Writer Glenda Young praises Halifax for help with research for her latest books
Volunteers at Calderdale Industrial Museum were happy to open up for Northeast-based Glenda and help her with gather information.
Halifax is home to Quality Street and the perfect place to visit as Glenda collects information for her saga which will be set in the Northeast during the First World War.
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Hide AdQuality Street began when John and Violet Mackintosh set up a sweet shop in Halifax in 1890.
Following the success of their best-selling toffee, John, otherwise known as the Toffee King, set up the world's first toffee factory in Halifax.
"It was my first visit to Halifax and I loved that part of Yorkshire,” said Glenda.
"The volunteers at the museum were marvellous including showing me how a toffee wrapping machine worked,” said Glenda.
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Hide Ad“I am looking forward to going back to the museum and spending more time there.”
Glenda also writesa cosy crime series set in Scarborough. The third in the series is called Foul Play at the Seaview Hotel and is out later this year.
It features a team of crazy golfers whose members book into the Seaview ahead of a tournament.
"For the book, I created a fictional nine-hole course on the harbour and every hole has a model of a Scarborough landmark including the Stephen Joseph Theatre, the Spa, the lighthouse and the windmill,” said Glenda.
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Hide Ad"The team take crazy golf very seriously: they come dressed in the same outfits, they have training and to them crazy golf should be an Olympian sport.”
She and husband Barry are crazy golfers and write a blog about the courses they complete. “Only two or three times a year,” said Glenda, “we’re not obsessive.”
She also drew inspiration from Tilting at Windmills: How I Tried to Stop Worrying and Love Sport by Andy Miller.
In Foul Play, the captain of the rival team also books into the Seaview, is murdered and the hotel landlady Helen Dexter is drawn into solving the mystery.
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Hide AdA key scene is set at the Central Tramway in Marine Parade. Glenda’s heroine is riding up from the seafront and as the car passes the carriage coming down from Marine Parade, she fleetingly sees the murderer.
Glenda loves funiculars and said: “If I could afford it and if someone commissioned it I would go round the world and write about every single funicular.”
Her Seaview books include Murder at the Seavie Hotel and Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel.
Their popularity led to a nomination in the Dead Good Reads category at last year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival held in Harrogate. She was up against Val McDermid and the winner former Pointless present Richard Osman.
She is in early talks to turn the books into a TV series.