Story Cafes with Donna Moore are always very popular and well-attended and this one was no exception so she needed very little introduction from Wendy who welcomed both regulars and newcomers to GWL.
Donna has been working on a novel which features Mabel, a character in her previous novel The Unpicking which told the story of 3 generations of women from the 1860s to the early 20th century. Her new novel continues Mabel’s story and tells of gangs of women thieves and private detectives.
Donna read the start of the novel, which features Mabel, one of the first women employed by Glasgow police, who has been given the boring task of guarding the Ladies Waiting Room at Glasgow Central Station to ensure no-one is robbed but ends up being accused of being the robber…
Donna then tells us about the female gangs operating at the time, the colourful characters who headed the gangs such Minnie Chamberlain (Long Haired Minnie), Mary Carr (The Swan-necked) and Alice Diamond (Diamond Annie). The gangs organised shop-lifting, often stealing to order, cased houses and hotels and were not averse to a little blackmail and kidnapping… Donna then read a further chapter where gang member Johnnie gate-crashes a wedding reception in Glasgow.
After the break, Donna told us of the women who set up Detective Agencies which offered services such as tracing missing persons, finding evidence of adultery and blackmail. These included Kate Easton, who when interviewed said she “investigated everything except murder”; Antonia Moser who wrote The Adventures of a Lady Detective; and Maud West, who was the biggest name in the 1920s, a self-publicist who described herself as “London’s most famous woman detective”
Donna’s research is always thorough, and we were fascinated by these women’s pictures and lives. When asked, Donna said she loved doing the research and thus did much more than she actually needed to write her novel. She said that despite the research she really only wanted to write fiction
All these women, whether they were early members of the police force, bad girls or lady detectives, were feisty characters and Donna, in the excerpts she read to us, captured their chutzpah and confidence brilliantly. Some of them might have been bad girls but we all hope Donna will be back soon to tell us more about them and learn more about the exploits of the characters in Donna’s latest novel!
Our next Story Cafe is on the 19th September (starting at the earlier time of 12..30pm) so we hope you will be able to join us for more stories of remarkable women.
