Ordinary Kate

Kate Rider
- Hester Burton

It is 1646 and England is in the middle of the Civil War between King Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell leader of the Parliamentarian army. Kate Rider is the twelve year old daughter of a middle class farmer away at war against the king and she couldn't feel more insignificant and ordinary. It is not that she sees herself as lowly but that she realises what seems to her the smallness of her influence and importance. The Rider is a family of strong willed, opinionated people and Kate's placidity and child like attitude infuriates her mother, brother Adam and sister Priscilla. The only member of her family that Kate really feels she relates to is her brother Ralph who has had to go sea leaving Kate feeling lost at home.

At the beginning of the story Kate is convinced in her views that her father is a hero and that the Parliamentarians are fighting for what is right. However, her foundations are rocked by opposition that comes right from the heart of their family when Adam reveals his Royalist loyalties. The short period of peace in the war and the return of Kate's father in 1647 does not bring peace to the Rider family. Adam simmers with indignation for the King while his father reels in a sense of betrayal. Kate struggles to balance her love for her gentle father with the awe she has always held for her prickly brother. Soon afterwards Adam runs away and makes an unwise marriage to Kate's best friend and their penniless neighbor Tamsin. He and Tamsin are determined to be independent and they hide themselves away in a nearby city leaving two troubled families behind them. Things only grow worse however with a new outbreak of war in 1648 which will for the first time pit the father and son against each other in battle. The final crisis arises when Kate, Adam and Tamsin are trapped in the siege of the Royalist defended city Colchester.

It can be easy to hate a distant enemy. It can be easy to absolutely despise the person who is putting your loved ones at risk.  If there is no real connection with the enemy, no background story or face that springs to mind, blame and loathing can sprout up like a rampant weed. It is not so easy though, when the enemy is your brother, your best friend and their helpless baby. Civil War tears the strongest ties apart as families rip away and turn on each other. Loyalties are destroyed and no matter the outcome there will always be loss and defeat.

By the end of this book Kate without evening noticing the change, through her quietness and courage has become a stalwart of the family. Her love for her family on both sides is focal in the final rebuilding of the family.

I think Hester Burton is a fantastic author because she gives such a personal, revealing view into history by showing events through the eyes of people from the masses rather than through the key movers of the time. Through her books you can see how history effected so many people in such large ways. Kate isn't an important person in history and in this book she has a very small circle of movement and power but she is someone a reader is able to relate to and history becomes real in seeing it through her eyes.


"He [Adam] saw it all she thought. He saw how terrible it was for their father to be out there on Lexden Heath in arms against his son.
'Why, Kate? Why did he go? He must have known that I should be with Colonel Lucas?'
'Because he had to fight for what he thought was right,' she replied bleakly. 
'And so must I, Kate.'
Gone was the pride and exultation of war.
'And so must I,' he said again,
The words were wrung from him in agony. 
She ached for him.
'I think Father understands,' she murmured.
'And Mother? And Ralph?'
She did not know. But that Adam should care what they thought: that Adam torn between his loyalty to the King and his love of his family, should feel so guilty and lost, pulled at her heart. She sat on in the shadows at his side without speaking, overwhelmed with pity."