Norfolk


<p>What do you get when you mix decades of top-tier journalism, a flair for storytelling, and the wide open skies of Norfolk? Caroline McGhie, that’s who.&nbsp;An award-winning journalist with bylines in The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, and The Financial Times (to name a few), Caroline swapped the buzz of London’s newsrooms for the peaceful charm of North Norfolk over thirty years ago and never looked back &#8211; and who can blame her.</p>



<p>Now she&#8217;s turned her pen to fiction with <em>The Sitter</em>, her historical debut novel set in Norfolk which was decades in the making &#8211; and trust us, it&#8217;s been worth the wait. We had a lovely chat with Caroline about the process of bringing <em>The Sitter</em> to life, her inspiration and influences, as well as a few of her favourite local haunts. Over to you, Caroline&#8230;.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1333" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-McGhie-no-credit.jpg" alt="Caroline McGhie" class="wp-image-70322" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-McGhie-no-credit.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-McGhie-no-credit-600x800.jpg 600w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-McGhie-no-credit-750x1000.jpg 750w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-McGhie-no-credit-768x1024.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-congratulations-on-your-debut-the-sitter-what-s-it-all-about">Congratulations on your debut, <em>The Sitter</em>, what&#8217;s it all about?</h3>



<p>Where to begin! <em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;is historical novel set in a remote railway village, loosely inspired by Melton Constable. It follows a young baker’s boy, Jack Stamp, whose life is shaped by the rhythms of bread ovens, steam trains, and a devout Methodist father. Into this tight-knit, traditional world arrives a mysterious young woman, Rosie, who steps off the train at dusk. She’s fleeing London, where she worked as a seamstress, then became the muse (and lover) of a famous artist. Though she longs to be an artist herself, she’s been caught up in something darker. Heartbroken, she boards this train from King’s Cross and ends up in this quiet village, bringing with her beauty and a whiff of scandal. </p>



<p>At its heart,&nbsp;<em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;is about two very different people &#8211; one raised in quiet conformity, the other shaped by the chaos of the art world &#8211; colliding in a place untouched by modernity. It explores how two very different belief systems, two ways of seeing the world, can exist side by side in the same country at the same time.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-you-unpack-a-lot-in-the-novel-can-you-talk-to-me-about-that">You unpack a lot in the novel, can you talk to me about that?</h3>



<p>Yes, there are several deeper layers running beneath the plot. One is the idea of&nbsp;how history is made and remembered through the everyday objects we leave behind. The houses, the streets, and the diary Jack keeps. Even this owl pellet he finds and dissects becomes a metaphor: history compressed. His mother’s rag rugs, made from scraps of old clothing, tell silent stories too. Art and creativity are another way we leave traces &#8211; Rosie’s drawings, her presence in the village all become part of that legacy. She even gives Jack a fly trapped in amber, a powerful image of how the past still holds meaning.</p>



<p>Another key thread is how&nbsp;limited women’s choices were at the time. Rosie is clever and ambitious, but as a seamstress in 1901, her options are painfully narrow. Research showed seamstresses lived some of the hardest lives with long hours, poor pay, and little recognition, even as they created beautiful garments. There’s a haunting idea in the book: when a woman admired herself in a mirror, somewhere in the background there would be the ghost of the woman who made the dress. It’s also a #MeToo story in a way, Rosie wants mentorship and recognition from the cartoonist, but the power dynamic is messy and exploitative. Who was using whom? That grey area is fascinating. Rosie’s no passive victim though, by the end, she’s quietly assessing her options, romantic and otherwise, and trying to carve out a future. It’s a coming-of-age story for her, and for Jack too, he discovers sex, art, adult hypocrisy, and the loss of innocence. Everyone, in their own way, is growing up.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-heavy-stuff-is-this-story-something-you-were-milling-over-for-quite-some-time">Heavy stuff, is this story something you were milling over for quite some time?</h3>



<p>Yes, this story has been with me for a <em>long</em> time. We moved from London to Hindringham in 1993 with the idea to work from home, never commute again, and enjoy a lovely life with the children. But I quickly grew frustrated with journalism’s endless deadlines and the rigid hierarchy of facts. There was no space for imagination, and I thought I&#8217;d go bonkers if I didn’t start creating something of my own.</p>



<p>So I began writing&nbsp;<em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;years ago, originally as a dual-timeline novel but it never quite worked, so I shelved it. I came back to it later, stripped it out, tried again, and still, something was missing. Then I got very ill, I had cancer in three parts of my body and had to stop working. During treatment, with time on my hands, I revisited it once more, and that’s when the story finally began to come together. I stopped cancer treatment this January, felt well again, and thought,&nbsp;Why not send it to <a href="https://waterlandbooks.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Waterland Books</a> and see what happens?&nbsp;And here we are.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-many-years-do-you-think-it-has-taken-from-start-to-finish">How many years do you think it has taken from start to finish?</h3>



<p>20 years in total.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wow-where-did-you-get-your-inspiration-from">Wow! Where did you get your inspiration from?</h3>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1500" height="1125" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Tin-House-copy.jpg" alt="The Tin House Briston " class="wp-image-70635" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Tin-House-copy.jpg 1500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Tin-House-copy-800x600.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Tin-House-copy-1000x750.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Tin-House-copy-768x576.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The inspiration to the Tin House which is available <a href="https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/809512086172949088?viralityEntryPoint=1&amp;unique_share_id=ED5A4740-65B9-4249-9EFB-6A118A9F9154&amp;slcid=1e6f1c5e1c9d4950802d0445f7eee373&amp;s=76&amp;feature=share&amp;adults=1&amp;channel=native&amp;slug=zxhHZfys&amp;source_impression_id=p3_1756220615_P3_sX3lfVYusD8m0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">to stay in</a> </figcaption></figure>



<p>The book is deeply rooted in real oral history and the people who helped preserve it. I was lucky to meet Phyllis Youngman, a wonderfully kind woman who dedicated her life to recording the history of Melton Constable after the railway closed in 1959. She collected documents, photos, she even had railway carriages and a ticket office in her garden. I’d visit her every Thursday with her helper Raymond Meek, and they shared incredible stories. She even gathered descendants of railway families one evening to tell me more &#8211; she truly wanted it all remembered.</p>



<p>I also drew inspiration from Marian Skipper in Hindringham, whose father Jack Gaskin was the village baker and son of the Melton Constable baker. She brought me things he’d left behind &#8211; a handmade railway signal, an old diary &#8211; and I felt compelled to give that boy a voice. And then there’s Humphrey Glennie, a waiter in Blakeney who owns the real-life “tin house” mentioned in the book. I love blending real details like that into the story.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-have-you-always-wanted-to-set-a-novel-in-norfolk">Have you always wanted to set a novel in Norfolk?</h3>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="889" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-in-MC2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-70636" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-in-MC2.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-in-MC2-800x711.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/Caroline-in-MC2-768x683.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Caroline on the steps into The Works at Melton Constable which inspired the railway village, Swanton Stoke, in the novel.</figcaption></figure>



<p>They say “write what you know,” so I felt I had to write about Norfolk. I used to drive through Melton Constable and was always intrigued by it. At the time, I was writing about property and domestic architecture, and the village stood out as it didn’t look like typical Norfolk with its flint cottages and village greens. The rows of small brick terraces felt like they&#8217;d been lifted from the Midlands or the North, and behind them, you could still see the remnants of old warehouses. It had the bones of something once much bigger.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="666" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/08/Unsplash-Cromer-walk.jpg" alt="Cromer" class="wp-image-43778" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/08/Unsplash-Cromer-walk.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/08/Unsplash-Cromer-walk-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/08/Unsplash-Cromer-walk-768x511.jpg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/08/Unsplash-Cromer-walk-788x525.jpg 788w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cromer which inspires Highcliff in the novel</figcaption></figure>



<p>I fictionalised it as Swanton Stoke and paired it with Highcliff, loosely based on Cromer. I did quite a bit of research into Cromer too &#8211; reading books like&nbsp;<em>The Life of Henry Blogg</em> &#8211; and was fascinated by how the railway transformed it from a fishing town into a bustling holiday resort. I loved that contrast between hard, working coastal life and this sudden influx of Edwardian leisure. Norfolk, at that turn-of-the-century moment, was right on the brink of huge social change. It felt like the perfect setting.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-there-anywhere-else-in-norfolk-you-d-like-to-set-a-novel">Is there anywhere else in Norfolk you&#8217;d like to set a novel?</h3>



<p>Yes, just before lockdown, we moved from Hindringham to Cley, into a little 1950s house just off the coast path. I’m now working on a new novel set on the marshes, so watch this space!</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wow-you-re-already-working-on-your-next-novel">Wow you&#8217;re already working on your next novel?</h3>



<p>Yes! It has more of an eco theme and follows two girls from very different backgrounds as their friendship develops. I’ve been so busy with&nbsp;<em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;lately, I haven’t written much for a couple of months &#8211; but I’m itching to get back to it.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hopefully-this-one-won-t-take-20-years">Hopefully this one won&#8217;t take 20 years!</h3>



<p>One reason I kept coming back to&nbsp;<em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;was because I absolutely loved Jack Stamp. As a parent, I connected with his boyness and his curiosity. Everyone in the story is an outsider &#8211; Jack, Rosie, and even the tramp, Rough Jimmy. They’re the ones who see the railway village with fresh eyes and shake things up. I also love that Rough Jimmy acts like a kind of prophet, a John the Baptist figure predicting the end of the railways. Weaving those layers into the story was great fun.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-you-reading-at-the-moment">What are you reading at the moment?</h3>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1535" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/geese-vcove.jpg" alt="book cover of The Meaning of Geese by Nick Acheson" class="wp-image-70348" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/geese-vcove.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/geese-vcove-521x800.jpg 521w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/geese-vcove-651x1000.jpg 651w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/geese-vcove-768x1179.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>I&#8217;ve just finished reading <em>The Meaning of Geese</em> by Nick Acheson. He wrote it during lockdown. He&#8217;s a Norfolk writer, and he spent lockdown on his mother&#8217;s red push bike, cycling around, following the geese and recording all their activities, and interviewing all the people who work with geese; the birders, shooters, the wardens at Holkham and the scientists as well, and it&#8217;s quite a magical read.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-biggest-literary-influences">Biggest literary influences?</h3>



<p>Two huge influences for me are&nbsp;<em>Tess of the d’Urbervilles</em>&nbsp;by Thomas Hardy and&nbsp;<em>The Go-Between</em>&nbsp;by L.P. Hartley. Hardy’s portrayal of a doomed woman definitely shaped&nbsp;<em>The Sitter</em>&nbsp;and gave me a somewhat gloomy outlook on what could happen to women back then &#8211; though I love his writing, I wouldn’t have wanted to be married to him for all the tea in China!</p>



<p>L.P. Hartley’s&nbsp;<em>The Go-Between</em>&nbsp;also had a big impact. In fact, I named the aristocrat in my book Lord Hartley as a nod to him. The story has echoes of that novel, with Jack Stamp carrying messages for Rosie, and it’s set in the same part of Norfolk, oddly enough, even the same year!</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-favourite-local-places-to-eat-out">Favourite local places to eat out?</h3>



<p>I like Back to the Garden on the A148, it&#8217;s recently been taken over by Jarrolds, I like to meet friends there. But if we want to go out for a nice meal, we always go to <a href="https://blakeney-moorings.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Moorings</a> in Blakeney. It&#8217;s quite a workaday environment but the food there is lovely they are always really inventive with what they put together. My favourite dish is halibut, clams, bouillabaisse and courgette. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-favourite-shop">Favourite shop?</h3>



<p><a href="https://kellinghome.com/pages/kelling-and-friends-at-creake?srsltid=AfmBOoozPL_4VlwMrd047yjcXlgEL3wTRq8ql9DXK6ZyfENgneTTlUni" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kelling Home and Friends</a> at <a href="https://www.creakeabbey.co.uk/shop-kellinghome" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creake Abbey</a> &#8211;  my daughter-in-law works there and they do all these lovely lampshades, rugs and interiors pieces, bringing over stuff from India and lots of quirky lovely things.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-favourite-cultural-hotspot">Favourite cultural hotspot?</h3>



<p>I love going to the cinema at <a href="https://www.wellsmaltings.org.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wells Maltings</a>. Lately, we’ve been enjoying concerts at South Creek Church for the <a href="https://www.northnorfolkmusicfestival.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">North Norfolk Music Festival</a> &#8211; it’s absolutely wonderful. The music is top quality, and the setting is stunning and atmospheric.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-bucket-list-place-to-visit-in-norfolk">Bucket list place to visit in Norfolk?</h3>



<p>Definitely Holkham Beach. But I also love Cley, walking out along the coast path, down the east bank, across the shingle at low tide, and back toward the windmill. It’s usually peaceful, though on busy days it can be a bit like Oxford Street so maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it! Still, it’s an absolute must in my opinion. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1422" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/The-Sitter-jacket-cover.jpg" alt="The Sitter by Caroline McGhie" class="wp-image-70320" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/The-Sitter-jacket-cover.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/The-Sitter-jacket-cover-563x800.jpg 563w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/The-Sitter-jacket-cover-703x1000.jpg 703w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2025/08/The-Sitter-jacket-cover-768x1092.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p><strong><em>The Sitter</em> by Caroline McGhie is out Thu 25 Sep, you can pre-order it <a href="https://waterlandbooks.co.uk/shop/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a></strong>, <strong>or meet Caroline in person as she is out and about around the county discussing the novel</strong> <strong>at the <strong><a href="http://www.cromermuseum.norfolk.gov.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cromer Museum</a></strong> Fri 3 Oct and at Holkham Hall Sun 5 Oct</strong>. </p>



<p><strong><em>The Sitter </em>has also been chosen by <a href="http://www.thebookhive.co.uk/">Aylsham Book Hive</a> in conjunction with Aylsham Library for The Aylsham Big Town Read this autumn, culminating in a town book group discussion at Friendship Hall, Mon 20 Oct</strong>.</p>


From newsrooms to novels: Caroline McGhie talks writing, books and Norfolk life

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