All in the name of research, I climbed to the top of Big Ben (334 steps to the belfry – don’t look down the stairwell if you’re afraid of heights!), toured the Palace of Westminster, and squeezed into the broom cupboard where suffragette Emily Davison once hid.
In Murder at Big Ben, my aim was to recreate the famous event in 1911, when Emily hid in a cupboard in the Chapel ofSt Mary Undercroft on census night so that the Houses of Parliament was recorded as her address.
In my story, Emily is one of six suffragettes who break into parliament on census night, and I needed to give each of them a hiding place.
I’ve visited the Houses of Parliament several times over the years, first in 1996, in the company of author and presenter, Gyles Brandreth. At the time, he was an MP, and I worked for the publishers of his first novel. To promote the book, he gave the sales and marketing team a tour of the Palace of Westminster.
Thirty years later, I found myself back in parliament, this time to research my own book. And, after some persuasion, I was allowed into the broom cupboard in the chapel where Emily hid – although due to security, a photo of me in the cupboard wasn’t possible!
I’d mapped out the route my six suffragettes would take when they broke into parliament, first concealing themselves inside benches in St Stephen’s Hall before splitting up and going to different hiding places. While Emily took her rightful place in the cupboard, it was more challenging to get three of my suffragettes into Big Ben (official name Elizabeth Tower – Big Ben is the great bell at the centre of the clock tower).
Even after exploring the clock tower, it was difficult to establish whether my suffragettes could have entered it from the main palace. But thanks to House of Commons library staff, I discovered it was possible.
There used to be three prison suites (for MPs who disobeyed the rules of the House) in the wing of the palace to the south of the clock tower. The bedroom and dressing room of one were in the clock tower itself, close to the weight shaft. This was my hiding place.
To find out what happens to my census night suffragettes, read Murder at Big Ben, an Edwardian mystery set in the very heart of London.
Get your copy here: https://mybook.to/MurderBigBen