Guest author - Eleanor Musgrove
Nov. 4th, 2017 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneI have been greatly enjoying reading Call to Arms - I got to Eleanor's stories the last few days and they're smashing. So it's particularly appropriate that she's my guest today
What inspired your story?
When I saw the call for submissions, I wanted to do something with the idea of telegrams - it’s one of the strongest images in my mind when the war is mentioned. The knock on the door and the sinking feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. Pairing my telegram messenger with a nurse just seemed right somehow, as they could both often be bearers of bad news. I was also very aware of how recent the previous war would have been, and that those wounds would still be fresh!
I also wanted to check back in with Henry and Rosie from one of my stories in Manifold’s previous war anthology, A Pride of Poppies. They were young and just discovering their feelings for one another during WWI, so I wanted to see how they’d grown up and what their lives were like - and, of course, change those lives completely. And we get to meet Henry’s brother Peter properly, too!
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
My family doesn’t have many direct connections to the fighting in WWII, because it happened when one generation was too young and the other just slightly too old. They did, of course, live through it! One of my grandmothers tells a wonderful (if slightly infuriating) story about taking shelter in the doorway of a glass-fronted pub in London with her friend as bombs fell. She describes hearing them crashing to earth in the next street along, coming along the length of the road, terrifyingly close. “We were across the road from the public shelter,” she adds, “but we didn’t want to go in there.” So she took cover in a pub made of glass? “I suppose it was a bit silly, really. We probably should have gone in the shelter.”
We also have a letter from the police in a frame upstairs, explaining that said grandmother’s husband was only late for his war duties one evening because he was held up by an air raid and therefore shouldn’t face disciplinary action. It seems he took it in with him when he finally arrived! It’s bizarre to think that at the time, an air raid was filed under ‘acceptable reasons to be late for work’, along with roadworks and traffic jams.
Is there a local connection to WWII where you live?
I live in Essex, and apparently it’s one of the places in the country where you are most likely to dig up an unexploded WWII bomb. So, that’s good to know! It makes sense, because besides having a load of strategic targets (like the docks), it’s also right on the Luftwaffe’s flight path to London and back. If you didn’t fancy tangling with the larger numbers of anti-aircraft defences in the capital, it would make perfect sense to drop your bombs here - or if you had any left on the way home! (Charlie's note - same here!)
Eleanor Musgrove is a full-time unpaid carer who writes in the snatched moments between medications. Her first novel, Submerge, was published last year by Manifold Press, and she’s working on something completely different now! You can find sporadic updates on her blog at and on her Patreon.
What inspired your story?
When I saw the call for submissions, I wanted to do something with the idea of telegrams - it’s one of the strongest images in my mind when the war is mentioned. The knock on the door and the sinking feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. Pairing my telegram messenger with a nurse just seemed right somehow, as they could both often be bearers of bad news. I was also very aware of how recent the previous war would have been, and that those wounds would still be fresh!
I also wanted to check back in with Henry and Rosie from one of my stories in Manifold’s previous war anthology, A Pride of Poppies. They were young and just discovering their feelings for one another during WWI, so I wanted to see how they’d grown up and what their lives were like - and, of course, change those lives completely. And we get to meet Henry’s brother Peter properly, too!
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
My family doesn’t have many direct connections to the fighting in WWII, because it happened when one generation was too young and the other just slightly too old. They did, of course, live through it! One of my grandmothers tells a wonderful (if slightly infuriating) story about taking shelter in the doorway of a glass-fronted pub in London with her friend as bombs fell. She describes hearing them crashing to earth in the next street along, coming along the length of the road, terrifyingly close. “We were across the road from the public shelter,” she adds, “but we didn’t want to go in there.” So she took cover in a pub made of glass? “I suppose it was a bit silly, really. We probably should have gone in the shelter.”
We also have a letter from the police in a frame upstairs, explaining that said grandmother’s husband was only late for his war duties one evening because he was held up by an air raid and therefore shouldn’t face disciplinary action. It seems he took it in with him when he finally arrived! It’s bizarre to think that at the time, an air raid was filed under ‘acceptable reasons to be late for work’, along with roadworks and traffic jams.
Is there a local connection to WWII where you live?
I live in Essex, and apparently it’s one of the places in the country where you are most likely to dig up an unexploded WWII bomb. So, that’s good to know! It makes sense, because besides having a load of strategic targets (like the docks), it’s also right on the Luftwaffe’s flight path to London and back. If you didn’t fancy tangling with the larger numbers of anti-aircraft defences in the capital, it would make perfect sense to drop your bombs here - or if you had any left on the way home! (Charlie's note - same here!)
Eleanor Musgrove is a full-time unpaid carer who writes in the snatched moments between medications. Her first novel, Submerge, was published last year by Manifold Press, and she’s working on something completely different now! You can find sporadic updates on her blog at and on her Patreon.
