![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Guest author - Sandra Lindsey
Nov. 3rd, 2017 01:31 pmLovely to welcome Sandra here today to answer my questions about her stories in Call to Arms.
What inspired your story?
It’s easy to say what inspired my first story, A Cup of Tea – it was this photograph and its accompanying caption, which appeared on my Twitter feed thanks to the wonderful Dr Kate Lister’s #HistoricalHotties (@WhoresofYore). I mean, who wouldn’t want to write about such a cheerful looking chap? It did surprise me how the story turned out, though it is something I feel we should always bear in mind when writing about the effects of any conflict: it’s not just death which deprives people of contact with their families, simply being absent for long periods of service can leave a young person wondering who to turn to for advice in lieu of their parent.
As for Between Friends, I wrote in a bit more length over on my blog about how that tale came about, but the short answer is “I realised I knew virtually nothing about Brazilian history, so I started learning.” Obviously, I doubt I could ever write about any aspect of this as well as a Brazilian writer, so I focused in on a single relationship, and how major events can make one re-evaluate past choices. And I’m left with a lingering desire to visit Manaus, city of the Amazonian rainforest.
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
My personal family connections to WWII are through my grandparents. Between the eldest and youngest of the four of them there was an age-gap of 18 years, so they had quite diverse experiences with one grandfather being a married man in 1939, and the other still in school! None of my grandparents ever left the UK due to the war, but they had very varied experiences: my granny took care of 2 evacuee boys from the East End of London and my grandma was at teacher training college in Bedford – which was quite a trek over from her home in St Helens, especially with all the nameboards removed from railway stations. She had some great stories about those journeys, and also almost being arrested as a spy by a village policeman when out on a bicycle ride and spending too long examining a map when unknowingly near somewhere of ‘strategic importance to the war effort’. Grandad C joined the RAF at the first opportunity – even though, as a married man, he wouldn’t have been conscripted until much later in the war – because he’d always loved aeroplanes. He worked as ground crew at various airfields for the duration, and I believe also worked with the barrage balloons over London. Grandad B – who was in his final year or two of school in 1939 – was unable to pursue his chosen career in estate management due to the war, so took up an engineering apprenticeship (I forget now exactly where, and sadly he died last May so I can no longer ask him, but it was one of the “three Vs”: Vickers, Viking or Viaduct), and after a couple of years he left to join the army. His apprenticeship excluded him from conscription but as he once told me “12 hour shifts, plus travel each way, meant I barely saw daylight all the time I worked there”, which is a good reminder that people’s reasons for choosing a particular path in life are not always what you might think!
Is there a local connection to WWII where you live?
Local connections to WWII abound all over the UK, I think – even if you don’t expect to find them, it doesn’t usually take many questions to get back to “during the war” as an explanation for something. There’s a bridge over near the border with England, not far from here, which still has the anti-tank defences in place. I think they might be the main reason for not widening the bridge to accept two-way traffic! The village I live in is not far from Lake Vyrnwy which – as the main water supply for Liverpool – was, and probably still is, classed as a major strategic resource. The remains of a gun emplacement can still be seen near the boathouse on the lake, and there was a PoW camp for Germans captured by the Allies about 3 miles away. I tried to write about that but found it’s not my story to tell. There may well be other local connections – the area is still used to this day for army exercises and low-flying practice, so I doubt the few tales I’ve heard are the full story!
Sandra lives in the mountains of Mid-Wales with her husband, cats and chickens. You’ll probably hear as much about them as her writing if you follow her on Twitter (@SLindseyWales) or Facebook (Sandra Lindsey), and her Instagram (@sandralindseywales) is mostly pictures of her garden.
Sandra loves reading, writing and discussing stories. She finds they are a route to seeing the world from different viewpoints and understanding other experiences. Her novel Under Leaden Skies is also set during WW2 and she contributed to the Austen themed anthology A Certain Persuasion, both published by Manifold Press.
What inspired your story?
It’s easy to say what inspired my first story, A Cup of Tea – it was this photograph and its accompanying caption, which appeared on my Twitter feed thanks to the wonderful Dr Kate Lister’s #HistoricalHotties (@WhoresofYore). I mean, who wouldn’t want to write about such a cheerful looking chap? It did surprise me how the story turned out, though it is something I feel we should always bear in mind when writing about the effects of any conflict: it’s not just death which deprives people of contact with their families, simply being absent for long periods of service can leave a young person wondering who to turn to for advice in lieu of their parent.
As for Between Friends, I wrote in a bit more length over on my blog about how that tale came about, but the short answer is “I realised I knew virtually nothing about Brazilian history, so I started learning.” Obviously, I doubt I could ever write about any aspect of this as well as a Brazilian writer, so I focused in on a single relationship, and how major events can make one re-evaluate past choices. And I’m left with a lingering desire to visit Manaus, city of the Amazonian rainforest.
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
My personal family connections to WWII are through my grandparents. Between the eldest and youngest of the four of them there was an age-gap of 18 years, so they had quite diverse experiences with one grandfather being a married man in 1939, and the other still in school! None of my grandparents ever left the UK due to the war, but they had very varied experiences: my granny took care of 2 evacuee boys from the East End of London and my grandma was at teacher training college in Bedford – which was quite a trek over from her home in St Helens, especially with all the nameboards removed from railway stations. She had some great stories about those journeys, and also almost being arrested as a spy by a village policeman when out on a bicycle ride and spending too long examining a map when unknowingly near somewhere of ‘strategic importance to the war effort’. Grandad C joined the RAF at the first opportunity – even though, as a married man, he wouldn’t have been conscripted until much later in the war – because he’d always loved aeroplanes. He worked as ground crew at various airfields for the duration, and I believe also worked with the barrage balloons over London. Grandad B – who was in his final year or two of school in 1939 – was unable to pursue his chosen career in estate management due to the war, so took up an engineering apprenticeship (I forget now exactly where, and sadly he died last May so I can no longer ask him, but it was one of the “three Vs”: Vickers, Viking or Viaduct), and after a couple of years he left to join the army. His apprenticeship excluded him from conscription but as he once told me “12 hour shifts, plus travel each way, meant I barely saw daylight all the time I worked there”, which is a good reminder that people’s reasons for choosing a particular path in life are not always what you might think!
Is there a local connection to WWII where you live?
Local connections to WWII abound all over the UK, I think – even if you don’t expect to find them, it doesn’t usually take many questions to get back to “during the war” as an explanation for something. There’s a bridge over near the border with England, not far from here, which still has the anti-tank defences in place. I think they might be the main reason for not widening the bridge to accept two-way traffic! The village I live in is not far from Lake Vyrnwy which – as the main water supply for Liverpool – was, and probably still is, classed as a major strategic resource. The remains of a gun emplacement can still be seen near the boathouse on the lake, and there was a PoW camp for Germans captured by the Allies about 3 miles away. I tried to write about that but found it’s not my story to tell. There may well be other local connections – the area is still used to this day for army exercises and low-flying practice, so I doubt the few tales I’ve heard are the full story!
Sandra lives in the mountains of Mid-Wales with her husband, cats and chickens. You’ll probably hear as much about them as her writing if you follow her on Twitter (@SLindseyWales) or Facebook (Sandra Lindsey), and her Instagram (@sandralindseywales) is mostly pictures of her garden.
Sandra loves reading, writing and discussing stories. She finds they are a route to seeing the world from different viewpoints and understanding other experiences. Her novel Under Leaden Skies is also set during WW2 and she contributed to the Austen themed anthology A Certain Persuasion, both published by Manifold Press.
