We know all this because, while not much happens and the dialogue is all so excruciatingly vague and mannered, Young takes every opportunity to tell us at length what a character is thinking, and she leaves us in no doubt whether she is on their side or not. It's more like the notes for a novel than the finished thing. Omnipresent as it was, the march toward war is not very pressing in the lives of the residents of Chatterton Square, nor nearly so engrossing as the changes growing up and growing older bring to each of them. The celebration includes the commissioning of new poems based on the deathbed painting of Chatterton by Henry Wallis, which hangs in Tate Britain, London. A comic book relating his life story is being produced, and a competition will be held to design a new monument to him in Bristol. Great book! I read it after seeing a plaque to EH Young on Saville Place in Bristol, then reading that some of her books, like Chatterton Square, are set in a fictionalised version of Clifton in Bristol, "Upper Radstowe". (I've found an article in the Evening Post archives that suggest Chatterton Square is actually Clifton's oddly triangular Canynge Square, and it would certainly be in about the right place for that to be true.) A catalyst in these changing relationships is the appearance of the scene of Bertha’s cousin and erstwhile sweetheart Piers. Damaged in WW1, he is a gentle, intelligent man who has set up a business nearby and sells vegetables to the Upper Radstowe inhabitants. He and Rosamund form a loving and warm relationship. He would like to marry her, but she is forced to tell him that she already has a husband, though he has deserted her. She remembers Fergus with mixed feelings – he was difficult and unreliable, but they clearly had a powerfully physical relationship, which she cannot put out of her mind. As Piers passes between the two households, he provides another reason for Rhoda and later her mother to start visiting the Frasers.

He is most well-known for his Medieval-style poems, which he claimed to have discovered in a chest in a room above St Mary Redcliffe Church and passed off as belonging to a (fictional) 15th century monk, Thomas Rowley. The former Peugeot garage is a key location on the corner of Clarence Road and Temple Gate, and also goes across Chatterton Street into Redcliffe. Dandara say they are now entering talks with city council planning officers to work on a scheme which could see as many as 400 new homes built there. Theresa Lola, the Young People’s Laureate for London, has composed one of the poems, focusing on the window behind Chatterton’s deathbed and wondering why it is open. Having now read five of these books, I think this is probably the richest, most satisfying in the series so far. It is a novel of contrasts, an exploration of lives – women’s lives in particular – in the run-up to the Second World War. As Simon Thomas points out in his excellent afterword, on the surface, Chatterton Square appears to be a straightforward story of two neighbouring families, one relatively happy and functional, the other much more constrained. However, the degree of depth and nuance Young brings to her portraits of the main characters makes for a particularly compelling read – more so than that description suggests. And then we have the distinct separation between the "good guys" (The Frasers and Miss Spanner)" who see Chamberlain's agreement with Hitler as an abomination, and the "bad guys" (Herbert) who approve of it.In retirement, Henderson separated from his wife and Young moved with him to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. [3] They never married. During the Second World War, she worked actively on air-raid precautions. They continued to live in Wiltshire until her death from lung cancer in 1949. It is a story of families and of marriages but also of the choices women had. An unhappy marriage, never married or separated (I don't think the author could have been too enamoured of the marriage state as there is no evidence of the other option - a happy marriage!) He briefly attended Pile Street School but was turned away as his teacher thought he was too ‘dull’ to keep up with lessons. A short time later he would become a precocious student at Colston School, fascinated by the medieval period.

Do you think this is a good place for new housing? Sign in and join the conversations in the comments belowThe shadow of war looms over their little world, and faithfully presents the schism of the English nation in the days before war becomes a reality. So many felt that appeasement and compromise were the wisest course -- ludicrous now in hindsight, but very serious at the time. My first novel by E H Young. Young seems to have been an interesting character. Her writings centre on the Clifton area of Bristol, called Upper Radstowe in the novels. She was a supporter of suffrage and a keen climber and mountaineer. She had a lifelong relationship with Ralph Henderson, a friend of her husband’s. After her husband’s death in the War she moved in with Henderson and his wife. Deen, Stella (2004). "Young [married name Daniell], Emily Hilda (1880–1949), novelist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/56897. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) Although almost completely forgotten by recent generations, E. H. Young was a best-selling novelist of her time. She was born the daughter of a shipbroker and attended Gateshead Secondary School (a higher grade school later renamed Gateshead Grammar School) and Penrhos College, Colwyn Bay, Wales. In 1902, at the age of 22, she married Arthur Daniell, a solicitor from Bristol, and moved with him to the upscale neighbourhood of Clifton.

Living with them is Miss Spanner – a spinster and friend of Rosamund, who suffers still from the memories and affects of an unhappy childhood. She and Rosamund have a close friendship that yet retains many barriers – not least a one-way emotional dependence. Miss Spanner, in turn, starts to become friendly with Rhoda, who sneaks over illicitly to borrow books. He pitied widows, but he mistrusted them. They knew too much. As free as unmarried women, they were fully armed; this was an unfair advantage, and when it was combined with beauty, an air of well-being, a gaiety which, in a woman over forty had an unsuitable hind of mischief in it, he felt that ...all manhood was insulted ... But he knew how to protect himself." The 'E H Young Prize for Greek Thought' was an annual essay prize awarded in her memory at Bristol Grammar School.The council intervened to get Dandara to buy one of the Little Paradise car parks and build 21 affordable homes on it, and with 316 new flats in total, the Little Paradise plan - which Dandara won permission for almost two years ago - is only delivering seven per cent affordable new homes. A plaque related to Chatterton’s literary legacy lives on number 49 of the High Street in the city centre, marking the location of Joseph Cottle’s publishing business in the late 18th and early 19th century. Many of the first key Romantic works were published here and it’s also a stone’s throw from the birthplace of a prominent Romantic poet, Robert Southey. Although Southey’s original house at 9 Wine Street is no longer there, a plaque has been placed on a building in a similar spot today.

War was horrible, but there were worse things. Indeed, in conditions of her own choosing, Miss Spanner would not have shrunk from it. The age for combatants, if she had the making of the conventions of war, would start at about forty-five and there would be no limit at the other end. All but the halt and the blind would be in it and she saw this army of her creation, with grey hairs and wrinkles under the helmets, floundering through the mud, swimming rivers, trying to run, gasping for breath, falling out exhausted or deciding it was time for a truce and a nice cup of tea.As well as looking to the past, A Poetic City will touch on issues from Chatterton’s lifetime which are still relevant today, such as young people and mental health, and fake news.