Week 3

Loads of research needed this week, as Gooseberry finds himself following Bertha beneath the Thames. What I’m talking about, of course, is the Thames Tunnel, the world’s first sub-aquatic tunnel, which now serves as part of the East London Line for the London Underground network. A couple of years ago I went down what remains of the Rotherhithe entrance, a circular shaft that only descends part of the way, which has now been sealed off with an ugly plug of concrete. As nothing remains of the steps or the landings, I found it impossible to imagine what the tunnel had looked like in its heyday. Luckily this week I was able to find some nicely detailed drawings that I could refer to. I also found a number of fascinating contemporary accounts by its visitors of their experiences in the tunnel.

The problem for me as an author is how to bring this setting alive without making it sound like a history lesson, and deciding what to include—and how to present it—is very much part of that. So the turnstile, the organ music, and the stalls with their marble counters and cheap wares are authentic, as is the coffee shop (and also the waiter, but not his jacket). The Egyptian Rune Reader is simply The Egyptian Necromancer by another name, but I have to say that the monkey is pure invention on my part (although this doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one!) What was important to me was that tunnel should come alive in the writing, and I think that it has.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.