Blood among the threads? David Ebsworth
Palmer stopped, taken by one particular exhibit. A patchwork of pieced needlework, about seven feet by eight, perhaps a little smaller. Alive with vivid images. The object label declared that it was Industrial Annexe Exhibit Number 46, a Table Cover, produced by the hand of military master tailor James Williams, College Street, Wrexham, using four and a half thousand separate fragments of cloth.
‘Astonishing,’ he said, rather for his own benefit, and was surprised when his comment received a response from a woman he had not noticed at the time he spoke. She was standing back, almost in the shadows.
‘You think so, señor?’ she said. ‘Yet there is blood among those threads.’
This is an extract from Chapter Five in my 2023 crime novel, set in Victorian Wrexham. To be precise, in 1876. It was a momentous year for the town, including a great Art Treasures Exhibition, which would run for four months and was, factually, the fourth-largest exhibition of its type ever to be held in Britain.
At its heart, the patchwork now generally known as the Wonder Quilt of Wrexham and currently in the care of Amgueddfa Cymru, the St. Fagans National Museum of Wales. It’s a remarkable piece: 4,500 separate pieces of material, each from a discarded military uniform; and the images an eclectic mix of biblical allegory and regional architectural marvels, the Cefn Viaduct and the Menai Suspension Bridge, among others.
Once I’d discovered the Wonder Quilt, I knew it would be the perfect inspiration for the story I wanted to tell. What if there was some connection between the coverlet’s images and several murders? What if those pieces of uniform did, indeed, hide some blood-soaked clues? And what if the architectural highlights of 1876 might set the key locations for the novel’s plot?
I was especially taken by the Menai Suspension Bridge because, in 1876, we were all celebrating the 50th anniversary of that miracle’s opening. This year, of course, we see its 200th birthday!
So, what about setting the climax around Menai Bridge itself, and around the treacherous waters of the Menai Straits?
It was glorious fun. And the resulting novel, Blood Among The Threads, has been well-received – as well as sparking a sequel, Death Along The Dee.
The main protagonist was also a joy. Wrexham’s best-loved historian was Alfred Neobard Palmer who, between 1880 and his death in 1915, wrote 10 stunning and definitive volumes about our local history.
It’s unlikely that Palmer was actually in Wrexham in 1876 – but we know his fiancée, Ettie Francis, definitely was in town, since her father was heavily involved in that year’s National Eisteddfod, the first ever to be held in Wrexham. So, unlikely that Palmer was here? Yes. But, impossible? Definitely not. And thus it was that Palmer and Ettie were also co-opted into the novels, the amateur detectives who risk everything to resolve the mystery.
Link to David Ebsworth’s website: https://www.davidebsworth.com/
David Ebsworth is the pen name of Liverpool-born writer Dave McCall but now, since 1980, a long-term resident of Wrexham. More details on Dave’s Crime Cymru author page: https://crime.cymru/david-ebsworth/