If you’ve been following me at all, you know that I’m a genealogist, someone who loves digging into the past to find stories. These characters live with me and I’d like to share some of them with you…
Sixteen-year-old Sarah has dreams far bigger than the Welsh Back inn where she works alongside her ageing parents. But in Victorian England, working-class women don’t get to choose their lives — they endure them. Sarah endures rather more than most.”
In keeping with the naming patterns of the time, she is the third daughter to be named Sarah. How can she possibly fill the role of replacement for the other two who passed away, along with her only brother and another sister? Of her two remaining sisters, Harriet, eight years her senior, lives in Wales and has her own share of family problems, and Mary, over two decades older, is more like a second mother and someone she would come to rely on.
Her well-meaning parents, Jacob and Betsey, have done their best for their family, but for Betsey the sadness of losing four of her brood proves too much. She becomes increasingly cantankerous and as she ages her mind wanders and bitterness increases. Sarah is their mainstay and at her mother’s beck and call but isn’t given credit for all the work she does. Betsey rules the kitchen with a rod of iron rather than a wooden spoon, but Molly their kitchen girl, always saves the day. Sarah promises never to leave them, but what will that mean for her own life?
During the following ten years, both parents died and she transfers her victualler’s licence from the White Hart to another inn. Another snippet to arouse my curiosity. What on earth is going on? At this point the story took a surprising turn. I dug even deeper. The more I found, the more engrossed I became.
Aunt Nettie didn’t approve. Mary didn’t approve. Why didn’t Sarah listen to them? What was so important to her that she would ignore all advice? She broke codes of behaviour by attending funerals. She took risks until the brewery managers turn up. They don’t approve either and her life is once again tipped on it’s axis.
Amongst the dramatized facts, the characters take liberties – as they always do. The fictional staff, customers, and workers, all cause Sarah a great deal of trouble. She is threatened and coerced. She has to make tough decisions that affect other people. She is constantly defending herself while trying to maintain her dignity and strength, but there is one person who offers her hope, and she will cling to that hope against all odds.
What I discovered in the genealogical records amounted to an enduring love affair spanning four decades, complete with all its emotional upheavals. How could I resist? Read Sarah’s story in Sarah’s Destiny — the first book in The Ancestors series. And follow my own journey of discovery in my forthcoming memoir Where Stories Lie Buried.
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