Authors Electric

 We had a great time on 20th October at West Barnes Library with our first in-person author event since January 2020. It was so nice to have an audience! David Young and Amanda Lees came to talk about their new WW2 books.  Death in Blitz City is set in David Young's hometown of Hull. After London, it was one of the cities most badly bombed during the war.  The Silence Before Dawn  is based in France, in particular, near Lyon. Amanda Lees wanted to focus on the female spies from the SOE who were sent to France to work with the Resistance. I wish I could tell you everything that David and Amanda said but my brain is like a sieve these days. So, I'll give you some of my personal highlights from the evening. One question I asked was about research and if there had been any surprises. David Young includes American GIs in his book and he was amazed to discover that the Americans had their own prison in the UK during the war. More than that, they dispensed their own justic...

Of Chairs and Books.. When I worked as a supply teacher, it was always a matter of concern as to where I should sit in the staffroom.  I knew that permanent staff usually had their own chairs, their places of safety where they could relax for a few minutes with some easy conversation, until the bell went and called them back to duty. How many times have I stood uncertainly hovering, until I was sure of a spare chair? It wasn’t deference or a sense of unworthiness that made me hesitate. Somehow I knew how important those chairs were to their occupants, a small home-from-home in the challenging world of school.   At home, I have my own precious armchair , my own ‘girl cave’ actually, because it’s much more than a chair. I think I could live there, you know, with only occasional sorties to the kitchen or the ‘facilities’ and the odd visit from friends. Maybe I will when I’m really old and doddery (even more doddery that is). I think some very old people do ‘live ‘ in...