Tag Archives: Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoirs and Letters from Home

Time, You Old Gypsy Man,

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Will you not stay,

Put up your caravan

Just for one day?

etc Ralph Hodgson

It is more than a month since I posted here. My three email inboxes are bulging and I still haven’t posted flyers for Surviving the Death Railway to friends and relatives on my mailing list… A week today on Thursday 28 July, I will be giving a lecture at The National Archives in Kew titled Writing to a Ghost: Far East POWs (by this time a week today it will be over!). But this is the first of five going into November.

At the two launches for my book many people sweetly offered the same theme, with variations: ‘You must be so proud, now you can relax.’ I am proud of the people in the book and very happy that others have been able to recognise their achievements now and  yes, I’m pleased that I played a part in that. Relax? In my dreams.

In between these events I continue to attend the local Toastmasters Club, where I am learning to overcome my fear of public speaking. This is the warmest safest environment imaginable. Many bright young things, often giving speeches in their second language, as well as several of my own age – a very buzzy, happy, honest, international crowd – and that in spite of the nightmare of Brexit and many other world horrors. This provides a good reminder that the newspapers only tell us the bad stuff, there’s plenty of the other. Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 22.06.36

And, the hedgehog still attends nightly (looking a little anxious about being photographed). I even saw three of them one night. DSCN9629 Of course the garden, a little neglected, will still be there when this caravan limps into a parking space. (These so-green photos were taken before the current heat wave!) DSCN9631 DSCN9606

See you all again soon.

One staff officer jumped right over another staff officer’s head…

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On 21 May we had a launch party for Surviving the Death Railway; A POW’s Memoir and Letters from Home in the beautiful home where I spent the second half of my childhood. Here it is in the early morning of our wedding day in 1977. Dipford 1977 The party went splendidly and I was moved by the wonderful mixture of people – from relatives of the families in the book, to local people who remembered Barry and Phyllis (the book is about Barry, a Far East POW and Phyllis his wife, who waited out the war with no direct communication for three and a half years) and many of Barry and Phyllis’s (and my) relatives. There were men swapping stories about their father and their uncle and holding back their tears.

We returned across the country to our home. I began to relax, thinking I now had nearly a month to finish the private version of the book (done, and the proof copy arrived this morning to be checked),DSCN9555 and to rescue the garden from the chaos of neglect DSCN9552(ongoing) and rediscover my studyDSCN9515

under the piles books and papers (also done),DSCN9526before the second launch for local friends and other relatives on 18 June. This would then give me time to sort out marketing and publicity stuff before the release of the book on 30 June… I had even started looking in on your lovely, neglected blogs again. However, three days ago a cheerful email arrived telling me that the book had now been released (Pen and Sword publish by month and Amazon always release on the last day of that month – but I didn’t know that). This morning a lovely person from P & S’s digital marketing arm rang for more  information and this evening I managed to update my website. Next Saturday I have 60 plus people coming for sandwiches, sangria and a book. I am juggling garden rescue, food planning and creating, proof-reading (again!!) and I feel as though I am being leapfrogged at every turn.

In between all this I have joined the local branch of Toastmasters to try and overcome my fear of public speaking (I did my ice-breaker last Tuesday to the friendliest bunch of people you could dream up). And I have been arranging talks in museums on Far East POWs.

This is all in the way of saying sorry that I am not visiting your blogs. I will return when the staff officers stop playing leapfrog.

Running out of time, my birthday present to my husband was the promise of a few days in Venice in September – sort of cheating as I get to go too… I can’t wait.

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Pleasaunces, unpleasaunces and a book break

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Christopher Lloyd said that all gardens have an unpleasaunce as well as a pleasance – ours has several. In the last couple of months my husband has created order out of chaos and we are unpleasaunce down and several compost bins, new fence and a log shelter up.

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The rest of the garden is half way through June as far as I can tell.

… I am being forced to use the new editor as I cannot upload media in the old one… and it is sending me crackers!! I have no idea why these images are different sizes. Here, I hope, is my art-house image of the garden.DSCN9375

This post is really to say a brief goodbye as I tackle the pre-publication launch parties for the new book. Copies were due last week… they will now arrive three days before the first party. I shall be away from my desk for several days. My sanity is hanging by a thread. I am trailing behind  with all your posts, so will be doing some leapfrogging. Sorry about the ones I will miss.Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 21.26.02

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Proofs to the left of me, proofs to the right of me…

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Free advice to writers – don’t try and work on two versions of the same book at the same time.

A couple of days ago I laid out the proofs of the private family version of Surviving the Death Railway on the dining room table in order to proof read it (again) and create the index. An hour later the final proofs for the published version arrived in my inbox. I cannot resist work, so I will check these again too.DSCN9154 I have to occupy the dining room as there is no space left in my writing room and the state of it is making me feel ill.DSCN9152And yes, my chair is an old block of polystyrene. It is a hangover from my sculpture days. It’s good for posture and it keeps the nether regions warm… but it has seen better days. I’m thinking of converting to a Swedish exercise ball.

The day before the proofs arrived, the marketing team for Pen & Sword got in touch and I have a five-page form to fill in. This is great because I will not be doing the promotion and marketing solo, a job I dread (and am very bad at). However, it is also a headache as I don’t know the answer to many of the questions (local radio? clubs and societies?), or they are tricky for a jack of all trades (short summary of career and education).

In between showers I rush into the garden, collect slugs, dig for half an hour and catch the spring. DSCN9161 DSCN9165 I barely get to emails at the moment and many of your lovely posts are unvisited, I will post this and go on a whistle-stop tour, but then I must get back to the indexing and the marketing forms. I am extremely lucky to have a publisher, but I am a little sad that there are so few hours in the day and that I am neglecting friends.

I have become multi-tasking superwoman – while writing this post I have printed off (one by one) another ten invitation cards to the second of the two launch parties for the book. Anyone near Cambridge let me know, I’ll send one, and you could come and enjoy sandwiches and sangria on the 18th of June (or near Taunton on 21st May for tea and cakes).

I have read the finals proofs… thank god I did, I found some errors I had missed and some gremlins that had crept in via the text editors.

Re tulips… the deep red flowers are Anemone de Caen masquerading as tulips!

New fence, old shed, new maples and ivy everywhere

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That’s just the play time.

New fence,DSCN8949 DSCN9020

Old shed. It has done 27 years and the roof and floor are slowly being chewed up. DSCN9015 DSCN9064The new one has arrived and will be assembled on Friday. Meanwhile, I have become very thin in order to dig out a sludge of earth, stones and roots from the narrow passage at the back of the shed.DSCN9070Some of my beloved maples are coming into leaf and all my transplanted seedlings seem to be thriving. This is Sango Kaku.DSCN9079 - Version 2 DSCN9086 DSCN9082 - Version 2 DSCN9077 The one below may not look much yet, but I’ll post another photo in a couple of weeks time. DSCN9078 - Version 2

And then there’s the ivy. We have taken three loads to the dump and filled four of the big green bins, and there’s still plenty left. DSCN8976In between these activities, I’ve been trying to finish setting the text of the private family version of Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoir and Letters from Home, and organising the launch party for the published version.

Oh, and feeding the hedgehog. DSCN9088That’s spring for you. DSCN9056

Surprises, washing and long-tailed tits

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This should be a serious post I planned about research and time, but as our broadband has been on the blink for a fortnight and there are things I have to attend to rather urgently. This is short and, I hope, sweet.

I went on Amazon to check something for my personal page on the Society of Authors website and found this, which is cheering. Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 15.32.15My husband decided the washing line merited a photo. DSCN8885And I tried so hard to get a photo of the long-tailed tits bathing. This is the best I could manage.DSCN8860 - Version 2

That’s it folks (if the our broadband works long enough to post it).

Page proofs

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Let’s hear it for the publishers Pen & Sword (Military)!

On the 23rd December a downloadable pdf of the 1st proofs of Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoirs and Letters from Home dropped into my inbox and on the 24th a print-out arrived in the post. This has meant that during the post-Christmas lull I have been able to settle to the task of checking them. DSCN8754 The rather altar-like appearance of my workstation is because I have decamped to the post-Christmas dining room table. The numerous Post-Its don’t represent errors, but queries to myself… there do seem to be rather a lot… hmm. The redacted text is exactly that – a photo of a letter with a couple of lines obliterated by the censor.

Previously, I had a nightmare time with a small Indy publisher (novel one) and two arduous self-publishing experiences (novels two & three). This is my first experience of (niche) mainstream publishing and I’m impressed. Pen & Sword asked for specific reductions, but no radical changes, to the text; they changed the title, but I was encouraged to offer suggestions (not used, but I had my say and a veto); they consulted me about content for biogs and blurbs; they allowed me to influence the cover – their covers are not my kind of artwork, but they listened and had three goes; they showed me samples of text formatting before they went too far and changed the appearance of elements that worried me.

Basically, I have been incorporated into the decision process at each turn and problems have been quickly and straightforwardly sorted. The text – a really tricky combination of letters, memoirs, editorial content and 90 odd in-text illustrations, looks infinitely better that I had dreamt it could. So far so good.

Today we went on a kindling collecting walk across fields to a nearby small village. The sun shone, the air was warm and scraps of dead wood abounded. I have always been curious about this ruin in a field in the middle of the small village. I doubt it was a privy as there is too much window and there are no houses (now) nearby. Any ideas?DSCN8766 DSCN8767

Anyone know what this fungus is? (Andrew can you help?) The nearest on the internet is Black Hoof Fungus, but that doesn’t look right to me. Is it something simple and obvious that has just aged into black?DSCN8763 DSCN8773Apologies for the photographer shadow!

Good writing, publishing and walking everyone!

Surviving the Death Railway – to be published

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Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoirs and Letters from Home

To my intense joy and relief the military publishers Pen & Sword and will be launching this title in June/July 2016.

For six years I have been researching and editing a story using a unique collection of letters and a memoir. The letters between my parents, Barry and Phyllis, and my father’s memoir of life as a Japanese POW tell a chronological story of a young couple during World War Two – these are special, but not, perhaps, unique.

What is unique is another collection of letters and a dossier. Phyllis spent the war looking after her baby son AND trying to look after the relatives of the men in Barry’s Royal Signals Unit, 27 Line Section. There were 68 men under Barry’s captaincy and Phyllis had addresses for many of the wives, mothers and fiancées. She sent circular and individual letters, at first to keep up spirits, later to co-ordinate information, and towards the end of the war to create a simple dossier of the men to help identification by rescued POWs at the War Office. To do this she gathered information about each man.

If it is of any help my son was a jolly natured chap, with wavy hair and a gap between his front teeth.

Although there was nothing outstanding in his appearance… he had a tattoo done on his right forearm, it began at the wrist, and went almost to the elbow. It was the figure of a highlander in full national costume…

These letters are heart-breaking and heartwarming and give and insight into the lives of ordinary people coping with the wall of silence that came down with the Fall of Singapore on February 1942.

Barry memoirs record, without  bitterness or bravado, what the lives of the men were like during those years.Wampo pc1He helped to build the Wampo viaduct, he nearly died, he became a chorus girl and he assisted at amputations. After giving blood he remembers a happy encounter with one of the men from his Unit:

“Sir, yesterday I had some of your blood, and last night I dreamt about a woman for the first time since capitulation!”

This story records the two streams of life in Britain and the Far East. What I find so moving is that year after year these relatives wrote into the blue. Although some received a few multiple-choice field cards; no one, as far as I know, ever received an answer to a letter in three and a half years.

Please forgive me, but for the next two months I will only be a very rare visitor to your blogs.  I am already deep in the final editing of the manuscript, gaining permissions for the ninety odd illustrations and preparing them and the maps for publication.