That first night I stared at my computer screen -- with the intention of writing in my journal -- I wasn't sure what details to include. But instead, I envisioned a scene; one from my memory of the small village of Allendale in the North of England. This is the village my mum grew up in and also the village where my grandparents had lived. As little girls, my sister and I would share a small bedroom on the second floor in the back of the house when we visited on holiday. We also shared a bed -- a big soft one that would dip in the middle -- so that in the middle of the night we'd be scrunched together and I would often be annoyed that she was in my space, especially when freezing toes would touch my leg and shock me out of a deep sleep. They didn’t have central heating so we'd hate to have to get up in the night to use the toilet -- we'd sit on that ice cold seat and hold our breaths. Unfortunately it was kind of a closet, so the bath and sink were in an adjoining room and I couldn't be entertained by my nanny's fascinating teeth, floating -- like a biology experiment -- in a jar by the sink. The bath was also big and deep and I loved to sit in there and smell the clean soapy smell -- lavender I think -- and imagine the hot cocoa and cheese on toast my nanny was preparing. We'd sit by the coal fire -- even in the summer -- and have our late supper with wet hair, playing card games. I had many memories of that particular location and also heard so many stories from my mother. So on that night, when I sat to write in my journal, I began a story of two sisters -- twins, as people always thought my sister and I were twins when we were young, being 16 months apart (actually, there was a time when an elderly woman had thought my sister and my brother and I were three identical girl triplets. We all had white shoulder length hair -- yes even my brother -- it was during the Shaun Cassidy era and he had the chocker and open collar to match. My mum's hounding him to cut his hair didn't work, but this older lady's comment sure did). Anyhow, it allowed me to incorporate all my senses from way back when of this quaint home and its traditional customs. Years later, when I went back to visit, it was like stepping back in time. As a child it seemed sheltered from the rest of the world. Don't ask why I didn't create a story set in Nova Scotia, where most of my growing years were spent or Altrincham, Cheshire -- the town we lived in when we moved back to England for a short time. Maybe those are other books. For some reason, the innocence of the place was what drew me in. And most likely the tale I wanted to share was a story of family bonds, of love, and of life's unexpected turns, starting from a very innocent place. I think that's how I'd felt when I sat down to write. I'd been raised in a loving way, naïve somewhat to the unexpected and sometimes hurtful experiences lurking around life's corner, until that point in time. There was a pain inside me, so deep at the thought of the possibility of losing my sister, that this was a way of releasing it. I wouldn't let my mind go there and instead healed it in a different kind of way. At least that's my guess on it. I wasn't aware of why I had such a desire to write, the obsession of it suddenly, but in retrospect it all makes sense.
I used my mother's era because it seemed even more sheltered and I had countless stories of the way it was when she grew up. I'd been a sponge, sucking in all the details that were now a part of me. So I just wrote and wrote and wrote, giggling and crying along the way. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but I knew anything could -- after all it was fiction. So it wasn't my real-life story, but still, these were my senses; my imagination and my feelings were incorporated and weaved throughout.
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