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1857: The story of two women bound together by fate and separated by circumstance
A Mother’s Shame
What you need to know before your trail
Maria Mundy arrives at Hatter’s Hall, the local mental asylum, not as a patient but to look after a mysterious ‘inmate’ The inmate in question is unsual for she is a good young girl from an influential family but her family have placed here there since finding out that she has become pregnant. Unmarried and pregnant to “an unsuitable man” she is banished to the asylum until the baby is born to avoid gossip and more.
But as Maria starts to care for her charge, she too reveals a secret that if it gets out, could cause both of them trouble. One night the two girls plus the maid who works at the asylum are thrown together in a way they never could have imagined and their future now lies with each other.
There is one person who can help them escape – but helping them is going to cause its own set of problems..
Travel Guide
Nuneaton and Warwickshire
The home and village where Martha and her family lives would have looked very different indeed in 1857 of course. There is no Montgomery Manor and no Hattersley Asylum but there were several institutions like it where those deemed to be insane were housed. Many of these patients were women locked away for disobeying their family or for getting in the family way as Isabelle in the novel.
Inside the asylum, the conditions are grim. Doors are locked, freedoms curtailed and maids told where they can and can’t go in the house. The place is dark, claustrophobic and very very unforgiving. No place for any lady nor anyone.
Sailing to Australia
The journey or rather the escape to Australia is not so much the solutions but a problem in itself. The conditions on the boat are perilous to say the least and the living conditions there are squalid and for those with money, barely better. Isabelle has secured a last minute ticket and her conditions are cramped. There is a great deal of sickness and fever on the ship and those who die are ‘ buried at sea’. This is quite a heartbreaking part of the novel as just when you think they are getting to a better place, the journey seems to consume them.
Tasmania
Arriving at Port Arthur they then take their carriage to their new home – a homestead where Hobart is the nearest town. This is such an adventure for them since they have not been far from Nuneaton or Hatter’s Hall and everything seems so strange and alien here but at the same time the empty spaces and rich colours seem to work their magic early on:
The homestead , which looked enormous even from a distance, was nestled deep down in a valley surrounded by lush green fields where fat sheep were contentedly grazing”
This is their new life for the time being – until the reason for them being in Tasmania is taken away and they can all return to England. But Tasmania has an effect on both women and Kitty, the young girl who travels with them in particular. Living on and off a homestead is a new way of life, hard work but there is freedom for women and the chance of new life for some. Homesteads were an unusual place to be and get used to but this land is to teach them many lesson which will stay with them.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
What a rich and captivating read! Engrossed from the very first page. This was so well written and I became great friends with Martha and lovely Kitty as soon as I met them. Girls getting in trouble by wayward men is nothing new but in those days the consequences were great and so the choices women had were virtually non existant. Money also did not buy class in those days either it would seem.
The three very different locations and settings in the book – the asylum. the journey on the ship and the homestead in Tasmania were so richly drawn that it was easy to visualise the conditions and feel the characters’ pain. I wanted to linger with this one as I looked forward to seeing how it would all work out and was horrified at what the women went through but amazed at how they coped with their lot in life.
I really enjoyed this one and felt I’d been educated, entertained and enlightened all at once. A lovely, at times poignant and heartwarming story.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: A Mother’s Shame
Author/Guide Rosie Goodwin Destination: Nuneaton, Port Arthur, Hobart Departure Time: 2000s
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