Today, I am delighted to welcome historical writer and friend Merryn Allingham to my blog. Merryn's third book in the 'Daisy's War' Trilogy 'Daisy's Long Road Home' was published on 27th August. I have all of the trilogy on my kindle and, having read the first and loved it, can't wait to read the rest!
Can you remember the moment you knew you wanted to write?
I can’t pinpoint an exact moment. I think I must always
have had a need to write. I do remember lying on the floor as a young child,
pencil in hand, and writing myself poems. And at grammar school, writing
several strange short stories but never daring to mention it – creative writing
was definitely not encouraged. Then there were long letters home when I was working
as cabin crew (pre internet and mobile phones) and at least two ten-year
diaries. So, in some form or other, I’ve harboured the impulse to put pen to
paper for most of my life.
What is it that drew you to historical fiction?
Apart from an enjoyment of history, it was probably the
sense of escaping to another world that I loved most. A world that might seem
familiar, yet in fact was quite unfamiliar. In historical fiction, I get to
live in different houses, wear different clothes, meet different people and
confront different choices. And I hear characters from the past much more
clearly than contemporary voices. For many years, my staple reading was 19th
century novels, I wrote my PhD thesis on Thomas Hardy, and when I began
teaching, the 19th century was my special period. It’s no wonder
that ‘historical’ comes more easily to me!
You grew up in an army family. What was that like?
It was certainly interesting and gave me a far wider
experience of the world than many children my age. But at times it could be
lonely – being an only child wasn’t helpful -
and every few years I had to learn to make a new life for myself. Definitely
character building! I changed schools frequently – at one point I attended four
different schools in two years - so there were always new friends to make. But
on the plus side, I could be seen as unusual, even exotic, by my new
schoolmates. I remember someone in the Welsh grammar school I’d just begun to
attend, commenting on how well I spoke English – for an Egyptian! (my father
had just been posted back to the UK from Egypt). But wherever we ended up, and
in whatever house, my mother made it a home for us.
What writers have inspired you?
In the 19th century, Jane Austen for her
humour and subtle feminism, George Eliot for having a brain the size of a
planet and Thomas Hardy for his storytelling magic. Today, I think Kate
Atkinson and Sarah Waters are my pick – they write popular, page turning books,
without sacrificing an inch on style. Sheer brilliance.
If you had a time machine, what period in history would you
visit?
I’d go back to the Regency, but only if I were a member
of the top one hundred familes in the country. I think I could grow used to a
Mayfair town house, six balls a night during the London season, and lazy
summers spent on my family’s vast estate. Not to mention the flattering outfits
I’d be wearing – I’ve always wanted to own a reticule. But it would have to be
a visit. I wouldn’t have coped at all well with the constraints women faced at
the time and the lack of freedom to forge one’s own path.
What would you say is the biggest pitfall of writing
historical fiction?
It will vary, I guess, between writers. I do a lot of reading and research
for each book so for me, it could be wanting to tell my readers everything I’ve
discovered. When I started the Daisy’s War series, for instance, I gobbled up
books on 1930s and 1940s India. The struggle for Indian independence was
enthralling, a huge drama played out on a huge stage. But readers rightly want
a story and I couldn’t allow my
fascination with the period to run away with me. The story always has to
be central, and the research simply a way of fleshing out setting and
background to create a deeper interest.
Daisy Driscoll is the heroine of your ‘Daisy’s War’ trilogy.
Can you describe her in three words and do you see anything of yourself in
Daisy?
Brave. Determined. Loyal.
I doubt I’d be as brave as Daisy, faced as she is with
making her way through life as a poor orphan, and constantly beset by secrets
and danger. But I’m certainly determined and I hope, steadfast. They are
probably the qualities I admire most.
When you wrote The Girl from Cobb Street, had you
anticipated it would become a trilogy?
Definitely not. The project started with a marriage
certificate – my parents’ - which I unearthed from a pile of papers at the back
of a cupboard I was clearing. My mother travelled to India in April 1937 and
was married in St John’s Afghan Church in what was then, Bombay. Even now India
is exotic, hitting you in the face with its difference. But in the 1930s, the
journey took three weeks at a time when most people rarely ventured far beyond
their homes. I tried to imagine how it must have been for a working class girl
who had never been further from London than a day at the Southend seaside, to
travel to what was an alien world, thousands of miles away, and marry a man she
hadn’t seen for some time - six years in my mother’s case! And so my heroine,
Daisy Driscoll, was born, facing the same hazards in her new life as my mother
had - and then far more, with a deceitful and desperate husband who threatens
her with disaster. And by the end of
The Girl from Cobb Street, I knew I couldn’t
leave my heroine there. I was certain she was going to have more adventures,
and equally certain that eventually she would reach safe harbour – even if it
took three books!
The first two books are set in India and London,
respectively. Can you tell us a little about the final book in the series?
The
trilogy traces ten years in the life of Daisy Driscoll and in the final book, Daisy’s Long Road Home, we meet her in
1948. The war has been over for several years and she is now a qualified Sister, nursing in Brighton. India meantime has suffered a blood-stained partition of
the country. Daisy is convinced that the roots of her identity lie in the East
and is desperate to find the truth. She leaps at the chance to leave her lonely
life behind when her old lover, Grayson Harte, travels back to India to find a
missing colleague. In a series of adventures, she gradually uncovers long
hidden and dangerous secrets about the family she never knew, but eventually
wins through to find the happiness she deserves.
What next for Merryn Allingham?
The next project will be a two book series – a duology?
–this time linked through place rather than a character. The first novel is set
in the long, hot summer of 1914 and the second in the summer of 1944. Both were
crucial moments in this country’s history. The setting is Summerhayes, a large house
and estate that includes an amazing garden, situated somewhere in Sussex. The
gardens offer a rare beauty and should be a place of calm and tranquillity, but
the estate is riven with conflict – between neighbours, within the family
itself, and, of course, there is conflict on a far larger scale with the
rumblings of war in Europe growing louder every day. A Dangerous Summer follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the
Summer family, particularly my heroine, Elizabeth, from May 1914 to September
of the same year, when thousands of men walked into recruitment centres to
volunteer, signalling the real start of the
bloodiest war ever.
The second book links with the first, through theme and
character as well as setting (to say why would give the plot away), but in 1944
Summerhayes is a shadow of its former glory and is being used by the military in
the Second World War as a training ground and jumping off point for the
invasion of Europe. It’s also the setting for more nefarious deeds. So plenty more
drama!
Thank, Merryn for being a lovely guest.
Merryn Allingham worked for many years as a
university lecturer and between job, family and pets, there was little time to
do more than dabble in writing. But when the pressures eased, she grabbed the
chance to do something she’d always promised herself – to write a novel. She’d
taught 19th century literature and grown up reading Georgette Heyer,
so it seemed natural to gravitate towards the Regency period. That was over
five years ago and in that time, she has published six Regency romances under
the name of Isabelle Goddard. It has been a splendid apprenticeship but it left
her wanting to write on a larger canvas and more mainstream fiction. In 2013, she
adopted a new writing name, Merryn Allingham, and a new genre. Daisy’s War, a suspense trilogy, is the
result. The books are set in India and wartime London during the 1930s and 1940s and the
first in the series, The Girl from Cobb
Street, was published in January this year. Books two and three followed in
May and August, 2015.
After an exciting week where I celebrated the completion of my first novel (you can read about it here) my seven friends and I went for a long weekend to Bordeaux. Usually we stay in England but this year we fancied some September sunshine... and that was what we got. It was glorious.
