I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas mystery, and I also wanted to set an Iris Woodmore story in Winchester. When I came across a visit the Prince of Wales made to Winchester in 1923, it provided the perfect start to A Corpse in Christmas Close.
When it’s announced that Prince Edward will be honoured with the Freedom of the City of Winchester on 7 November 1923, reporter Iris Woodmore and photographer Robbie Roper are sent to cover the event for The Walden Herald.
In the first chapters, I’ve depicted the actual royal itinerary for the day. The prince arrives on the royal train to a Royal Air Force guard of honour at Winchester Station. At the Guildhall, the mayor presents his royal highness with a Freedom of the City decree encased in an oak casket made from eight-hundred-year-old beams taken from Winchester Cathedral.
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The prince is then driven ‘through cheering crowds to the Garden City at Stanmore’ erected under the national building scheme after the government promised to provide ‘homes fit for heroes’ for the soldiers returning from the Great War.
While the Prince of Wales was frequently spotted dancing the night away at his favourite night spot, The Embassy Club in Bond Street (earning him the nickname the Playboy Prince), he also had a social conscience. After the First World War, he took an interest in the welfare of ex-servicemen and fundraised for those in need.
Prince Edward was very different from his father, King George V. The prince rejected the aloofness of the Edwardian era, embracing the new freedom of the Roaring Twenties. He was keen to meet people from all over the world and between 1919 and 1923 travelled over 100,000 miles by land and sea.
In A Corpse in Christmas Close, Iris catches the prince’s eye as she’s wearing trousers. Robbie jokes that Queen Mary would be appalled by her attire and would forbid her son from courting a woman she disapproved of – little knowing what was to come thirteen years later.
Prince Edward was known for his energy and informality, stopping to shake hands and chat with people wherever he went, which made him popular across the globe. However, the nation turned against him when, in 1936, he chose to abdicate in order to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.
At 326 days, Edward VIII was one of the shortest-reigning British monarchs.