Back to main press page

Setting the Scene: Views of Nottingham

From the Nottingham Evening Post, Saturday 8 February 2003,
alongside the interview by Mhairi McFarlane.

Vernon Road, Basford - where it's long stretches of red-brick terraced houses on both sides, near Mandalay Street / Ealing Avenue and down towards the bend near Basford Crossings

This red-brick Victorian terraced street fitted exactly with the sense of place I was trying to create - a Victorian city that's still crowded with life 100 years after the streets were laid out and built. Terraced streets are a familiar sight, but this street in particular seems to be an exaggeration of the familiar, perhaps because the lines of houses go unbroken for such a long stretch even though it's a busy thoroughfare. It suggests residence - stillness, familiarity, safety - at the same time as suggesting that this is a city on the move, where nothing, however familiar, is certain.

My novel starts at a (fictional) bus stop on this stretch of road. As a setting for the book, it seemed perfect - during the morning rush hour the traffic streams down and carries you through towards the city centre, and the solid lines of houses channel the traffic until it can feel as if there's no alternative but to get swept along. As my characters are pretty reluctant to actually get to work but know there isn't really an alternative, this street reflects their psychology at the very beginning of the book.

Top of Bulwell Forest Golf Course

I can't actually remember what you can see from up here - I may have been running two views together in my imagination - there's a similar sense from up near the City Hospital on Hucknall Road looking out towards Sherwood, or from the top of the hill on Western Boulevard looking out over Whitemoor.

I love the sense of the city that you get from a high vantage point where you can see the lines and swirling patterns of the streets, and patches of green, and the city centre's taller buildings on the skyline. You can get a real sense of scale. The noise of traffic is muted by the distance; cool, calm air surrounds you, and the noises you hear and the movement you sense suggest that the city is breathing and moving beneath you. In certain lights it can be quite beautiful, too.

Nottingham Old Market Square - early in the morning, when the only people around are commuters heading off to work in smart clothes.

When I wrote Beholden, the number 85 bus was still running, taking passengers all the way from Bulwell to Trent Boulevard. That bus route doesn't exist any more, which is slightly annoying as the characters in my novel travel that route! One of the things about that journey was coming into the Market Square and seeing the passengers changed over, people heading off in different directions, going to work. I always wondered where they were going and what they would be doing, and if they were looking forward to it or if they were secretly dreaming of being elsewhere. And sometimes, the square would be almost deserted, and the early morning light made the paving slabs and the Council House seem pale with dark shadows, so it could almost be a soft-focus black and white photograph.

The River Leen, between the Western Boulevard bridge and Church Street, Basford - I don't know whether the tram works have changed this area since I was last there 18 months ago...

I used to cycle along the banks of the Leen. Near the church in Basford there's an almost magical area - if you angle yourself right, you can imagine you aren't in the city at all. The noise of traffic is softened by trees until you could be listening to waves on a distant beach, and you can see wild grasses and the slopes of the riverbank, and beyond the treetops the spire of the church comes into view. It could be on the edge of a small village rather than in the heart of the city - it's only when lorries roar over the bridge along Western Boulevard that you are reminded where you really are. It's good to discover these little quiet spaces. I used this location in the book, because I needed to take my character out of the noise of the city to somewhere quiet where he could be alone.

Nottingham Railway station

I love Nottingham railway station. It might not be as spectacular as some of the London stations - in particular St Pancras - but for me, it still carries that romance of travel. Nottingham is an important location in my book, but the idea of getting away from the city and away from the intricacies of life is just as important - something more exciting, or simply different.

What I think of Nottingham as a location

Nottingham is a great location for fiction because there are so many sides to the city. Nearly everyone has heard of Nottingham because of Robin Hood, but it also has an identity as a gritty setting for fiction, from DH Lawrence to Alan Sillitoe. It can be an industrial city, or a university town; typically English, ordinary, or a dangerous urban environment. For fiction, this opens up all sorts of opportunities for telling stories.

I didn't just choose to write about Nottingham because I'm familiar with it, although that's certainly part of it. I want to write about a recognisable world - I want my readers to feel that they already inhabit the world I write about. I think that 'ordinary' people often have the most extraordinary stories, and familiar places can be the most surprising, probably because we think we know what to expect from them, and that puts us off our guard. We forget just how unpredictable the world and the people who inhabit it really are, and that means that we can forget just how interesting and exciting and dangerous and seductive the world really is.

Back to main press page