Q&A: MILDERHURST & THE MUD MAN

You’ve spoken a little about the Sisters Blythe not being the characters about whom you first began writing in your third novel. Would you tell us if that’s true?

I will, and it is. I was a third of the way into writing a different story when the Sisters Blythe began whispering in my ear. I tried to ignore them but they were insistent, and eventually I agreed to give them a week. I set aside my other project—temporarily—in the hope that I’d make the sisters see reason, confident that they would that way be appeased and silenced until it was their turn. I wrote the first chapter of The Distant Hours in a single night and by the time I went to bed I knew I wouldn’t be returning to my other project. I couldn’t. It was clear to me that this was the story I had to tell.

How long did it take you to write The Distant Hours?

The Distant Hours took ten months to write, beginning to end, with another three months of intensive editing and rewriting. Thankfully I’d already done lots of research on Kent and the Second World War for the poor, abandoned project that still lies at the bottom of my cupboard.

Is Milderhurst Castle based on a real place that you have visited?

Milderhurst Castle is an invention, but my love affair with old buildings means I visit and read about a lot of real places. Sissinghurst Castle was an inspiration to me, perhaps most clearly due to its tower, its location in Kent, and its link to the literary world through Vita Sackville-West and the Nicolson family.

Have you ever come across an old family letter that has revealed something to you?

I wish! In some part I suspect that’s why I’m drawn to writing about confessions and lost letters, secret diaries and all those wonderful sorts of things—because it hasn’t happened to me (yet—I haven’t given up hope!). All families have secrets though and I drew on one of my family’s for The Forgotten Garden. It concerned a secret love affair and an illegitimate child, and there were once letters that had passed between the lovers (one of whom was fighting in the Great War). The letters survived longer than the lovers but unfortunately were all burned some years ago in the hope that no one would ever learn their secrets.

Where can I read the whole of the Mud Man story?

The Mud Man is an invention. The title of Raymond Blythe’s book, THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE MUD MAN, was one of the first figments of story I had when I started writing The Distant Hours. The precise nature of the tale took a little longer though, and I was well into writing the novel before I realised who and what the Mud Man was. The portion of Raymond’s Blythe’s rather spooky story came to me in a flash, on a cold, wet winter’s evening. I was alone in a cabin in the forest, mist had rolled up the mountain, and I was sitting by the window watching night fall. All of a sudden I was struck by an image of a young girl perched upon a bookcase at the top of a castle tower. She was looking over a dark landscape, dreaming about her future, when down below her, deep in the muddy moat, something began to stir… All of the other puzzle pieces slotted into place once I’d found my Mud Man.

DID YOU KNOW?

Just like the Sisters Blythe, Kate is one of three sisters.

Watch the beautiful Andersen M Studio trailer for The Distant Hours

Interview: Kate Morton in conversation with Blanche Clark at The Wheeler Centre