by Roseanna White | Aug 8, 2018 | Companion Guides, Remember When Wednesdays, The Great War
War changes things. We all know that, but most of today haven’t lived through a “total war” that really impacts everyone at home, whether we or our family are directly involved in the fighting or not. Most people are very aware of how WWII did this…but most of us don’t realize that the things we’re so familiar with from that war, had their roots in the First World War.
But London, for instance, experienced huge changed when war was declared, and it was interesting to show these through my characters in
An Hour Unspent.
 |
| London Blackout – Wiki Commons |
One of the first changes to be put into place was a blackout in coastal towns and London. As early as 1913, Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, drew up a plan for a blackout in the event of war. For the first time in history, people had to fear enemies coming not just from land or sea, but from the air. Many still primarily feared rockets or missiles that could be launched from naval vessels, but there was (rightfully) a growing fear that aircraft could be weaponized. At the start of the war, airplanes weren’t the biggest threat–they had a difficult time crossing the channel and couldn’t carry much by way of bombs or guns. But zeppelins were a different story.
As a result, eight days after England declared war on Germany, blackout restrictions were put in place. In London, this meant no electric lights were permitted outside. Street lamps were painted over to dim them. Most houses at this time still had the old gas lights installed as well as the new electric ones, and they had to use those after dark, or use curtains to keep the light from shining.
The streets became hazardous after dark. Before, when gas street lamps were the norm, there weren’t automobiles zipping around. The combination of faster vehicles and less light was, let’s say, not a good combination.
So in an effort to keep people off the streets after dark, many traditional nighttime events like operas and plays and concerts were moved up to earlier hours or canceled entirely.
 |
| First Zepplin sighting 1915 – Wiki Commons |
But dimming the lights wasn’t the only step London took to confuse an aerial attack. They knew that a night attack was most likely for zeppelins, and they knew that if they were to come across the Channel, it would have to be on a clear night.
A clear night meant moonlight. And moonlight would reflect most off…water.
Everybody of water in London would become a homing beacon. So they drained the lakes and ponds in the parks, leaving nothing but muddy expanses where once there had been beautiful vistas.
What they couldn’t drain, however, was the Thames. And in the first zeppelin raids, the river was indeed what the airships followed.
By the end of the war, all this was no doubt old hat. But can you imagine seeing one of those drained lakes at the start? How sobering a reminder it would have been that the world had gone mad and that the very skies should be feared? Quite a scary thing. And one my characters had to encounter and combat.
by Roseanna White | Aug 6, 2018 | Word of the Week
I live in a house with both a man and cats. So naturally, the debate about which came first, whisker for a man’s facial hair or whisker for the long, sensitive hairs on a cat’s face, has come up. (Yeah, okay, so my family’s all weird, LOL. Or my word-nerd ways have rubbed off on them. We do seriously have these sorts of conversations on a daily basis.)
First, a bit about where they came from in general. Whisker comes directly from whisk–“to move with a sweeping motion.” Interesting, the noun whisk is from the late 1300s, while the verb is from the late 1400s. It wasn’t until around 1600 that whisker came into being, as a playful form of whisk–a thing that sweeps. And it was attributed first to…
Ready for the answer? 😉
Men’s facial hair! It took another 70 years or so for it to be applied to animals.
Which does make me wonder what it was called on animals before that? Anyone know?
by Roseanna White | Jul 30, 2018 | Word of the Week
Before bed one night, while we were waiting for his sister to finish washing her face and brushing her teeth, my son and I were coming up with silly reasons for each season’s name.
It began with the easy-to-determine
fall. “Hey!” Rowyn said, “I bet it’s because of when the leaves fall.” I assured him that was, indeed, the reason. “Then what about
winter?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, and then said, “Because that’s when all the leaves already wint.”
He laughed at my deliberate mispronunciation of went and said, “So how about spring?”
Another real answer. “It’s when new life springs forth. But for summer…?”
Rowyn thought for a little while then said, “I know! It’s when the school year is all summed up.”
Aren’t we just the cleverest things. 😉 I’ve already looked into the real etymologies of pretty much all those season words, but it occurs to me that I’ve never looked up season itself! So a quick lesson.
The English word (which has been in use since English itself originated, in the 13th century) comes directly from the French saison, which means exactly what the English does–“a period of the year; the appropriate time.” But if you trace saison back, it comes in fact from the Latin sationem, which literally means, “to sow, to plant.” In the days of Vulgar Latin, the word was used most often to indicate spring, when said sowing and planting was done. It was the French who broadened it to mean any season, and we of course borrowed that from them.
I hope you’re enjoying your summer season!
by Roseanna White | Jul 19, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
For my daily study each morning, I’ve been reading through a chronological Bible called So That’s Why Bible. I love the history and context this Bible gives me–I’ve never been a huge fan of the “application” style notes in a study Bible, but I’ve always loved the historical notes (you’re shocked, right? LOL) so this Bible is right up my alley.
My readings last week took me through the end of King David’s reign. First the account in Samuel and then in Chronicles. The historians who put this Bible together had already pointed out that the prophetic account of Samuel and the historical account of Chronicles tell of the same events in very different lights–namely, that Chronicles never sheds a bad (or realistic) light on David, only noting his victories and good qualities.
This came into sharp focus in comparing 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21–when David orders a census of Israel. Both agree that this was a big deal and a big mistake, and that it resulted in a plague sent by God that destroyed 70,000 Israelites before the Lord relents.
But in 2 Samuel, it says, “Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.'” Contrast that with I Chronicles 21:1. “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”
Whoa. God…or Satan? Which one moved David to do this? That seems like a pretty big difference, right? And quite a contradiction.
I brought this up with my husband the other day, and then shared another interesting historical note from these commentators. That the notion of Satan has changed over the centuries. In the earliest Jewish writings, Satan wasn’t written as a figure of evil. He was more what we’d consider a prosecutor in a legal setting. He’s the one against us, the defendant, but he’s not necessarily evil. He’s an adversary in a legal or even political sense. But the only times we see Satan mentioned in the Old Testament are:
Here in Chronicles. In Job, where God and Satan are discussing Job and Satan is given leave to test him, and then in Zecharaiah, where again Satan is present in the throne room of God, opposing the high priest. The evil force we associate with Satan–which we in fact put on the serpent in Genesis, though it never names him as such–isn’t present in those early histories.
Where and when did that understanding come in? According to these historians, not until the Babylonian exile. While in Persia, they would have been rubbing elbows with worshipers of Zoroastrianism. I wrote about this in
Jewel of Persia, so I perked up when I read that, LOL. In this monotheistic religion, there are two opposing forces. Ahura Mazda, who represents all good. And Angra Mainu, who is all evil. Both have a host of deities equivalent to angels and demons on their side, and they are constantly at war. Humans must decide which side they’re on, which battle they’ll fight, and it is a matter of human decisions which one will ultimately win. In this system, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainu are equals. Diametrically opposed, but by nature equal.
You can certainly see some similarities between their religion and Judeo-Christian beliefs, right? But I’d never really paused to realize that this idea of Satan as evil wasn’t even present in Judaism before that. Satan was an enemy, yes. Like a lawyer on the opposite side of a case is an enemy–that doesn’t make him by nature evil. I’d never realized that this could have come in part from Persian beliefs.
Of course, I’m not trying to answer the question of whether that was when they realized the truth of the matter or what. Historically, it’s just an interesting note. And as my husband pointed out, it actually answers my question of “Don’t those passages contradict?” with the Samuel and Chronicles accounts of the census.
Before the idea of Satan being the ultimate evil, he was mostly just depicted as a tool–a necessary part of divine justice. The one to accuse mankind. In this way, it’s not so contradictory, is it? God was angry with Israel, so he stirred David against them…how? Perhaps by using Satan to do it? It’s an interesting question, anyway.
I’m not pretending to have uncovered any profound answers here, but I do love viewing the Bible through a historical context and seeing what new things I discover!
Have you ever noticed the differences in those accounts before? Or wondered at how Satan is mentioned in the old books of the OT? What’s your understanding?
by Roseanna White | Jul 11, 2018 | 20th Century, Companion Guides, Remember When Wednesdays
Last week I started telling you about Hans Wilsdorf and the founding of Rolex. It was getting a bit long, so I figured I’d better break it up into two posts. 😉 As a quick reminder, I’d told you a bit about Hans’s early days and his determination to create a great wrist watch (called “wristlets” at the time) and then make his company name, Rolex, be the one people came to associate with the quality watches he produced.
But if you were paying attention to the years I mentioned, you’ll have known that things were about to change for Hans. The Great War was coming. And though he’d become an English citizen when he married his wife, Florence, no one really cared about that.
He was German. He spoke with an accent. He had a clearly German last name.
Life became not so easy for the Wilsdorfs in London. He and Florence were both harassed whenever they went out in public. And to make matters worse, a new customs duty was put into place–33.5%. And for a business that was almost exclusively exported, this could easily spell The End.
The Wilsdorfs didn’t have much choice. They packed up and moved to Bienne, Switzerland, for the duration of the war. Rolex already had a branch there, so they moved all operations out of England and continued to produce the watches quickly gaining a reputation for excellence.
But though the war forced them from their home, it also helped create a market for the wristlet. Timing was crucial in military operations, and having a reliable timepiece was essential. The few soldiers who went to war with wristlets soon proved how practical they were. Pocket watches were generally worn in a jacket pocket, which was then under an overcoat in the winter months. To check the time, soldiers would have to take off their gloves, open their overcoat, and dig it out of their undercoat. Compare that to just raising your wrist, and you can see why the men who had wristlets found them so much better an option. After the war ended, the popularity of the wrist watch surged.
And at the front of the wave was Rolex.
But Wilsdorf wasn’t about riding a wave. He was about innovation–and marketing savvy. His next goal was to create a waterproof watch, which he achieved in 1926. The Oyster. But water had long been known as the enemy of a watch, so he had his work cut out for him, convincing the public that his Oyster really could keep running, even when wet. One boon came when a swimmer swam the English Channel, wearing one. They were already getting publicity for their feat, and Rolex got a bit too.
But that wasn’t quite enough. So Wilsdorf came up with an ongoing publicity stunt. Shops that sold Rolexes were outfitted with aquariums, in which hung an Oyster, keeping perfect time despite being continually submerged.
It worked. By the time World War II rolled around, Rolex was well known around the world as being the best watch to be had. The most reliable. A byword for quality and luxury.
Now, though he was German by birth, Hans was firmly on the Allied side of both World Wars. And when he heard that Allied soldiers in the Second World War were stripped of their Rolexes when they were taken prisoner, he publicly swore that Rolex would replace any Allied soldier’s watch that was stolen. And he kept his word. This story exemplifies just one of the many ways that Hans made Rolex a company with heart, not just monetary success.
So how does all this work its way into my book? Well,
all of it obviously doesn’t. But I’d looked up the history of Rolex out of curiosity when I realized I would have a clockmaker for a central character in
An Hour Unspent, figuring the company was forming around the same time as my story. When I realized how well it actually lined up with my timeline, I decided to give Hans Wilsdorf a cameo appearance. He actually ended up presenting a plot point that was rather crucial…but of course, I’m not going to tell you what that was. 😉 Just that I had oh so much fun writing it!
And I also just want to say that the more I learned about Wilsdorf and the company he built, the more I admired him and Rolex. They aren’t just glitzy watches for the rich, status symbols. They’re undeniable quality built on innovation and popularity gained through determination and marketing brilliance. You just have to admire that.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.