Photo: Julie with readers at Whitstable Library
Kent Libraries chooses Murder at St Alfred’s as its “Book of the Month” with an Explore Local theme
by
Melissa Todd
We have ancient churches and winding lanes, marshes disappearing into the horizon, grand houses with long histories – and, perhaps most usefully for a crime writer, a great many picturesque places where someone might meet a grisly end.
For Julie Wassmer, though, the inspiration initially came from somewhere less sinister: a walk down Whitstable High Street.
Julie had moved to the town with her husband after years spent living and working in London. One day she found herself looking at the familiar streets with the detached eye of a writer. A church, a butcher, the Playhouse, all clustered together.
“Immediately I thought – this is a perfect setting for crime fiction,” she tells me.
This marked the beginning of a new chapter in a career which had already taken her into one of Britain’s most famous fictional worlds. Before she created restaurateur-turned-sleuth Pearl Nolan, Julie spent almost 20 years writing for EastEnders, as well as other cherished programmes, including London’s Burning. She remembers the television world as a huge collaborative endeavour, in which a writer is only one part of a much larger process.
“You’re just one little cog in the whole machine,” she says.
Writing a novel was different. Here, the world was hers to construct, and the characters, locations and plot could remain in her head until she felt ready to fully realise them.
The result was the first Whitstable Pearl mystery, followed by another ten. The latest, Murder at St Alfred’s, was published in June – and this October it has been given a particularly appropriate home.
Kent Libraries and Archives has selected Murder at St Alfred’s as its October Book of the Month, as part of the National Year of Reading’s Explore Local theme, encouraging readers to discover books connected with Kent and explore their county through reading.
For Julie, the choice has a pleasing circularity. Libraries were central to her own childhood, and she credits them with helping make her a writer in the first place. As a child in London’s East End, the local library became a refuge.
“Had it not been for public libraries, I don’t think I’d ever have become a writer,” she says.
Hard to imagine a more appropriate author for a library campaign about exploring local stories. Julie’s books may have begun in Whitstable, but their fictional map has spread across Kent, with Faversham, Canterbury, Chartham, Herne Bay, Seasalter and the Isle of Sheppey all taking their turn at a starring role.
Kent’s attraction is more than its picturesque scenery. Julie is fascinated by the people who inhabit these places: the communities and histories that can turn an ordinary location into somewhere brimming with possibility.
Pearl herself, Julie points out, is “everything I’m not”. Pearl is a Whitstable native, while Julie describes herself as “one of those dreadful DFLs… even though I’ve lived here now for twenty-seven years!” If there’s a character in the books who reflects more of Julie’s own outlook, she says, it is Pearl’s mother Dolly. Like her, Julie is an environmental campaigner and a supporter of public libraries, which, she feels, are about much more than books.
Throughout October, Kent library users are being encouraged to borrow Murder at St Alfred’s, discover themed reading recommendations, and explore other books with strong links to the county. For Julie, that connection between books and place is something she has experienced throughout her own life.
The Whitstable Pearl books have now been adapted into a television series, starring Kerry Godliman and Frances Barber. Julie became an executive producer on the adaptation and was involved in reading scripts, although she was happy to allow the production company to take the characters she had created and make them their own. She did, however, make a brief Hitchcock-style cameo, playing a home matron.
“I was on set for eight hours and got about ten seconds on screen! I don’t know how actors just become someone new, in a heartbeat, with all the madness going on around them. It’s the most magical alchemy. I so admire it.”
The television series introduced Whitstable to an even wider audience, but Julie’s relationship with readers is rather different. She describes herself as a “sociable loner”, enjoying the solitude of writing, but also giving one or two talks a week to book clubs, charities, associations and other groups. She’s come to value the opportunity to meet the people who enjoy the world she created. While television had given her a large audience, the relationship between writer and viewer was inevitably rather distant. A novel can create a much more intimate connection: someone writes alone, somewhere, and months or years later another person sits alone and reads the words.
Julie describes writing as an obsession, something she becomes “very edgy” without, but also as a sort of therapy, a way of trying to understand and assimilate the world around her.
Books, too, have given her a sense of connection with other people, particularly when she encounters a story that speaks to something she has experienced herself. “It’s akin to someone taking me by the hand and saying, I’m here. I’ve been through that too.”
Fiction can do that. Libraries too. They connect us with people we’ve never met, places we’ve never visited and experiences that might otherwise remain outside our own lives. Occasionally they even give a crime writer somewhere to hide the body.
For more information about the National Year of Reading and Kent Libraries and Archives’ October Explore Local theme, visit kent.gov.uk/nationalyearofreading.
Whitstable Pearl the TV series can now be viewed for free on Channel 4 Catch Up: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/whitstable-pearl
And U/Drama: https://u.co.uk/shows/whitstable-pearl/watch-online
Melissa Todd is a writer and performer. An author of four books, she has regular columns in Metro, Kent online and Love it! Magazine. She’s been published by The Independent, The Sun and US Vogue, while reviews of her work have appeared in The Times and New York Post.
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