I realised today, whilst doing some work on the WIP, I hadn’t reported on progress since Boxing Day last year! My apologies for that neglect. It wasn’t intended. It was incidental, partly dependent on events and priorities beyond my control. No excuses, but please accept my heartfelt apology for what looks like neglect of my readers.

So, today I started the somewhat complex task of integrating actual, historic events into the fabric of the story. I need to make these inclusions as seamless as possible if the novel is not to look like a historical memoir. But I need to include them, as a major theme of the book relates to how life has changed over the years during which the book is set, from 1947 to 1986. This is a period during which I lived (slight exaggeration – I was conceived in 1947 but born 1948!).

I initially relied on my memory and some early year diaries during the telling of the tale. But memory, especially when you have a forgetery as prolific as mine, is rather subject to rose-tinted glasses, exaggeration and partiality and those early journals proved incomplete and often biased, so I’ve engaged in research to recount what actually happened during that time of change and upheaval.

Music changed in those years, especially from the 1950s and through the 1960s, when youth initially began to influence and then grew into the major contributor of popular music. The whole attitude to sex altered in this period, the birth pill in particular affected attitudes to the adventures and pleasures to be had between the sheets, especially for women who could now enjoy the act without the fear and shame of unwanted pregnancy, it was still viewed as shameful in those days.

Many other advances, or perhaps ‘changes’ is a better term, occurred. Home computing began in popular terms. Television blossomed and grew into an important source of both entertainment and information. The once fanciful idea of space travel turned into reality and, in the process, set off serious ideas of exploration of the moon, our neighbouring planets and, eventually, the more distant realms of the observable universe.

The atom bomb, proliferating after the destruction of two Japanese cities in 1945, became an everyday threat to our existence, something that certainly played an important role for those of us who were teenagers during those years. Being made aware your life could end suddenly and painfully at the age of 15 was a definite boost to living life to the full while it still existed.

The now ubiquitous mobile phone, a device used extensively for so many everyday activities, appeared after the period of this story. From the mid-1980s they became available but only for those who could afford their very high price tag and their brick-like weight and size. They were generally used only commercially until the early to mid-1990s.

So, all these factors now need to be woven into the story, already told, in a fashion that allows them to be read in the way they were experienced by the two narrators of the story. It will take time.

I’ve reduced my extensive research extracted from books, journals, annuals, television programmes, newspapers, and diaries to a 24-page table containing brief details in just under 9,000 words. To integrate these into the story in a way that allows the narrative to continue in a natural way will take all my experience, skill and attention to detail for the time needed to complete this phase of the creation of the novel.

After that, will come the usual edits for language, emotional depth, character consistency, description, and mood, before that final edit, a read-aloud from print to spot those typos, repetitions, and awkward sentence constructions that an author can so easily miss if relying entirely on reading work on the PC screen.

I intend to get back to you as each phase is completed. But, as I know only too well, intentions do not always translate into actions!