The London Life series carried many echoes from my own life and family. My grandparents and parents were born in London and during my childhood London was only an hours journey by train and was a regular place for trips to explore the sights.
In Fateful Shadows Casey was the daughter of a publican. In the Loveday books readers will remember that Meriel was also an innkeepers daughter and the Dolphin inn features in all the novels.
We tend to write what we know and several members of my family have been publicans. For a time My great-grandmother ran an inn in St Albans. My father was the sports and social secretary on the workers estate of the Bata Shoe Factory in East Tilbury and he ran the social club and bar. A cousin of my father's ran a bar and hotel on the Isle of Sheppey, another cousin and my stepsister had bars in Kent and more recently a niece ran a popular tourist bar in Devon. Some of the pub names you may recognise from my novels. The Dolphin and The Britannia. Also the current novel I am writing has that is set on Dartmoor has an innkeeper's daughter as the heroine.
Writing Fateful Shadows brought back many happy childhood memory's of the camaraderie surrounding pub life. I was however very young as my father died when I was a child so I suppose I keep a link with him alive through the lives of my heroines.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment