I have had a couple of e-mails from relations of ‘Mr Rosenblums’ and they’ve been wondering how Jack got his name. I’ve blogged before about how Jack came to be called Jack (he was ‘Sam’ for a while — so wrong) but not about the origin of Rosenblum. It is not a family name — I have no relations called Rosenblum.

My grandfather was Paul Schwartzscheld (a German name meaning Blackshield) but when he arrived in England with his brother, they split the name in two, my grandfather becoming Mr Shields and his brother Mr Black. I always found this very sad, and I knew that this name-splitting was a scene I wanted in the novel. So, I needed Jack to have a German name that could be split in two, not simply anglicised. The breaking of names and tradition is a central theme in the book. However, so is landscape and Jack-in-the-Green and I also wanted a name that evoked that sense of nature and wildness.

Rosenblum is perfect as it is a Mondegreen*: the locals call Jack ‘Mr Rose-in-Bloom’ – a lovely version of his name with wonderful connotations of Jack and Sadie blooming in Dorset, wild roses etc.

*A ‘Mondegreen’ is a mishearing of a phrase due to near homophoney. The American writer Sylvie Wright coined the phrase, explaining that as a child she misheard the final line of a ballad: ‘They have slain the Earl O’ Moray, and Lady Mondegreen,’ instead of the correct line  ‘They have slain the Earl O’ Moray, And laid him on the green.’

A quick note… the lovely people over at Bookhugger are running a brilliant competition where you can win a week’s holiday in Mr Rosenblum’s Cottage (the real cottage that my grandparents bought after the war, which inspired me to create Chantry Orchard). Check it out and you might win!