If you haven’t yet read my latest posts about the photos and letters from China in the early 1900s that inspired the middle section of my second novel, Paper Lanterns, you might find some of this a bit confusing. (This picture shows the small treaty port of Kongmoon, where several of the pictures were taken.)

To be honest, I’m finding it quite hard to put all these snippets of information into some kind of cohesive whole, so that readers might be able to help me with my Mystery Challenge:

Now that I’m looking back at the process of writing the novel – creating fiction out of real-life letters and snapshots , it’s beginning to seem that Mark Twain was right when he said, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’ Whether or not that is true, I’m finding it more difficult to manage than fiction – In my novels I am free to invent what I like but it’s a different matter with these tantalising glimpses of people’s lives nearly a century ago.

Perhaps my best way of presenting the ‘truth’ is to show you the letters, one by one. All of this material must have been part of the effects of Douglas Gragg Bruce (d.o.b. unknown, but certainly the early to mid 1890s) as they were all in a box of papers and photos acquired by my husband.

I’ll start with Bessie, because hers were the first that I read. The final of these five letters was written by her close friend, Margaret Hartle, dated September 1920. From other material, I can assume that Bessie’s letters were written from Canton.

Ah, you are a disturber! What do you mean by upsetting the equilibrium of two highly respectable (!) ladies in their heretofore blissful states of married and single blessedness? And two at once, mind you! And you so young and all. The poor young idlers that we endeavour to teach to shoot must certainly not have got their money’s worth this morning, and now at our first opportunity (recess) we two rush together to weep on each other’s shoulders for what we haven’t got and will never get. It’s a great bond, this being crazy about the same person. I only hope I’ll be able to preserve enough of a sense of decency from the wreck to give her the chance I wish I could take myself.
Does it sicken you to hear me rave? Perhaps if I make an utter ass of myself , you’ll leave me be – which is what I want of course. Any idiot can see that that is all I want.

Margaret can’t come to dinner on Saturday so if you want to change our places and go have tea with her in the afternoon, it will be all right. I’ll take a walk with you Sunday morning. She is going with her mother to Pack Hok Fung sometime Saturday afternoon so you won’t be embarrassed by having us both picking on you at the same time. You’d better write her a chit and invite yourself to have tea with her, and if she doesn’t take you up, you can come along here as we planned. Will you bring Bing with you? I mean it. I thoroughly detest you.
Good bye
The only object of this letter was to tell you that I found the hat & coat in the suitcase)

I haven’t yet been able to identify the woman above, but I like to think it could be Bessie’s friend, Margaret.

I am hoping that once I’ve posted more information and photos, some of you might be able to find someone who knows someone who might know something about a descendant of someone who knew some of these people!

THERE’S A FREE COPY OF PAPER LANTERNS FOR ANYONE WHO CAN DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THIS INTRIGUING LOVE STORY.