Why did I write this book?

It was the first year of Covid lockdown and I couldn’t see my granddaughters except on-line. We would say hello , then there wasn’t much to talk about, as none of us had been doing anything new and they would soon disappear and leave me talking to older family members. I began to feel I was losing touch with them.

Then I had the idea of writing a story and sending a chapter at a time. I tried to make the end of each chapter something of a cliff-hanger so they would look forward to the next one.  The older granddaughter had often asked me about my childhood and enjoyed accounts of my school and home life, so that seemed a good place to start. But it had to be fiction; I never thought my own life would make a good story!

I grew up in the Lincolnshire fens, in a village several miles from any town. My father was a teacher in the senior part of the village school, but he never taught me because I left the school after passing the 11plus and went to High School in a town 16 miles away. My mother was mostly a home-maker and I had one younger sister. All this is quite different from the family life of Susan in my book. But my memories of life in that village have helped to shape the background to Susan’s story. The flat, often bleak landscape, the Rec. (recreation ground or park), the basic amenities, the chapel, and the school environment would be familiar to anyone who lived there at that time.

Susan is a tough, resilient and generally cheerful character; she’s not perfect, but I think readers will sympathise with her as her world is disrupted by the arrival of the cousins, Maria and Juliet. The cousins at first seem difficult and disdainful, and somewhat blunt and insensitive too, but they evoke sympathy because their mother has died and gradually, as the family get to know them better, understanding grows, even with Susan’s younger brothers. The parents are in the background but play a key part in being fair, firm and loving and holding the family together.

Pets, the dog Rover and the kitten Sooty, are important in the book, as they always are to children. I have started another book in which Sooty has grown up and has kittens on Susan’s bed!  This did happen to me when I was ill in bed once, so some of the incidents do reflect real life.

My granddaughter very much enjoyed the book, so I hope other people will too.

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