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Downton Abbey (2)

Hi everyone.

I hope you had a good Bank Holiday weekend. It was a bit of a wash-out here so I hope it was better where you are.

Actually, the wet weekend didn't really bother me too much. I spent most of it putting the finishing touches to a new website I've set up. This is to publicise the collection of letters I inherited from my grandmother which I'm trying to get published as a non-fiction book called 'My Dear Elsie'.

Those of you who follow this blog will know that the letters have a strong link to the popular UK television series Downton Abbey. This is because they were written by my grandmother's close friend Ethel North, who was lady's maid and companion to Lady Winifred Burghclere, the elder sister of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. As you may know, the Carnarvon family were the real-life inspiration for the fictional Crawley family in Downton Abbey and much of the series was filmed at their ancestral seat of Highclere Castle.

The website, as well as providing interesting biographical information (with photos!) about Lady Burghclere and Ethel North, also goes into a bit more detail about the fascinating content of the letters themselves. In addition, I've set up a blog on the website which I intend to use to chart my progress with my efforts to get them into print.

Talking of blogs, I probably won't be blogging here again for the foreseeable future. This is partly because I'll be concentrating on my blog about the progress of the book but also because I have recently added a new strand to my career "portfolio". As from last week, I am now a freelance designer and I feel I need to put a lot of effort into setting that up and establishing myself so like a few other things in my working life, this blog will have to go on hold for a while.

I do hope you will feel able to join me over at my new blog and also to take a look at the new website. It would be great to hear from you there as I need all the encouragement I can get!

You can find the new website and blog at:

http://ladyburghclereandethel.com/

In the meantime, thanks very much for visiting this blog and I hope to see you again soon.


Copyright Melissa Lawrence 2015




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