Pauline gives us the low-down on this fabulous Story Cafe!
A very special event with 1920s dance music, Donna in an amazing period costume, china cups and saucers, a beautiful cake and our largest attendance this year!
Wendy welcomed us all saying what a joy it was to see such a large gathering for the launch of Donna’s latest book The Devil’s Draper, (a launch at Waterstone’s Sauchiehall St last night was also very well attended). Donna, a Story Cafe regular, really needs no introduction – she was with us last year when shared some of her research for this novel at an event entitled Bad Girls and Lady Detectives.
Donna thanked us for coming and was delighted to be with us again.
Her presentation this time concentrated on the Glasgow of the 1920s when the first women joined the police – they had no uniform, no power of arrest and were there to take statements from women and girls who had been attacked or abused which they passed onto their male colleagues, who generally ignored them. The records of the first woman employed in Glasgow has not survived but 10 more women joined the force in the 1920s. Women were also setting up employment agencies and working as private detectives. The female gangs of shoplifters and thieves led by a “queen” were also operating in parts of the UK.
In her novel the three main characters, Mabel the policewomen, Johnnie an expert thief, and member of the St. Thenue’s Avengers and Beatrice, a business women, team up to investigate abuse of young female employees at Arrol’s, a large department store in Sauchiehall St. We heard about the gangs who would shoplift to order, case joints, blackmail and even kidnap! A well-known private detective was Maud West “the female Sherlock Holmes” who was very good at disguises. Donna then read the first two chapters which feature Mabel on duty at Central Station during the Glasgow Fair.
During the break the cake was cut and much enjoyed by all with more tea and chat.
In the second halfm Donna shared her research into the glory days of the Glasgow Department Stores such as Copland and Lye and Trerons with their orchestras, restaurants, tearooms, ladies room, gents smoking room and grand staircases decorated with plants and palm trees. She also loved researching fashions as portrayed in the Ladies Pictorial, all fascinating social history.
Donna read a chapter from later in the novel where Mabel is undercover at night club with a male colleague (one of the few who treats Mabel with respect) investigating drug trafficking.
Both the extracts we heard are examples of another feature of the novel – its humour, which is engaging and help to lighten the atmosphere in a story of misogyny and abuse of vulnerable young women.
Questions followed the reading. Yes, she had spoken to modern policewomen who said that they still faced difficulties with some male colleagues and the author Karen Campbell, an ex-police officer had confirmed this. No, she she didn’t map everything out in advance. She found it a joy in finding out what happened next whilst writing. Yes, she loved doing the research and even if she didn’t use it all, it still influenced her writing, gave her a sense of the time and place it was set and added to the ambiance of the novel.
I loved some of the minor characters especially Winnie, the ladies toilet attendant who is so much more to so many women, the Dadaist artist Countess Colette von der Weid and Lorrimer the detective Mabel works with undercover.
There was very warm applause for Donna at the end and we all look forward to future events with her and maybe even her next book launch! In the acknowledgements at the end of her novel Donna thanks “everyone at Glasgow Women’s Library…and special thanks to Wendy Kirk – GWL’s lovely librarian – and to the wonderful women who attend Story Cafe for their interest, support and encouragement” Well, we all love having Donna with us and feeling part of her creative journey. I joined the queue to purchase her book and have it signed by such a good friend of Story Cafe.
The Devil’s Draper is a follow up to her 2023 novel The Unpicking and some of the characters, including Mabel, appear in both. I re-read The Unpicking, a compelling story of three generations of women fighting against the awful situations they face, before I read The Devil’s Draper and it certainly enhanced my enjoyment of the latter where Mabel, Johnnie and Beatrice go on a perilous journey to discover the truth. The dear green place could also be a very dark place…
And sadly as Donna says “the abuse, injustice and discrimination [they faced] still continues today”
Both titles are available from GWL and I highly recommend them.
Our next Story Cafe is Thursday 29th May when we welcome back Grey Hen Press with their wonderful poetry anthologies.
