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- Jan 9, 2023
- 3 min read
The car was always huge part of the book. It had to be – symbolic of the escape both my main characters were yearning for, while also being undeniably ‘cool’. The Ford Cortina was the car of the 70s, released in five generations between 1962 and 1982. However, the edition Russell drives is particularly iconic.
Announced in The Motor in January 1963, the Lotus-modified Ford Cortina was pitched as ‘a ravening wolf in slightly sheepish clothing’. Sold through Ford as ‘the consul Cortina sports Special’ the car was for both consumer sale, as well as appearing (and winning) on the track – it’s reputation sealed by Jim Clark winning the British Saloon Car Championship in 1964. The car reached a top speed of 108mp, with an acceleration of 0 to 60 in 9.2 seconds. Tinny and box-like in design, with green racing stripes and roomy interior, it was a working class car with an F1 makeover. The absolute dream car for a 19-year-old boy with a passion adrenaline.
"It was the sort of car that even before hearing the rumble of its engine, you could sense its longing for speed. "
In 1966, the MKII was released with the slogan, “New Cortina, is more Cortina”. Bigger than the MKI, the car had more interior space and was a smoother drive, and quickly became the most popular new car in Britain 1976. This is the car Russell and Jen drive across Europe in pursuit of what would be Kate's first and last tour.
I first sat in a Cortina on a research trip to Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset. It wasn’t the right edition, but Rachel Comen, the Collections Care Officer I’d been in contact with, kindly let me beyond the ropes to have a proper poke around. She also suggested I look up the Lotus Cortina owners club, who would not only go on to answer many a niggling question I had about Russell’s car, but who also shared photos, personal stories, tips for dealing with well-known sore spots and – this is the big one – ran the occasional get together. It was through this group that met Rikki and finally got to experience the car for myself.
Rikki's MKII Cortina was everything I had hoped for, and those couple of hours I spent with him showing me under the bonnet and explaining all the car's quirks and misgivings were some of the most useful in all my months of research. Not only did it enable me to breathe in the little details – like the constant fogging on the windscreen, the sweating of the seats and the need to blast the heating, even in the height of summer, to prevent the engine boiling over – it also solidified a crucial plot point that would see Jen and Russell break down halfway to Stuttgart.
"The car continued to hum, despite the engine being cut – drawing out its pain in a long and strangled whine."
Of course, there was no way I could write a 1,500 mile round road-trip in a beaten up Cortina without the car breaking down at least once. But how it might break down, and how my characters might go about fixing it again, had been causing me a headache until that fated day out with Rikki.
Picking me up from the station, I heard the car before I saw it. I played with the radio and felt the awful jolts as we went over potholes. I smelt the petrol fumes seeping into the interior and struggled with the door handles (which don't work in the same way as modern cars). I experienced the Cortina as Jen would have for the first time, and as she did felt completely in awe of it, despite its obvious imperfections.
It feels like a shame to give away any more of the story than this, however much I would love to keep pontificating. So I guess, if you want to know more, you'll just have to wait for the book to hit the shelves. And in the meantime, if you do happen to be a fan of the classic Cortina, I can highly recommend the Lotus Cortina Club meet ups – if you're lucky, you might even catch a rally.
(Many thanks to The Haynes Motor Museum, The Lotus Cortina Club, and to Rikki for sharing your passion and answering my peculiar questions!)
- Jan 9, 2023
- 5 min read
Below is an excerpt from my novel Among the Fields of Daisies. As yet unpublished, Daisies is a story in second person exploring the psychological and environmental factors that lead my unnamed protagonist to develop an eating disorder, and the implications the disease has on her life and relationships.
Eating disorders affect 1 in 50 young people. For more information or support, visit Beat.
Age 4
“Pat-cake pat-cake, fast as you can!” you sing as egg number two goes crack and splat, opening its jaws and out comes yellow, plop into flour, puffing up in a cloud of dryness.
Daddy says Mummy isn’t good at cooking, only heating up. But that’s not always true - she is good at pudding, and not the Yorkshire kind.
“Okay,” says Mummy in a long voice, carrying Louis back down from his nap, “here we go.” She lifts him into his wheely walker, his favourite for running.
“How are we getting on?” asks Mummy as Louis’s wheels start clackety-clacking over kitchen tiles. You lift out the spoon to let her check for lumps, some cake goo getting splatted on the table. “Careful!” Mummy’s hand moves the spoon back to the bowl.
Beep goes the oven.
“Is it ready for cooking now?” you ask.
“My turn?” Mummy takes the spoon away, mixing faster than you can. “Why don’t you pop some cases into that tray,” says Mummy, nodding at the flowery wrappers.
You can do this bit best. Yellow goes in dip number one, then blue in two, then pink, then green. All the colours in a row. And again, for line number two, then for line number three, pretty in a pattern until blue runs out, and you have to start the pattern again from the other way, just with three.
“All finished?” asks Mummy. Nod, hands slapping down for Mummy to move the tray. Louis bashes into your chair, dribbly wet down his front.
“Hello Lowly,” you say, patting his fluffy head. “Did you have a nice time doing napping?”
Mummy uses two spoons for emptying the bowl: one for spooning and one for scraping chocolate brown dollops into their wrappings, heavying them down.
You want to have a go. But I want doesn’t get.
“Tell me which ones need more,” says Mummy.
Kneeling up, you peer over the wrapper edges. “That one,” say, pointing inside pink number three. Dollop makes her taller. “And him,” you say, pointing to green number four. But that dollop is too much and now you can’t tell which ones are more lesser than the others, so Mummy dollops without you telling.
“There we go,” Mummy says. “Shall we put them in the oven?”
“Can I do the carrying?”
“Okay,” says Mummy, “but I’ll do the oven bit.”
Louis bashes into the table leg as you lay your arms out flat for Mummy to place the tray on top. “Careful not to drop them.”
Shuffling forward, you keep your eyes on the wrappings, watching them wriggle in their holes. Mummy opens the oven with a dragon roar of hotness. “Quick, before all the heat gets out.”
The oven door bangs twice instead of once, and the sound of keys rattle and clank in the hallway. “Hello?”
“Daddy!”
Running out to the black and white hallway, see Daddy from behind. He doesn’t turn straight away, but when he does it’s all smiles with crinkle eyes. Run and jump up high enough for lifting, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your face into his scratches.
“Hello princess,” says Daddy, pulling back to touch his nose on yours, rubbing together for eskimo kisses.
“Why are you home in the daytime?” you ask.
“Because I wanted to see my little princess,” he says. “And my big princess, of course.” Daddy slides you to the floor for kissing Mummy in a married way, but she doesn’t hug in right so he misses and gets her cheek instead.
A clash sounds from behind, as Louis gets stuck, bashing into the kitchen step.
“And there’s my little man,” says Daddy, walking through the middle to lift Louis out of his walker, kicking it further into the kitchen, clackety-clack.
Mummy follows and you skip behind because of all the happiness making you lighter. Following the cupcake smell, you hold your hands around your eyes for checking for if they’re all rising the same. Pink is for Mummy, green for Daddy and yellow is for you. Pink for ballerina’s, green goodest and yellow for sunniest.
“Daddy look, me and Mummy are doing cooking.”
“I can smell,” he says, sitting down in Mummy’s chair and bouncing Louis on his legs, doing wide faces and squished ones to make him laugh, more dribble wetting his front.
“Look at you, you yucky boy,” he says in a smiley voice, then to Mummy but not looking at her. “Have we not got a muslin down here?”
Mummy does a loud breath. “No. Sorry,” she says. “I’ll just go and get one, shall I?” But she doesn’t wait for Daddy to say yes.
The cupcakes aren’t rised yet so you climb back up onto your chair, watching Daddy keeping doing his funny faces, just for Louis.
“Can you do Mr. Raspberry?” you ask, but Daddy isn’t hearing you.
Kneeling up, you peek over the edge of the mixing bowl, seeing some cake goo still sticking round the edges.
“Hasn’t Mummy shown you how to lick the bowl?” says Daddy, catching you looking.
You think, no, so you shake your head.
“Oh, but that’s the best bit!” says Daddy, lifting Louis to face forward holding with only one arm. Picking a scraping spoon out of the bowl, Daddy spoons around the sides so that when he lifts, some of the goo has collected in its scoop.
“Here,” he says, handing the spoon to you – not for Louis.
Taking it, you look to Daddy, who nods okay. Then stick your tongue out for licking like a lollipop.
“See?” says Daddy, smiling and picking out the second spoon for making him a lolly too. “Even better than the cooked version.” He pulls the bowl forward for you to scrape some more. “Nana Spence used to have to make extra batter, because me and your Auntie Penny were always eating the mixture.”
Sitting up, you scrape your spoon around the bowl’s bottom, drawing squiggles up the sides.
“Here,” says Mummy, appearing behind; Louis’s mus-mus ready to be tied like a bib for catching all his dribble. “Oh no, don’t teach her to do that!”
Your hand gets pushed up as Mummy takes the bowl from under.
“She’ll get salmonella eating raw egg like that,” she says, with angry in her voice.
“Oh, come on,” says Daddy, as she takes the spoon out of your hand. “Don’t tell me your mum never let you lick the bowl?”
Mummy doesn’t answer, just takes the bowl to the sink for washing.
Look to Daddy for if you’re in trouble. But Daddy smiles and does a wink to you, handing you his lollipop with a shh finger so you know it’s a secret.
For more information about my books, please get in touch.
- Jan 9, 2023
- 4 min read
One of the first questions people ask when I tell them about In Search of Peter Pan is, ‘have you always been a fan of Kate Bush?’. And my answer invariably comes as a surprise. I’d never listened to Kate until after I started writing. In fact, I was about five chapters in before I finally sat down with my record player and listened to The Kick Inside from start to finish. What comes as an added shock is when I confess I wasn’t immediately taken by her.
Now, of course, having spent the best part of two years submerged in the Kate Bush fan scene, hunting down ticket stubs, rare interview snippets and watching back footage of what would be a once in a lifetime tour on repeat at three o’clock in the morning, I would say I’m pretty sold on the enigma that is Kate Bush. But still. Why Kate? Why base an entire novel around Kate Bush fandom if I wasn’t already a fan myself? Why not choose a different time, a different artist, a different obsession?
Kate Bush is far more than just her music. Kate emerged, a shy, softly spoken British artist in 1978, at a time when punk rock was marking itself the political voice of youth and ABBA was topping the charts. It was a time of discord and contradictions, with public service strikes, IRA threats, the rise of Maggie Thatcher and the harshest winter on record. People panic bought bread and Ford stopped making cars, Grease was the highest grossing film and the first test tube baby was born in Manchester. It was a period of unrest in every sense of the word, and in amongst it all was Kate singing in this high-pitched ethereal voice, moving in a way that could not then be compared with any other form of commercial dance. She was ‘alternative’, strange even. But seemed comfortable in being so and that, I think, is what made her so attractive.
When I set out to write this book I had one very clear theme in mind, and that was teenage fandom. Teenage fandom to the extent that my main character would base their entire identity on their idol, from the way they dressed and spoke, to the way they viewed themselves in relation to the world.
As it turns out, my MC’s idolisation extends so far that she permits her own identity to be completely cast aside, allowing others to know her as Kate rather than by her real name. She feels so at one with the image and persona she’s adopted that she forms connections with others based entirely on a shared obsession, speaking in lyrics and allegories, and in doing so stunting any opportunity for authentic connection or conversation. By taking fandom too far, my MC exacerbates her already burdening adolescent insecurities and denies herself the ability to take charge of her own sense of self. A classic bildungsroman journey with a soundtrack to bring it to life.
The only novel I’ve found to offer a similar trope was actually released during my writing process, and that was Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies. Set in 1980s Glasgow, Mayflies follows a group of teenagers on their journey to the “Festival of the Tenth Summer” – a festival commemorating the Sex Pistols’ first gig in Manchester. With themes of friendship, uncertainty during the rise of Thatcherism and failed fathers, O’Hagan adeptly portrays the gravity and absurdity of youth through the lens of what must be one of the most iconic cultural movements in British history – punk.
In film, Spike Island (written by Chris Coghill and directed by Mat Whitecross) was another source of comparison, conveying the story of a group of friends who idolize The Stone Roses and try to get into their seminal Spike Island gig without tickets.
Of course, music as a means of staking identity is a common theme in all mediums of storytelling, if not specifically attributed to a real living and breathing artist. And perhaps it’s foolish to be so specific. Alienating even? I hope not. But though there are a number of Easter eggs scattered throughout Peter Pan in the form of mis-quoted lyrics, snippets from interviews, outfits mimicking early posters and press-shoots, and even an unnamed character who, if you’re a true fan, you might recognise as one of Kate’s pre-fame bandmates, the book is not written solely for Kate Bush fans. It is a story of fandom, yes. But it’s also a story of growing up, of soul-searching, finding hidden meaning where there is none and of misinterpreting the world and yourself, and calling it freedom.
Okay, okay. Now that I’ve pontificated a little, let’s go back to the start. Why Kate Bush? The authorial answer is that Kate, her early works and her journey to stardom represented everything I needed my MC to feel about herself – her insecurity, sense of alienation, the desire to escape and the closely harboured belief that life has something new and exciting in store for her, all accumulating to a quiet state of imposter syndrome. At the start of my novel you’ll find a quote from Kate, taken from a 1993 interview in Details Magazine that I think encapsulates this perfectly:
“There is a person that is adored, but I’d question very strongly that it’s me.”
The writer's truth though (and trigger warning: this is going to sound really poncy), is that my MC led me to her. My newfound obsession with Kate bush was born, not through research for researches’ sake, but through getting to know my protagonist. By putting the needle back to the start of the record and listening from someone else’s perspective. And that is what I most love about writing. Taking my character by the hand and being led into an entirely new world, leaving my reality behind.
And on that note – calling all dreamers, delusionists and escape fantasists – I wrote a thing, and I think you might like it…
