Guest author - Julie Bozza
Nov. 9th, 2017 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneLovely to have me old cobber Julie Bozza here today. Great timing as the women's Ashes test has just started and my first proper conversation with Julie was during the end of a men's Ashes test. For those of you for whom that means nothing, it's cricket talk.
What inspired your story?
Initially I thought I might not be able to contribute to this anthology, as the Second World War isn’t exactly my area of expertise. However, it occurred to me that this was a chance to write about Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and their experiences of the War. Not only were their London homes destroyed by bombs, but their Sussex home near the south-east coast of England was often directly under the flight paths of both German and British planes.
I had been shocked to discover the reality of ‘The Black Book’ which was a German guide to invading Britain. It included the Wolves’ names in it as people to be immediately arrested once Britain was occupied. While no one in Britain knew about the book until after the war, this really brought home to me the realities of their fears.
What finally brought all this together into a story for me was seeing a photo of the Wolves’ sitting room at Monk’s House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex. The room has a luminous underwater feel to it. And that was the image that writerly me had been looking for, to tie all these great matters together into something personal and manageable.
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
As I’m sure is true for all of us, there are many connections. The one that intrigues me, though, is something that (as far as I’m aware) has never been raised or maybe even thought about by anyone else. And that is: My maternal grandfather, who was English, worked on the Home Front in Britain during the war. My husband’s maternal grandfather, who was German, fought in Siberia and tragically was declared missing in action. The fact that their grandchildren could fall in love and marry with a complete absence of controversy gives me great hope.
It reminds me that no matter the propaganda and lies that were spread at a governing level (by all sides), the actual people involved knew better, and were fully capable of judging for themselves when reconciliation was appropriate.
Is there a local connection in the area where you live to WWII?
We live just up the road from Brock Barracks in Reading, Berkshire. Over the years, they seem to have been involved in just about everything! Among other things, I was very interested to read that the Barracks were the base for a Glider Infantry Regiment of the US Army, as they prepared for the Normandy landings.
Reading fared comparatively well in terms of the bombings, but there was an air raid in February 1943, when a lone Luftwaffe plane managed to kill 41 people in the town centre, and injure many more.
Today we are blessed with a multicultural community which has been linked anecdotally with local refugee and resettlement camps, especially for Eastern Europeans. To be fair, though, I haven’t found much evidence that Reading was any more or less involved in this practical assistance than other towns and cities. I do like the results, though, for both the many peoples and the many foods!
Julie Bozza is an English-Australian hybrid who is fuelled by espresso, calmed by knitting, unreasonably excited by photography, and madly in love with Amy Adams and John Keats.
What inspired your story?
Initially I thought I might not be able to contribute to this anthology, as the Second World War isn’t exactly my area of expertise. However, it occurred to me that this was a chance to write about Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and their experiences of the War. Not only were their London homes destroyed by bombs, but their Sussex home near the south-east coast of England was often directly under the flight paths of both German and British planes.
I had been shocked to discover the reality of ‘The Black Book’ which was a German guide to invading Britain. It included the Wolves’ names in it as people to be immediately arrested once Britain was occupied. While no one in Britain knew about the book until after the war, this really brought home to me the realities of their fears.
What finally brought all this together into a story for me was seeing a photo of the Wolves’ sitting room at Monk’s House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex. The room has a luminous underwater feel to it. And that was the image that writerly me had been looking for, to tie all these great matters together into something personal and manageable.
Do you have a family connection to WWII?
As I’m sure is true for all of us, there are many connections. The one that intrigues me, though, is something that (as far as I’m aware) has never been raised or maybe even thought about by anyone else. And that is: My maternal grandfather, who was English, worked on the Home Front in Britain during the war. My husband’s maternal grandfather, who was German, fought in Siberia and tragically was declared missing in action. The fact that their grandchildren could fall in love and marry with a complete absence of controversy gives me great hope.
It reminds me that no matter the propaganda and lies that were spread at a governing level (by all sides), the actual people involved knew better, and were fully capable of judging for themselves when reconciliation was appropriate.
Is there a local connection in the area where you live to WWII?
We live just up the road from Brock Barracks in Reading, Berkshire. Over the years, they seem to have been involved in just about everything! Among other things, I was very interested to read that the Barracks were the base for a Glider Infantry Regiment of the US Army, as they prepared for the Normandy landings.
Reading fared comparatively well in terms of the bombings, but there was an air raid in February 1943, when a lone Luftwaffe plane managed to kill 41 people in the town centre, and injure many more.
Today we are blessed with a multicultural community which has been linked anecdotally with local refugee and resettlement camps, especially for Eastern Europeans. To be fair, though, I haven’t found much evidence that Reading was any more or less involved in this practical assistance than other towns and cities. I do like the results, though, for both the many peoples and the many foods!
Julie Bozza is an English-Australian hybrid who is fuelled by espresso, calmed by knitting, unreasonably excited by photography, and madly in love with Amy Adams and John Keats.
