Today I’m joining the blog tour for What We Did In The War. I’m sharing my Q&A with the author with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to Jennie Walters for answering my questions!

Have you always wanted to write?

No, I came to writing relatively late, in my forties. I enjoyed writing at school and studied English at university, starting my career in publishing because I loved books. I wasn’t sure I’d be capable of writing myself, though, and thought I didn’t have enough to say. Then a colleague in children’s publishing asked me to have a go at writing a story for her, and I realised it was possible! I moved on to writing more children’s books for an established series, following a publisher’s brief, and gradually gained the confidence to write entirely from my imagination – although I still write some stories (for adults now) following a brief, under the name of Daisy Wood. My publisher tells me the rough period and situation to cover and I flesh that out into a novel.

What was your inspiration for What We Did In The War?

The original idea came quite suddenly. I was talking to a friend of my son’s, who told me that her father had been working for the British embassy in New York at the time of the attack on the Twin Towers. She mentioned that a few people who were presumed killed in the attack had in fact resurfaced years later, having taken the opportunity to start again. I thought, why not have two women choosing to disappear during the Second World War? It was such a chaotic time that people could get away with all sorts of deception – and of course, it was easier to live under the radar in a pre-internet age. My characters Cecil and Claude chose those nicknames from the ITMA wireless programme of the time (It’s That Man Again), and I remembered my late father-in-law always saying ‘After you, Claude,’ when he held open a door – so that inspired me too.

What does your writing process look like? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I’m an obsessive plotter! I have to know the main arc of the story before I start writing or I can end up veering off course. I think it’s because I had to submit a chapter breakdown of an entire plot when writing my first children’s stories, and the habit’s stuck. I don’t plot out chapter by chapter now, but I have a sense of how the story will develop. Sometimes characters veer off course and don’t want to do what I have in mind, which is exciting, but I know roughly the direction they’re heading.

How do you construct your characters? Do they have traits of people you know?

The more I write, the more important I realise it is to look deeply into character, and I suppose I do use people I know as inspiration. I’ve never created someone entirely based on a real-life person, but certain habits or mannerisms that come from life may make a character more convincing. It’s important for characters to act consistently, too, so I try to think hard about a person’s motivation, and how their upbringing might influence their actions and ambitions.

How did you research? Did you enjoy it?

I always love research! It’s easy to distract yourself by endlessly delving into the past rather than writing, but sometimes I’ll come across a nugget of information that will make my story come alive. I look at a lot of material online, of course, and I’m a member of the London Library, which has a huge collection of books going back centuries. I read several wonderful contemporary memoirs written by people living in Chelsea and Shepherd Market during the Second World War – locations that feature in What We Did in the War¬ – which fired my imagination and gave such vivid insight into those extraordinary times and the attitudes of the people who lived through them. We have a different mindset today, of course, and it’s impossible to know exactly how people thought and felt then, but autobiographies can give revealing clues.

Who are your favourite writers? Are you influenced by them?

My favourite writers seem to be mainly women. From the past, I love Elizabeth Jane Howard, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen, Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm might be my Desert island book choice) and Patrick Hamilton (Slaves of Solitude is a work of genius). Contemporary authors include the amazingly versatile Kate Atkinson, both for her historical novels and her Jackson Brodie detective series, Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout and, perhaps most beloved of all, Anne Tyler. I just adore the characters and situations she creates in the most lucid, elegant prose. Her endings are also perfect: a couple of times when I’ve been stuck for how to finish a book, I’ve read Anne Tyler and somehow she’s pointed me in the right direction. She’s my go-to comfort read. Her novel, Ladder of Years, about a woman who walks out of her life, may also have influenced the plot of What We Did in the War.

If you could invite three people, alive or dead, to a dinner party, who would they be and why?

Now there’s a question! I’d invite Anne Tyler and Kate Atkinson, to tell me all about their writing process – along with Nigella Lawson, to cook for us.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?

Vladimir Putin springs to mind, for obvious reasons.

Who would play the main character/s in a film version of What We Did In The War?

Gemma Arterton could be a wonderful Claude – with her tawny hair and mobile face – and Claire Foy would make a very good buttoned-up Cecil, though she’d have to put on some weight, and then lose it again!

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I spend a lot of time dog walking. We have a rescue pointer from Greece and now a rescue Frenchie puppy I’m trying to train, who needs to be walked separately. Walking is great for thinking over plots, though. I love cooking, too. I started making sourdough bread during lockdown and haven’t stopped. And we’ve recently moved house so I’ve been spending loads of time packing, unpacking, going back and forth to the tip and obsessively looking for furniture on Gumtree. Plus reading, of course!

What is next for you?

I’m currently writing another title as my Daisy Wood alter ego. In the longer term, I’d like to begin plotting a story set in 1950s/60s Britain, following the lives of people who lived through the Second World War and seeing how that might have shaped them. I can’t wait to start researching!

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What We Did In The War is available from Amazon.

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