The Rushford Times - A weekly newsletter from Jodi Taylor
Sent on Wednesdays to paid subscribers and Fridays to free subscribers
This week we have:
Jodi Taylor - A Day in the Life of St Mary’s – the inspiration behind the chaos
Jodi Taylor’s book recommendation - The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The St Mary’s Incident Report Competition read the first entries
March audio clip competition - guess the book and characters speaking for your chance to win a signed copy of Out of Time
News of a new short story - The Coo of Warning
Short Story of the Month: Ships Stings and Wedding Rings - a chance to discover some of the St Mary’s short stories
There’s plenty to read this week and you can see everything on the blog too. CLICK HERE for the blog.
A Day in the Life of St Mary’s – the inspiration behind the chaos.
I don’t really need inspiration – I find everything chaotic. I’m the one for whom the system always goes wrong. People stand in front of me and swear blind this particular catastrophe has never ever happened before. Not in the whole history of the world. Until I turned up.
I’m the person for whom the turnstile jams on the underground. I’m the one who, while trying to do something technical involving QR codes, phone and laptop suffers a simultaneous failure of all three. Something else that apparently can’t possibly happen. Well, I have news for you, sunshine.
And disasters don’t come in threes – they come in multiples of threes. Always.
For instance – and no names here because this was an actual day in my life –
I was passing the offspring’s bedroom when I heard him talking to his bedside lamp. I went in and you know how, sometimes, you’re not sure whether they are actually ill or just have a maths test later that day. He was ill. A temperature of about three hundred and fifty, scarlet, sweating, and quite delirious.
I tried to call for help. No response. I shot next door, got my neighbour up and we drove to the medical centre. They had no idea what was wrong with him and there was a great deal of discussion over whether to admit him or not. In the meantime, I was dealing with a sulky boss who didn’t like women because they always prioritised their family over their work obligations. Anyway, they let us go home with lots of instructions about keeping him – the offspring, not the boss – calm and quiet.
On the return journey, we pranged the car. Not hugely but it’s not what you need on a day that’s already going badly. Fortunately, the offspring was asleep and never stirred.
Back home, I stretched him out on the sofa because we lived in a tall narrow house and I didn’t have the energy for all those stairs. He was fast asleep and neither of us had eaten and it was now about 3.00pm so I thought we should have something to eat.
I set fire to the chip pan.
Yes, I know.
Actually, I had a bit of a rep for this sort of thing – someone once refused to live next door to me, would you believe? – but, trust me, I was magnificent. I kept my head and did all the things you’re supposed to.
I soaked and wrung out a tea towel and tossed it onto the flames. What they don’t tell you is that the kitchen fills – instantly – with thick, black, acrid smoke that blinds you, makes you cough and you can’t find the door. Which I’d closed so as not to disturb the slumbering offspring because I am a good mother. Honestly.
Again, I was magnificent. I dropped to the floor, located the skirting board and crawled around until I found the door. I opened and shut as quickly as possible so the fumes wouldn’t disturb – or kill – the offspring, and crawled out onto the front lawn where I lay for a while, having a bit of a cough.
Stage 2 of the accepted procedure – this was quite a long time ago – the offspring did survive to achieve adulthood – is to clash together two dustbin lids and shout, ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ Which I duly did.
Absolutely nothing happened. Nothing at all. Eventually I gave up dying on the front lawn and crawled back inside to open all the windows and start thinking up my cover story.
Incidentally, I saw my neighbour the next day and she asked if everything was all right because there had been a hell of a lot of noise coming from my house yesterday.
Anyway, the point of me maundering on is to give an example of the inspiration behind the chaos of St Marys. A lot of my life – suitably fictionalised – has found its way into the St Mary’s books. The first aid exam when Max chucks a bucket of icy water over Izzie Barclay actually did happen! And some other stuff, too,
And no – not the incident when the car hit the tree. Shame on you.
Sometimes, especially if I’ve been a bit busy, it’s good to pick up old favourites. At the moment it’s Lord of the Rings – which I haven’t read for decades and it’s really interesting to compare my mindset in 1972, which was when I first read it – to now. I am not the same and neither is the book. Which is really interesting.
I’ve just ordered The Eyre Affair – on Kindle, sadly because print gives me some problems. It’s the first of the Thursday Next series and, I think, the best.
I remember I first read this when I was working for the Library Service in North Yorkshire and I was excited by it because it was so different from anything I’d read before. And another one not set in London.
One of my colleagues in the School Library Service was also a huge fan – she actually had an Eyre Affair sweatshirt which I really, really coveted. We spent hours discussing plot points and arguing. She preferred The Nursery Crimes Series but I’m a Thursday Next girl through and through.
The story was so out-there – I just loved it – imagine being at an airport or railway station and popping your money in a vending machine and getting a Shakespeare sonnet.
Or – and this is my favourite part – the description of the audience-participation performance of Richard III. Picture an entire audience shouting:
‘WHEN is the winter of our discontent?’
And Dick the Turd roaring:
‘NOW is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer sun by this son of York ‘
and everyone in the audience putting on their sunglasses and looking up at the sun. If they’d performed Shakespeare like that at my school then it probably wouldn’t have taken me years to get around to appreciating him properly and not lumping him in with Thomas Hardy and boiled cabbage.
The St Mary’s Incident Report Competition - to read entries so far CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE to enter. Closing date is 24th March 2026. Judging will be by a reader poll from 25th March with the winner announced on 31st March
MARCH - GUESS THE BOOK COMPETITION
Guess the book and characters speaking for your chance to win a signed copy of Out of Time
Put your knowledge of Jodi’s books to the test with our audio clip competition. Listen carefully to a short extract and see if you can identify the book and the characters speaking for a chance to win a signed copy of Out of Time.
Audiobooks are hugely popular among Jodi Taylor fans, bringing her stories to life through distinctive voices, character-driven performances, and immersive narration. For many readers, audiobooks offer the perfect way to enjoy a favourite series while commuting, walking, or relaxing. They make stories more accessible, flexible, and engaging than ever.
Tune in, trust your ears, and see if you can name the book and the characters behind the voices.
Ships Stings and Wedding Rings - available in Kindle and Audiobook formats - also included in The Long and Short of It anthology
Buy now from Bookshop.uk - UK USA
A loaded gun has been left behind in ancient Egypt and it’s up to Max, Peterson and Markham to get it back as quickly and as quietly as possible. Before it goes off and kills someone. Leaving them with the more than tricky task of trailing their colleagues but always remaining unobserved. The slightest misstep and they’ll be up to their necks in paradoxes.
There are the usual perils and problems – the heat, the dust, the insects… and then Max inadvertently poisons Mr Markham.
Jodi Taylor says…
‘This is what happened when I was bored and there wasn’t anything on TV and I was reduced to reading the small print on a can of WD40.’
Of course the car incident happened! I'm personally not going to live in a world where the car incident has no factual basis!
That reminds me...in August 2008 I felt ill at work. My first thought was a migraine, then I realised I was about to vomit. Made it to the toilets, and collapsed on the floor, vomiting violently. At this exact moment I started with right sided chest pain, so assumed I had pulled an intercostal muscle. I couldn't seem to stand up, and was deeply concerned that I was still carrying the paediatric registrar crash bleep. I recall throwing any handy projectiles I could spot (mostly toilet rolls) at the door at the end of the corridor, behind which I could hear colleagues laughing and chatting. Eventually someone responded, and I was helped to my car. Made it home, and spent the evening working on my audit presentation for the next day (no, of course I couldn't go into work vomiting, I may have been a tad confused), and getting irritated at my pulled intercostal which was causing increasing chest pain. Then I started coughing up brown stuff and finally twigged (yes, yes, I'm a doctor, did I mention confusion?) that I was developing a chest infection, and thought I might see my GP the next day. By about 5 am, when I discovered myself tying a scarf round my chest so it wouldn't move with breathing because it hurt to much, I thought it might be worth popping to A&E. Obviously I didn't call an ambulance (do you know how much they cost the NHS?). But I did recognise I probably wasn't fit to drive, and called a taxi.
So, I arrived at A&E (different larger hospital to the one I had gone home from earlier). Walking the approximately 10 metres to the reception desk revealed just how SOB I was. Apparently using single words to gasp out "chest pain" speeds up processing. I was rapidly triaged, told my numbers wouldn't be too bad if I were a small child but were crap for an adult, and taken into resus. I have to say, when ringing in sick to work, doing so from resus adds artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Anyway, after a couple of slugs of IV ABs, and some fluids, they decided to let me home that evening (having since looked into scoring systems for adults with pneumonia, they shouldn't have done). When I got home I had very little food in, but found some hash browns and eggs, so thought that would do. And yes, you can see me finally getting to the point? Set the frying pan on fire, adding smoke inhalation to my pneumonia. Now, you may recall me referencing confusion. I came within a split second of trying to put out a frying pan fire with a dry tea towel. Which would have been...interesting. DO you think I might be related to Jodi?