Debbie Young is here to tell us all about the inspiration behind writing her Gemma Lamb cozy mysteries!
#1 A beautiful stately home and a remarkable headmistress
Like Gemma Lamb, I once worked at an English boarding school for girls, which was housed in a former stately home, a beautiful Victorian mansion with a vast rural estate in the heart of the Cotswold countryside. Unlike Gemma, I wasn’t a teacher, and my job didn’t come with a staff flat, but I still had to be interviewed by the headmistress for my role of marketing manager.
On the morning of the interview, I entered the long private drive which wound its way through glorious parkland towards an exquisite Italianate mansion, faced in golden Bath stone. As I parked on the forecourt, my only thought was, “I must get this job – I have to work here.”
Like Gemma, I entered the mansion through an imposing marble-floored hallway before being led to the headmistress’s study, which had once been the study of the wealthy Victorian gentleman, Robert Holford, who had built the house. Mrs Hylson-Smith was a tall, imposing, elegant lady with an immaculate grey bob, but behind her formal and slightly forbidding exterior lay an extremely kind heart, a wry wit, and a determination to do things her way.
Although she didn’t ask me the eccentric questions that Hairnet (or Miss Harnett, to give the St Bride’s headmistress her real name) asks Gemma, I discovered later she often invited prospective pupils to name ten uses for a house brick. She didn’t have a cat like Hairnet’s McPhee, but she did have a large dog called Homer. As a classicist, she’d named him after the ancient Greek poet, but the girls were impressed because they thought it was in honour of Homer Simpson.
By the time my interview was over, my priorities had changed: I wanted to work there not for the setting, but to have this remarkable woman as my boss. Working in a Grade I listed building would be a bonus.
Almost as soon as I’d arrived home, I had a phone call offering me the job, which I immediately accepted. In the first of my weekly meetings with the headmistress, she asked me whether I knew why she’d chosen me for the job. Shy of assuming it was my extensive experience as a public relations consultant, I shook my head.
“Your warmth,” she said simply.
That kindness and empathy should matter more than academic qualifications and experience compounded my admiration for this remarkable role model and her philosophy.
Trying to define Westonbirt’s pupils for a promotional piece I was writing, I asked her what she thought was special about her girls.
“If you fell over in the street, they’d be the ones to pick you up,” she said straight away, and it was true.
Although I worked at Westonbirt for thirteen years, Mrs Hylson-Smith retired just three years later. The headmistress in my stories is different from her in very many ways, and completely fictitious, but Mrs Hylson-Smith’s kindness and vision sparked the seed that eventually grew into Miss Harnett, headmistress of St Bride’s. I am very thankful to have known her.
#2 Lessons in Life
One of my varied responsibilities at Westonbirt School was to liaise with the old girls, which was always good fun. Preparing to celebrate the school’s 70th anniversary, I decided to create a nostalgic edition of our school newsletter featuring some past pupils’ memories of the school.
I sent out a survey asking past pupils for their favourite memories of Westonbirt, inviting them to name the most important thing they’d learned there.
My favourite and most surprising response came from a spirited lady, Jane Reid, who’d left decades before. She answered without hesitation: “At my prep school I learned how to steam open an envelope. At Westonbirt, I was taught not to sign anything I hadn’t read.”
With Jane’s kind permission, I was delighted to incorporate her words into Gemma Lamb’s first adventure. Jane also made me realise that the most lasting and useful lessons are not always the obvious ones. That was the starting point for Miss Harnett’s Essential Lifeskills programme which teaches St Bride’s girls so many useful things outside of the academic curriculum, from how to bake a spectacular Christmas cake to how to service a car, from how to win or lose a game of cards gracefully to how to lay a bet.
Gemma Lamb often has cause to wish she had received a St Bride’s education herself as she strives to save the school in the face of disaster.
Debbie’s book Dastardly Deeds at St Brides is out now! Pick up a copy here: 
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