Pamela Shields

This book is about the Valois children who grew up in the Loire Valley. What kind of world were they born into? What kind of parents did they have? How did they turn out as adults? Successful? Well balanced? Or not? What was childhood like if your father was the king of France? What kind of Court did your father keep? What was it like growing up? Children born to the king of France belonged to the State so had the best of everything but were they loved? Nurtured? This book, which goes a little way to answer these often imponderable questions, mentions some of the places where the children lived in the beautiful Loire Valley, the land of châteaux. Bourges, Chinon, Loches, Tours, Blois and Amboise.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Amboise Connection

This book was written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death in 1519 at Clos Lucé, Amboise, France. This is where he and his painting of the Mona Lisa spent his last three years. Leonardo’s life began with his illegitimacy in Florence, fame and success in Milan, public humiliation in Rome and ended as the close friend of the most powerful king in Europe. When François I met Leonardo in Italy in 1515, he invited him to live near him in Amboise. Here, Leonardo found a security incomparable with his previously precarious existence. He entered old age basking in the gentle climate of the Loire Valley with no more financial insecurity, no more wars on his doorstep, no more jealous rivals. No longer forced to take commissions, Leonardo spent his days editing notebooks filled with his scientific studies and treatises on painting and anatomy. He had with him his paintings of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist and the Mona Lisa. Leonardo was a tourist attraction. He still is. Fans can see where he lived, where he died and where he is buried. In Close Lucé, they can even see working models of some of his visions. The book contains many interesting, little known facts. For example. Did you know that Leonardo designed and made elaborate wigs for his models as seen in his (lost) painting of Leda and the Swan? That he dissected thirty corpses? Or that to dissect an eye ball he first immersed it in egg white then boiled it? When François I decided to move his capital from Paris to Romorantin, his childhood home, he asked Leonardo to design a new town to include two new châteaux, one for himself and one for his mother. The plans for his mother’s château is now part of the Royal Collection in Windsor Castle in England.

Out of the Shadows: The Ladies of Royal Château Amboise

This book chronicles the lives of the Valois Ladies of Château Amboise during its heyday. The French Royal House took its name from Valois, a region north of Paris and adopted as its emblem the famous fleur-de-lys.

Plenty has been written about the Valois Lords of the Château but not much about the Ladies. Some, such as Marie of Anjou, seem to have been almost airbrushed from history, some, such as Anne Neville, were considered so insignificant they never had their portraits painted so there are no known images of them but some, such as the doomed Queen Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots, unfairly executed by English House of Tudor, are known the world over.

When we think of the French Court, we think of Versailles with its courtly etiquette and elaborate ceremonials but the Court during the time covered in this book was nothing like that. Charles VII was so broke that for many years he had no Court. His son Louis XI, nicknamed The Prudent, hated ceremony. His son Charles VIII preferred converting the ancient Château Amboise into a modern Renaissance Palace rather than holding Court. His cousin and successor, Louis XII, was positively parsimonious. It wasn’t until Francis I, the French Court as we think of it today, began to come into being.

Islington: The The First 2000 Years

In response to requests from the readers of the Islington Gazette these are the articles (expanded and updated) commissioned by the paper to celebrate the Millennium. They tell the eccentric, unconventional, fascinating history of the borough from the days when elephants roamed around what is now Kings Cross, when drovers crowded into The Old Red Lion and the Angel Inn, to the Islington of today. This book brings together the highlights of Islington's past and explains what it is that made and still makes Islington so special.

Essential Islington: Second Edition: From Boadicea to Blair

Second edition published by popular demand in 2020 with minor additions and illustrations. What makes Islington so special? What is its fascination? In Essential Islington: From Boadicea to Blair, first published to mark the millennium, Pamela Shields goes some way to explain the character and charm of London’s Greenwich Village. This A-Z covers every aspect of the borough from prehistoric times to the year 2000. Essential Islington brings together the facts of Islington’s past, but also recounts local legends and urban myths. The author delves into Islington’s ancient history, when elephants and crocodiles roamed around what is now Kings Cross and Pentonville. She recalls the agricultural Islington of the middle ages, when pilgrims and drovers sheltered at what became the Angel Inn and City dwellers took refuge in Islington village during times of plague and fire. She describes the world of the clerks and professionals who lived in Islington’s Georgian and Victorian terraces, and the rich, eccentric, varied history of the built-up borough in the twentieth century. This is the story of the architecture, streets, shops, theatres, cinemas, churches, chapels and parks that contribute to Islington’s character and history. Also featured are world famous people, household names who lived in Islington such as George Orwell and Joe Orton who have commemorative plaques and John Lydon and Douglas Adams who, strangely, at the time of writing do not. The mass of facts and figures Pamela Shields has collected, the rumour and speculation, scandal and gossip, as well as the wealth of human detail, makes her book illuminating reading for everyone who enjoys London’s history. Pamela, who many years ago tutored the Guiding for Tourists course at City University, still has a passion for Islington where she lived for ten years. She left its seductive distractions to write this, her first book. Twenty-one years later, she is delighted and flattered by requests to re-issue Essential Islington.

Max Ernst: and The Genie of Amboise

This book was written to mark the 50th anniversary of The Max Ernst Fountain. Ernst dedicated this masterpiece to Leonardo da Vinci, the genius of Amboise. The story, told backwards, begins with The Fountain. From there we follow Ernst to the tiny village of Huismes where he designed it; to Paris where he lived before moving to Huismes; to Arizona where he built a love nest in the desert with his fourth and last wife; to New York where he married his third wife, Peggy Guggenheim; to the Ardèche in the south of France where, with his lover the Surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington, he was in hiding from his second wife; to pre-war Paris where, as an illegal immigrant, he lived in a ménage à trois with Gala Éluard before she married Salvador Dali and finally, to Germany where Max Ernst was born. The author, a graduate in Art History, lives in Amboise with her husband, the photographer Mark Playle. Intrigued with The Fountain they set themselves the task of unravelling the mystery of how it got there. In the process, they found out what made Max Ernst tick. Art made him tick, Surrealist art in particular, close friends such as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp made him tick, but what made Max Ernst tick above all else was love. This was a man who followed his heart.

The Little book of Hitchin

This quirky little book about a quirky little town introduces Hitchin to: the newly arrived keen to know about the area, visitors who want to get the most out of their time here (the beauty of Hitchin is that it’s walkable) and tourists with time to mooch .Londoners dismiss Hitchin as the sticks but it is in fact a town to be reckoned with and ought, by right, to be groaning under Blue Plaques. Hitchin Market is the largest open market in the Home Counties; this is where King Offa of the famous Dyke died; Bob Hope’s family came from here, as did that of Anthony Hope Hawkins, author of The Prisoner of Zenda; this is where little Joseph Lister of antiseptic fame started school and ended up a Lord; Sir Frank Whittle, world famous inventor of the jet engine, lived here for a while and when Sir Henry Wood of Proms fame died here a train was chartered to bring mourners from London; George Chapman, the first to translate Homer came from Hitchin and George Orwell shopped in Brooker’s. After the tragedy of the town’s vandalisation in the 60s and 70s people breathe a sigh of gratitude for campaigning groups such as The Hitchin Society, Hitchin Historical Society and Keep Hitchin Special who gather under the Hitchin Forum umbrella to protect the town’s heritage.

Harkness Roses: Stories behind the names

Flower lovers will enjoy this book. Pamela Shields has brought together stories, rich in anecdote, about the beautiful roses introduced by generations of the Harkness family and the fascinating stories behind the names. Peter Harkness. Hearing a friend tell Peter she had just bought ‘Remembrance’ and listening to Peter telling her the story behind its name inspired this tribute to the Harkness family. There are Harkness roses in over sixty countries including Iceland, Africa, Thailand, Egypt and Iran. They are even in the gardens of Taj Mahal. In 1981 Harkness was invited to supply rosebuds for Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding bouquet and roses to decorate St. Paul’s Cathedral on that memorable day. Many roses are named after Princess Diana but the only one she chose herself was the Harkness rose ‘Princess of Wales’ which was presented to her by Philip and Robert Harkness in April 1997.

Rosie & Me