for that fateful event. Even worse, be blames himself for the fire, and will not be budged from that conviction no matter how hard Martha tries to reason with him. Of course, it was not his fault at all, but neither Martha nor David, nor the reader, knows that……….

Martha is stronger than him, in spite of her wild swings of mood, and he knows it.  The young couple have a number of squabbles, but he knows when to stand his ground and when to back off.  He’s well educated (Eton and Oxford), but is by no means as erudite as his grandparents, and he adapts very quickly when he suddenly becomes the master of the Plas Ingli estate. He takes his duties — and his responsibilities to his servants and tenant farmers — very seriously indeed, and makes a range of important decisions under the guidance of Grandpa Isaac.  he starts to rebuild both the house and the estate.    He is also committed to looking after Moses Lloyd and making a man of him — but after a number of episodes in which his patience is tested to the limit, he dismisses Moses and makes an implacable enemy of him. He had enough enemies already, with the Watkins, Rice and Howell families plotting endlessly for the downfall of the Plas Ingli estate. Although he is young, he stands up to the three villainous and overbearing squires, and wins Martha’s admiration in the process. And there is no doubting his reckless courage — he is a famous and skilful player of Cnapan, and when the French Black Legion invades the Fishguard district in 1797 he is the first to leap to the defence of his country, showing great courage in hand-to-hand fighting and rescuing Lord Cawdor from ignominy. That creates a debt which has a great bearing on the later developments in the story.

 

Guardian Angel audiobook cover

 

Bolinda has released the cover for the next audiobook in the series -- in advance of publication on 1st April.  It sticks to the same theme as the previous five audiobooks, and pays homage to the story line, in which Martha (under an assumed name) goes off to Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil to do good works among the poor.  Since she is just as incorrigible as ever, she makes enemies of assorted poor people and some extremely rich ones as well, but somehow gets out more or less unscathed.......

I tried to convince the cover designer that the background image did not look much like the old ironworks at Dowlais or Cyfartha, but once a designer has an image in mind, there is no shifting him or her.........  anyway, it is suitably "industrial" and makes a change from wilderness!

After this one, only two to go!  Janine and Malk (the narrators) have been working very hard.

Rebecca audio clip

 

This is one of the resources released by Bolinda Audio to accompany the publication of the audiobook version of "Rebecca".  It's a brief picture, painted with words, of a cold and frosty winters day -- in a story that actually contains more than its fair share of fires, connected with the destruction of the tollgates.

Where did Joseph come from?

Stories never stand still.  There are over a million words in the Angel Mountain saga, but still, within it, there are a multitude of untold stories. Partly this is because the narrative is all in the first person -- which means that Martha talks about what she has experienced, or heard about from others -- but all the other key characters are under-represented and possibly misunderstood.........

For the purposes of transforming the saga into a TV series, here is a little hint to just one of the backstories: 

EXT.            A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.           DAY
Unkempt, but buttercups, red campion, bluebells, daisies, foxgloves, and sorrel. A white pony is tethered at the gate. JOSEPH HARRIES (45) stands all alone in front of a simple gravestone. He’s holding a large wide-brimmed black hat in his hands. He’s a good-looking man with sharp eyes, uncontrollable hair and an intelligent face. He has ferocious sideburns and a smooth chin. But he is wildly eccentric. His drab clothes have been worn to destruction, apart from a bright yellow waistcoat with an extravagant floral pattern on it. Tears in his eyes. We see the headstone; it says “Here lie the remains of Mari Jane Harries, aged 23, and Gwen Harries, aged two days, both departed this world 6th May 1774.” 

Some who have read the tales might think of Joseph as a man who is as cold as ice, with a great intellect, huge powers of analysis and deduction,  and superb self-control.  A bit like Sherlock Holmes, with added wizardry.  Well, yes and no............

As for Joseph's hat, none of that daft wizard stuff, please, in which the great man has a tall conical hat with stars on it.  A good old-fashioned fedora, black, with a very wide brim.  That'll do nicely.........