Post by Administrator on Aug 19, 2013 18:42:51 GMT
All The Nice Girls - Dame Joan Bakewell:
Dame Joan Bakewell and her first novel, All The Nice Girls.
The idea for which developed when she was in her attic rummaging through her old belongings. First, she happened upon some love letters from her adolescent years, exclaiming, 'Gosh! Love letters are boring!', and imparting to us that the reason for this is the repetition of the word 'love' in such notes. More importantly, however, she discovered some documents relating to the British Ship Adoption Society during World War II from when her school had 'adopted' a ship.
This got her thinking how there must have been 'undercurrents in this story', more than meets the eye, so she set about looking into the background of the Ship Adoption Society at the National Maritime Museum, perusing documents that seemed untouched for eons: 'Dust all over them and bound by strings'. Following her journalistic instincts, she did as much research as she could, visiting the Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool to swot up on the essential details needed to write historical fiction and leaving with the decision: 'I'm going to make one of my characters a Wren!' Bakewell says she was so enraptured by what she had learned about the women serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service that she wanted to convey a story from their perspective. She also became interested in the British mercantile fleet and the threat from German U-boats to merchant seamen in the Atlantic, and this comes across in the novel's tangible ominous feeling
LINK:.
Dame Joan Bakewell and her first novel, All The Nice Girls.
The idea for which developed when she was in her attic rummaging through her old belongings. First, she happened upon some love letters from her adolescent years, exclaiming, 'Gosh! Love letters are boring!', and imparting to us that the reason for this is the repetition of the word 'love' in such notes. More importantly, however, she discovered some documents relating to the British Ship Adoption Society during World War II from when her school had 'adopted' a ship.
This got her thinking how there must have been 'undercurrents in this story', more than meets the eye, so she set about looking into the background of the Ship Adoption Society at the National Maritime Museum, perusing documents that seemed untouched for eons: 'Dust all over them and bound by strings'. Following her journalistic instincts, she did as much research as she could, visiting the Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool to swot up on the essential details needed to write historical fiction and leaving with the decision: 'I'm going to make one of my characters a Wren!' Bakewell says she was so enraptured by what she had learned about the women serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service that she wanted to convey a story from their perspective. She also became interested in the British mercantile fleet and the threat from German U-boats to merchant seamen in the Atlantic, and this comes across in the novel's tangible ominous feeling
LINK:.