Sharing a Little Research

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've had ten days in London, with another nine-ish to go, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights of this trip so far. Of course I've had a research agenda for the book-in-progress, as well as revisisting some much-loved and always useful places.

Writers sometimes get crazy ideas. (Well, maybe more than sometimes...at least in my case.) For reasons that pertain to the plot, I was interested in setting parts of the book along the Thames, west of London. I can't seem to get away from water and boats--maybe too much reading of The Wind in the Willows as a child! But everything about the Thames fascinates me. Did you know that the Thames is tidal as far up as Teddington Lock? And that seals have been sighted as far west as Richmond? 

When I started investigating that part of the river, I discovered that there's an island in the river at Twickenham (west of Richmond) called Eel Pie Island. 

It's only accessible via a footbridge over the river, and is famous for its boatyards and artists studios. The island was home to a popular inn from the 1750s and it's thought the name most likely comes from the popular eel pies served there. 

But it's perhaps most notorious for the Eel Pie Island Hotel, a genteel 19th century venue that hosted jazz bands in the 1920s and 1930s, then, under new ownership in the 1960s, some of the most famous acts in rock-n-roll history. The Rolling Stones played there, the Who, the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd--the list goes on! By 1970 Eel Pie had become the largest hippie commune in the UK.

But, alas, that little bit of paradise was short-lived. The hotel grew increasingly run down, the owner couldn't afford the repairs, and in 1971 the place burned down in a mysterious fire.

The island still has a sort of arty-hippy vibe, and it's wonderfully atmospheric. Walking the green-arched footpath through the center feels like being in a secret world. But the best thing is that it's just exactly what I was imagining, but better. 

We will see where this bit of research leads! 

As a bonus, I went to Richmond and got to visit some Ted Lasso haunts. Here's the Prince's Head, which Ted Lasso fans will know as the Crown and Anchor.

I didn't go in for a drink as it was packed! The show has been a big boon for business in Richmond.

I've also been back to Little Venice, another setting from the book-in-progress, and was glad to see that I've got things right in the book so far. I feel very precariously balanced, however, between having accomplished some things and having so much more to do, with the days flying by. And of course I don't know what unanticipated things I'll need to know as I get farther along in the book.

The flip side of that is knowing that unplanned things; Romeo and Juliet, a trip to west Sussex, a trip to Bath, the horrible Friday night traffic in the West End, a croque monsieur in Covent Garden, may well have their parts to play, too.

REDS and readers, have you written or read about someplace you didn't know, and then found that the real thing more than lived up to expectations?

(The first place that popped into my mind was Oxford.)