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Talking Location With…Fiona Veitch Smith, Newcastle upon Tyne

12th December 2020

#TalkingLocationWith... Fiona Veitch Smith, author of The Art Fiasco set in Newcastle upon Tyne.

My 1920s murder mysteries about a reporter sleuth called Poppy Denby are set in both time and place. The five books in the series so far take the reader from the summer of 1920 to the autumn of 1924 and locations including London, Paris, Moscow, New York, Cairo and now … Newcastle upon Tyne. Early on in the research I source an original map and then seek out locations from there. When possible, I travel with the old 1920s map and a modern one and walk the streets and use public transport as Poppy would have done.

Fiona Veitch Smith

Jesmond Vale Terrace on Heaton Road, circa 1915 (Newcastle Libraries Heritage Collection)

In The Art Fiasco, I didn’t have far to go as I live in Newcastle upon Tyne. Although Poppy works on a London newspaper, she is from the North East. She is on the way north to Morpeth, Northumberland, to celebrate her father’s birthday when she stops off in Newcastle to visit her Aunt Dot who is renovating a house she’s inherited in Heaton, a leafy, well-to-do suburb, incorporating the genteel Armstrong Park.

Fiona Veitch Smith

Jesmond Vale Terrace on Heaton Road, 2020 (author photograph)

As Poppy’s visit is extended by an inconvenient murder, she and her team of investigators base themselves in Aunt Dot’s house. I looked for an actual century-old house in the locale for inspiration. I chose Jesmond Vale Terrace, on Heaton Road, overlooking Armstrong Park, a beautifully restored terrace of white brick Edwardian villas. I unearthed a photograph (the Newcastle Libraries Heritage Collection) of the road in front of the terrace circa 1915, nine years before Poppy’s visit. I then had the good fortune of being introduced to one of the owners of the houses and he very kindly showed me around inside. I was then able to imagine the four-storey house as I was writing it.

The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, circa 1920 (Newcastle Libraries Heritage Collection)

The inconvenient murder takes place at the Laing Art Gallery. The gallery was built in 1904, and I found a photograph of it in 1920 in the Newcastle Library collection. There has been a modern extension built in recent years, but most of the building retains its Edwardian grandeur and features. I spent many an hour wandering around, figuring out where the murder might take place and how the murderer might escape. On one of my visits I spoke to the longest serving steward of the gallery who showed me around the ‘backstage’, normally out of bounds for visitors. He showed me the iconic tower and how it could be accessed across the roof by the killer and the victim. I could now see exactly where my characters were as I was writing.

The unfortunate victim is a world-renowned artist who was the daughter of a coal miner from Ashington. Ashington is about twenty miles north of Newcastle and five miles south east of Morpeth. When the artist was a child her art teacher was found dead at the bottom of a mine shaft, and this unsolved death is brought to light in Poppy’s investigation. Ashington no longer has a coal mine nor a commuter train from Newcastle (although there are plans to re-open it) so I drove there and parked at the old station. Again, I walked the streets as my characters would have done and chose a house for the artist’s childhood home. The old mine cottages are now desirable middle-class homes. I wasn’t able to get inside one this time, but I did walk up and down the streets and peered into gardens when no one was looking.

Fiona Veitch Smith

The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2019 (author photograph)

(I occasionally take my teenage daughter on these location scouting trips and she is always mortified when her mother snoops around. She tells me one of these days I’ll be able to research the interior of a police cell.)

The graveyard of St Mary’s Church in Morpeth was another location on my list which is both the real resting place of the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison and Poppy’s fictional brother. It is the scene of a dramatic encounter in The Art Fiasco and was easy to snoop around in without anyone calling the police.

Finally, I have to mention Newcastle’s beautiful Grainger Town, one of the architectural gems of the north east. Much of this has survived a brutalist redesign in the 1960s and 70s (although unfortunately not the old library that used to be next door to the Laing Art Gallery) but readers will note Old Eldon Square, the Central Arcade, Lloyds Bank and the Georgian splendour of the Theatre Royal through the pages of the novel.

Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates novels, Golden Age-style murder mysteries set in the 1920s (Lion Fiction). The first book, The Jazz Files, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, while subsequent books have been shortlisted for the Foreword Review Mystery Novel of the Year and the People’s Book Prize. Book 5, The Art Fiasco, is out now. www.poppydenby.com

Connect with the author via her website and on Twitter

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