January 22, 2025 • 21 mins
In our latest podcast, hosts Simone, Tanya and Deb interview Jane Corry the author of the gripping and emotional thriller, “Coming To Find You”.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cool, join us and onwine with a good book.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to relaxing reads.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Hide's Devin Halifax.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, it's a mount in Vancouver.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
Hey, it's Tanya and Edmonton.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So we recently shared our thoughts on Jane Corey's Coming
to Find You, and today is the day we finally
get to interview Jane. But before we start, Dad, why
don't you give us a little recap about what the
book was about.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Our latest read, Coming to Find You by Jane Corey,
is a gripping and emotional thriller. When her family tragedy
is splashed across the newspapers, Nancy decides to disappear. Her
grandmother's beautiful regency house in a quiet seaside village seems
like the safest place to hide, but the old house
has its own secrets and a chilling wartime legacy. Now
(00:45):
someone knows the truth about the night Nancy's mother and
stepfather were murdered. Someone knows where to find her, and
they have nothing to lose.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Such a great book and so many questions for Jane. Hello, Jane, Hello,
lovely to hear you.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you so much?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Oh well, your book.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh thank you so much. That's lovely I must say
here that we have some great friends who live in Toronto,
and I have visited twice. It's a beautiful place Canada,
and I hope to come again before long.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh please do we'll get together for tea or wine. Well,
Jane tell us about the seaside village. It's Sidmouth, is
it it is?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, it's It's a beautiful seaside village in Devon. And
in fact I moved here with my husband some years ago,
and I was I didn't really want to mention the
name of it in the book, but it became more
and more difficult not to. So shall I tell you
the story behind it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I mean it does. It sounds like you know
a place that can share so many stories, and we
were wondering what your connection might be to it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I was born in London, but when I got
married for the second time, my husband's new sibblers and
suggested we move down here. And shortly after doing that,
I was in the gym and I overheard this conversation.
And it's amazing what you can hear in the gym sometimes,
isn't it. And I heard somebody say that the locals
(02:22):
had burnt their weapons on a hill nearby at the
end of the Second World War. So I was unable
to resist asking them why, so I went over and
said that, you know, excuse me, I heard your conversation
just now, and I wasn't eavesdropping, I just heard it.
Why did people burn their weapons? And they told me
about Churchill's secret army, which I had never heard about.
(02:47):
So Churchill was the prime minister in Britain during the
Second World War and he had recruited secretly through his men.
He'd recruited ordinary men and women in seaside towns, in
particular because they were worried that we would be invaded
by sea during the Second World War. They recruited them
(03:09):
just to observe what went on in Britain if Germans invaded.
So for example, they would recruit a mother who if
the Germans invaded and walked up the high Street, could
then report to someone who could then tell other people
in the armed forces what was happening. So it was
(03:31):
really like quite recruiting spies. And what really struck me
was that these were people who hadn't been trained, but
were then going to be trained to do this. But
they were just ordinary people who were doing this, and
they were doing it for their country. So the idea
immediately came into my head that maybe somebody running a
(03:54):
bed and breakfast. I don't know whether you call them
bed and breakfasts in Canada, their basic houses that people
went out, yes, I mean in those days they were
actually called boarding houses. It made me think of a character,
and immediately I called her name Elizabeth, because that was
very much a name of somebody in the Second World War.
It was a popular name. And what it might be
(04:14):
for Elizabeth if she was recruited in the Churchill Secret Army.
And then you always had to think about the motivation
behind a character. Why might she be motivated? And then
the idea came to me that maybe her son had
gone away to fight, maybe he was missing, Maybe she
wanted to do something to do her part for Britain.
But at the same time, I always liked to write
(04:38):
books from the point of view of two different characters.
And I don't know, really you know about this, but
I trained as a journalist and then I took a
rather unusual job when my first marriage ended. I took
a job as a writer in residence of a high
security male prison. I didn't really want to do it,
(05:00):
and I was very scared. But you know, as a single
mother with three children, I did have maintenance, but I
needed a more reliable source of income than my freelance
journalists column, and so I did this job. And it
made me very interested in how crime affected families, obviously
(05:22):
families of the victims, also the families of people who'd
committed crimes. And one man said to me that his
mother couldn't go out of the house after the crime
that he'd committed, and I then thought about what it
would be like for these people. The phrase for it
(05:42):
in prison is called living under a silent sentence, So
it's a sentence that hasn't been passed down to these
families by law, but it's a sentence that they had
to live under because someone in their family has done
something awful. And that led to my second character, who's
called Nancy, and Nancy's stepbrother has committed a dreadful crime
(06:06):
and she runs for the family house to escape the
press interest. Now, the family house is the same boarding
house that Elizabeth ran during the Second World War. They're
not related. In fact, it's a bit complicated. They're sort
of related through God parents, but they didn't know each other.
(06:28):
Elizabeth is long dead, but Nancy comes to that house
and she finds out that Elizabeth once lived there, and
she discovers that Elizabeth has a secret. And I can't
really tell you anymore because it was spoiled. The plot.
It's a story about these two women, Nancy and Elizabeth,
who live in the same house eighty years apart, and
(06:51):
it does end happily. I do like to wrap things
up happily.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We actually just finished reading it, so we had a
little discussion about it. We all thoroughly and enjoyed it.
One of the things we were talking about because this
is our first introduction to you as an author, but
you know, for all of us, it was the fact
that the story just kept us going, like there was
so much suspense and plot twists and everyone had secrets.
(07:19):
So it was really it was really well written and
we quite enjoyed it. But it was also interesting, like
there was that little bit of connectivity between all the characters.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yes, yes, and that's what I love doing. I love
connecting characters, I love bringing them together. I also love twists.
I'm not a good person to watch a drama with
because I'll say, I know what that is. I know
what's happening. If I was writing it, this is what
would happen, and my husband would say, how do you
know that? And I just love love creating twists. So
(07:51):
what you said has made me very happy, Thank you
very much. And I said, I love the warmth of characters.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So it's Tanya and Edmond and Jane. You know. One
of the things I loved in reading Nancy's story and
Elizabeth's story and going between the two as you go
through the book is it was a very kind of
visceral journey for me to see the same area through
both of those characters' eyes. You know, you have the present,
(08:18):
there's the beach, there's high Street, there's twin chimneys, you know,
and she's living there, you know, as a under a
silent sentence. And then you go to Elizabeth's story. It's
the same house, it's the same beach, but there's you know,
the beach's got barbed wire on it and it has
minds in it. And I just felt like, wow, this
is the way you wrote it. It was so powerful
(08:39):
for me to kind of see both of those physical
areas but have them be so incredibly different in terms
of the experience that the characters were going through.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Wow, well, thank you, that's really lovely for you to
say that, And that's what I wanted to create that.
I wanted tor Chimneys to be a character of its own.
And when I moved here, I discovered there's a beautiful
museum in Sidmouth. So I approached the curator and explained
that I wanted to do the research for this, and
(09:12):
he was very helpful. And I also spoke to evacuees,
people who had been evacuated to Sidmouth as children from London.
I found five who was still alive, which I thought
was amazing, And one of them is a lovely old
lady called Ivy, whom I've become great friends with since.
(09:34):
In fact, I'm getting shivers down me when I talk
about it, because there was such in the ex storasty.
And Ivy told me how she'd been evacuated down here
when she was only eleven, and she'd come from quite
a humble family in London, and she'd been sent to
a rather well to do house near here, where she
was amazed to find that the food was served at
(09:57):
the table under what she called silver hat. So they
were those sort of boats. I don't know if you
have them in Canada, and in very during very smart meals,
your food might arrive in a restaurant with a silver
dome over it to keep it warm. And she was
amazed by this, and she stayed in touch with the
woman who looked after her. She went back to London
(10:19):
her teens, she got married, she had three children, and
she's come back to spend the rest of her days
in Sindema. She came back eight years ago and decided
she wanted to spend her last few years here in
the place where she was so happy as an evacuee. Wow, amazing,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
And I think about the evacuees and I think about
the children, how they must have felt but their parents
send them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Off just heartbreaking and to have to make that decision
about whether you know it's meant to be safer for them.
But the agony that the appalling agony of having to
let your child go to a stranger. And you hear
other stories about children coming back and then not bonding
(11:08):
with their parents again.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, and it's interesting to even think about. You know,
what you just shared with us. About Ivy. You know,
that was obviously a very tough time in life, but
a time that probably just molded who she was as
a human being. And it's that place that you have
that connection to. So it's so interesting that she would
not want to run for that, run from that, but
(11:30):
it brought her back there, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yes, exactly, exactly. No, it's really warming, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It really is. You know, the characters, but also those
women and folks in real life. They were so strong
and so brave, but I think it always seemed to
be maybe you had to find more strength as a woman,
as a you know, as a mother during that time.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I really wanted to focus on
that because with again, without wanting to give too much away,
Elizabeth didn't have a very happy marriage in the book.
She had to deal with a difficult husband. But there is,
as you know, a twist with that one as well.
But very hard for a mother to see her children
(12:19):
go off to war, very hard for a mother to
get their children goes evacuees. I mean, very very difficult time.
Which and there's a pattern that is repeated through the generation. Sadly,
m we.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Talk about history repeating itself. Was there a particular character
that you felt a little more connected to or really
enjoyed writing for.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Well, there was there was, I mean Elizabeth in particular.
I have to say, you know, Elizabeth really made me
feel I always felt like Elizabeth at times. But I
also felt very connected with Mazie, the older Mazie when
she comes back and sees her. How I love writing
(13:02):
about old people. I think it's because we all lived
in my grandmother's house until I was twelve, and then
we moved around the corner. But those first twelve years
of my life were very bound up with my grandmother.
I used to spend the evenings in her sitting room
watching television, and we were very close. And in fact,
(13:23):
she lasted to her early nineties, and she was a
real inspiration to me about being brave but also doing
things and having the strength to do that. So I
and also my other grandmother, who sadly died before I
was born. She sounded as though she had a great
deal of spirit too. So I like spirited older people,
(13:47):
and so I would say Maizie and Elizabeth really reached
out to.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Me, and Ra had a lot of spirit to her
as well.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh yeah, Bira, I wouldn't want to get on the
wrong side. Verrum, Yes, I know. I was just going to say.
I can see Vera's face in my mind. She reminds
me of a rather strict teacher I used to have.
But strict, but also you know, kind underneath. But you would,
as I said, you wouldn't want to get on the
wrong side.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
No, no, And Jane, what about Nancy's story. Do you
know somebody who was living under a silent sentence?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Well, as I said, when I was when I was
working as a writer in residence for prison, this man
told me that his mother couldn't go out of the house.
But also one of the things that happened in the
prison was that every now and then, the prison authorities
would organize a family and friends' day where the men's
(14:46):
family and friends would come in and visit. And some
of them asked me if I would like to come
and meet their parents. And I mean, really, it was
just such a weird, strange life in and working in
her prison. When I talk about it now, it feels
almost as though it was unreal. But I went along,
and if I say that, many of those families did
(15:10):
not look like the kind of families who would have
people in prison. Does that sound awful? It's just that
they didn't. They could have been. They looked like my
next door neighbors. They looked like some of them. They
looked just like ordinary, ordinary people, not the kind of
people who would have children who had committed some of
the worst things you can imagine. Often, I have to say,
(15:32):
through drugs and drinks. So although I had never been
a great drinker, I had been the kind of person
who might have a couple of glasses of wine a week.
I actually completely gave up alcohol when I worked there,
and I haven't had a drop since because I just,
you know, just and as I said, I wasn't a
(15:53):
great drinker at all. It just made me realize some
of the things that people did when they weren't in
control of themselves. It was very frightening. So, going back
to your question, seeing some of those people at the
family and Friends' days and talking to them about what
I was doing there and what my brief was that
I was employed by a charity to go in there.
(16:15):
My brief was to help people write almost anything, letters, stories,
life stories. And the plan was or not the plan,
the idea behind it is that people write about what
they have done. It makes it sink in because many
people that I came across were in denial of their
(16:36):
crimes because they had been obviously sent to prison for them,
and they admitted that they had done it, but even
denial about facing the consequences and thinking about how much
they'd hurt people or scared people. And I remember helping
one man write his life story, and he had actually
(16:56):
never killed anybody, but he had frightened people almost to death,
and he actually didn't seem to think that was a
big deal. But when he wrote about it, I actually
burst into tears at one point, and then I thought, oh,
this is dreadful. I know this is not professional. And
I went and told someone at the prison and they said, well,
actually it might have helped him. It might have made
(17:18):
him realize what he'd done. And the next morning when
I went back, he said, well, Jen, I haven't. He
hadn't slept all night because he'd upset me. And I said, well,
it's not me you need to think of. It's the
people you nearly scared to death. And he went on writing.
I helped him write his life story. I had permission
from the governor to take my computer in as long
(17:39):
as it wasn't connected to the internet, and I wrote
down his story and it won a prize. I would
enter my men's work for a prison award called the
Kester Awards. And you might think, well, why should a
man be allowed to win a prize? And he'd done
the things he had done, but actually it changed his
behavior and I was told this better gods and the governor,
(18:02):
and he faced what he had done and decided that
he would make a better life. And also he repented.
So I mean, it's difficult to tell us that people
change their minds. You can only do what you can do.
And I felt that I was meant to do this.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
That's so amazing, Like it's so nice to get this
insight from you because it just really kind of connects
it all together back to the story and you know
everything you had to kind of look up and you
were able to meet evacuees and get all this information.
That that information at the gym sometimes it is okay
to listen in on conversation.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well, the thing is, as I said, I trained the journalist.
I still write a lot for a newspaper you may
have heard of called the Daily Telegraph, so I still
write for the Telegraph. And so as a journalist, you know,
you have this constant curiosity. I'm afraid, but if you
can do some good with it, then I think, you know,
I think imant.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, And like we said, we've just been introduced to you,
but we're looking to looking forward to reading I died
on a Tuesday in one of our upcoming Yeah, book
club reads, for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's very kind. So I don't know if you know
my other books, but My Husband's Wife was my very first,
and that was a Washington Post bestseller back in twenty sixteen,
so you might like to check that one out as well.
That was published in America and Canada, came out in
Britain in twenty sixty. I think you came up in
(19:33):
Callagien America in tw and seventeen, but as I said,
it was a Washington Post best seller, My Husband's Wife,
and that was about a young woman, a woman lawyer
who'd just come back from a rather unsatisfactory honeymoon and
was sent by her boss to handle a criminal's appeal
and she falls to him. So but I'm really really
(19:57):
thrilled to be published by Double Day I'm very excited
about about both books, and I hope, I hope your
audience and everyone in America and kind of enjoys them.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, sure they certainly will.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, catching up with what we've missed already. Yeah, those reads.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Jane.
We really appreciated getting again that insight from you, and
like we said, we thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's really kind of you. Thank you so much. It's
been lovely to talk to you. And if you'd like
to talk to me about I died in the Tuesday,
then I'd be very happy to talk to you about
that as well.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Perfect. Yes, I'm sure we will be in touch with
you to get that arranged as well, for sure. Thank you,
bye bye, bye bye bye. Just wanted to be her.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I know she seems a small seaside village and oh
my gosh, I don't have a first husband, but I'll
try and get it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Totally. And thank you for listening to another episode of
the Relaxing Reads podcast. Until next time, thank you for
kicking back and relaxing with us.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
We hope you will join us again on Relaxing Reads.
Cool, join us and onwine with a good book.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to relaxing reads.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Hide's Devin Halifax.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, it's a mount in Vancouver.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
Hey, it's Tanya and Edmonton.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So we recently shared our thoughts on Jane Corey's Coming
to Find You, and today is the day we finally
get to interview Jane. But before we start, Dad, why
don't you give us a little recap about what the
book was about.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Our latest read, Coming to Find You by Jane Corey,
is a gripping and emotional thriller. When her family tragedy
is splashed across the newspapers, Nancy decides to disappear. Her
grandmother's beautiful regency house in a quiet seaside village seems
like the safest place to hide, but the old house
has its own secrets and a chilling wartime legacy. Now
(00:45):
someone knows the truth about the night Nancy's mother and
stepfather were murdered. Someone knows where to find her, and
they have nothing to lose.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Such a great book and so many questions for Jane. Hello, Jane, Hello,
lovely to hear you.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you so much?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Oh well, your book.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh thank you so much. That's lovely I must say
here that we have some great friends who live in Toronto,
and I have visited twice. It's a beautiful place Canada,
and I hope to come again before long.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh please do we'll get together for tea or wine. Well,
Jane tell us about the seaside village. It's Sidmouth, is
it it is?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, it's It's a beautiful seaside village in Devon. And
in fact I moved here with my husband some years ago,
and I was I didn't really want to mention the
name of it in the book, but it became more
and more difficult not to. So shall I tell you
the story behind it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I mean it does. It sounds like you know
a place that can share so many stories, and we
were wondering what your connection might be to it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I was born in London, but when I got
married for the second time, my husband's new sibblers and
suggested we move down here. And shortly after doing that,
I was in the gym and I overheard this conversation.
And it's amazing what you can hear in the gym sometimes,
isn't it. And I heard somebody say that the locals
(02:22):
had burnt their weapons on a hill nearby at the
end of the Second World War. So I was unable
to resist asking them why, so I went over and
said that, you know, excuse me, I heard your conversation
just now, and I wasn't eavesdropping, I just heard it.
Why did people burn their weapons? And they told me
about Churchill's secret army, which I had never heard about.
(02:47):
So Churchill was the prime minister in Britain during the
Second World War and he had recruited secretly through his men.
He'd recruited ordinary men and women in seaside towns, in
particular because they were worried that we would be invaded
by sea during the Second World War. They recruited them
(03:09):
just to observe what went on in Britain if Germans invaded.
So for example, they would recruit a mother who if
the Germans invaded and walked up the high Street, could
then report to someone who could then tell other people
in the armed forces what was happening. So it was
(03:31):
really like quite recruiting spies. And what really struck me
was that these were people who hadn't been trained, but
were then going to be trained to do this. But
they were just ordinary people who were doing this, and
they were doing it for their country. So the idea
immediately came into my head that maybe somebody running a
(03:54):
bed and breakfast. I don't know whether you call them
bed and breakfasts in Canada, their basic houses that people
went out, yes, I mean in those days they were
actually called boarding houses. It made me think of a character,
and immediately I called her name Elizabeth, because that was
very much a name of somebody in the Second World War.
It was a popular name. And what it might be
(04:14):
for Elizabeth if she was recruited in the Churchill Secret Army.
And then you always had to think about the motivation
behind a character. Why might she be motivated? And then
the idea came to me that maybe her son had
gone away to fight, maybe he was missing, Maybe she
wanted to do something to do her part for Britain.
But at the same time, I always liked to write
(04:38):
books from the point of view of two different characters.
And I don't know, really you know about this, but
I trained as a journalist and then I took a
rather unusual job when my first marriage ended. I took
a job as a writer in residence of a high
security male prison. I didn't really want to do it,
(05:00):
and I was very scared. But you know, as a single
mother with three children, I did have maintenance, but I
needed a more reliable source of income than my freelance
journalists column, and so I did this job. And it
made me very interested in how crime affected families, obviously
(05:22):
families of the victims, also the families of people who'd
committed crimes. And one man said to me that his
mother couldn't go out of the house after the crime
that he'd committed, and I then thought about what it
would be like for these people. The phrase for it
(05:42):
in prison is called living under a silent sentence, So
it's a sentence that hasn't been passed down to these
families by law, but it's a sentence that they had
to live under because someone in their family has done
something awful. And that led to my second character, who's
called Nancy, and Nancy's stepbrother has committed a dreadful crime
(06:06):
and she runs for the family house to escape the
press interest. Now, the family house is the same boarding
house that Elizabeth ran during the Second World War. They're
not related. In fact, it's a bit complicated. They're sort
of related through God parents, but they didn't know each other.
(06:28):
Elizabeth is long dead, but Nancy comes to that house
and she finds out that Elizabeth once lived there, and
she discovers that Elizabeth has a secret. And I can't
really tell you anymore because it was spoiled. The plot.
It's a story about these two women, Nancy and Elizabeth,
who live in the same house eighty years apart, and
(06:51):
it does end happily. I do like to wrap things
up happily.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We actually just finished reading it, so we had a
little discussion about it. We all thoroughly and enjoyed it.
One of the things we were talking about because this
is our first introduction to you as an author, but
you know, for all of us, it was the fact
that the story just kept us going, like there was
so much suspense and plot twists and everyone had secrets.
(07:19):
So it was really it was really well written and
we quite enjoyed it. But it was also interesting, like
there was that little bit of connectivity between all the characters.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yes, yes, and that's what I love doing. I love
connecting characters, I love bringing them together. I also love twists.
I'm not a good person to watch a drama with
because I'll say, I know what that is. I know
what's happening. If I was writing it, this is what
would happen, and my husband would say, how do you
know that? And I just love love creating twists. So
(07:51):
what you said has made me very happy, Thank you
very much. And I said, I love the warmth of characters.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So it's Tanya and Edmond and Jane. You know. One
of the things I loved in reading Nancy's story and
Elizabeth's story and going between the two as you go
through the book is it was a very kind of
visceral journey for me to see the same area through
both of those characters' eyes. You know, you have the present,
(08:18):
there's the beach, there's high Street, there's twin chimneys, you know,
and she's living there, you know, as a under a
silent sentence. And then you go to Elizabeth's story. It's
the same house, it's the same beach, but there's you know,
the beach's got barbed wire on it and it has
minds in it. And I just felt like, wow, this
is the way you wrote it. It was so powerful
(08:39):
for me to kind of see both of those physical
areas but have them be so incredibly different in terms
of the experience that the characters were going through.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Wow, well, thank you, that's really lovely for you to
say that, And that's what I wanted to create that.
I wanted tor Chimneys to be a character of its own.
And when I moved here, I discovered there's a beautiful
museum in Sidmouth. So I approached the curator and explained
that I wanted to do the research for this, and
(09:12):
he was very helpful. And I also spoke to evacuees,
people who had been evacuated to Sidmouth as children from London.
I found five who was still alive, which I thought
was amazing, And one of them is a lovely old
lady called Ivy, whom I've become great friends with since.
(09:34):
In fact, I'm getting shivers down me when I talk
about it, because there was such in the ex storasty.
And Ivy told me how she'd been evacuated down here
when she was only eleven, and she'd come from quite
a humble family in London, and she'd been sent to
a rather well to do house near here, where she
was amazed to find that the food was served at
(09:57):
the table under what she called silver hat. So they
were those sort of boats. I don't know if you
have them in Canada, and in very during very smart meals,
your food might arrive in a restaurant with a silver
dome over it to keep it warm. And she was
amazed by this, and she stayed in touch with the
woman who looked after her. She went back to London
(10:19):
her teens, she got married, she had three children, and
she's come back to spend the rest of her days
in Sindema. She came back eight years ago and decided
she wanted to spend her last few years here in
the place where she was so happy as an evacuee. Wow, amazing,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
And I think about the evacuees and I think about
the children, how they must have felt but their parents
send them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Off just heartbreaking and to have to make that decision
about whether you know it's meant to be safer for them.
But the agony that the appalling agony of having to
let your child go to a stranger. And you hear
other stories about children coming back and then not bonding
(11:08):
with their parents again.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, and it's interesting to even think about. You know,
what you just shared with us. About Ivy. You know,
that was obviously a very tough time in life, but
a time that probably just molded who she was as
a human being. And it's that place that you have
that connection to. So it's so interesting that she would
not want to run for that, run from that, but
(11:30):
it brought her back there, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yes, exactly, exactly. No, it's really warming, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It really is. You know, the characters, but also those
women and folks in real life. They were so strong
and so brave, but I think it always seemed to
be maybe you had to find more strength as a woman,
as a you know, as a mother during that time.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I really wanted to focus on
that because with again, without wanting to give too much away,
Elizabeth didn't have a very happy marriage in the book.
She had to deal with a difficult husband. But there is,
as you know, a twist with that one as well.
But very hard for a mother to see her children
(12:19):
go off to war, very hard for a mother to
get their children goes evacuees. I mean, very very difficult time.
Which and there's a pattern that is repeated through the generation. Sadly,
m we.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Talk about history repeating itself. Was there a particular character
that you felt a little more connected to or really
enjoyed writing for.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Well, there was there was, I mean Elizabeth in particular.
I have to say, you know, Elizabeth really made me
feel I always felt like Elizabeth at times. But I
also felt very connected with Mazie, the older Mazie when
she comes back and sees her. How I love writing
(13:02):
about old people. I think it's because we all lived
in my grandmother's house until I was twelve, and then
we moved around the corner. But those first twelve years
of my life were very bound up with my grandmother.
I used to spend the evenings in her sitting room
watching television, and we were very close. And in fact,
(13:23):
she lasted to her early nineties, and she was a
real inspiration to me about being brave but also doing
things and having the strength to do that. So I
and also my other grandmother, who sadly died before I
was born. She sounded as though she had a great
deal of spirit too. So I like spirited older people,
(13:47):
and so I would say Maizie and Elizabeth really reached
out to.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Me, and Ra had a lot of spirit to her
as well.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Oh yeah, Bira, I wouldn't want to get on the
wrong side. Verrum, Yes, I know. I was just going to say.
I can see Vera's face in my mind. She reminds
me of a rather strict teacher I used to have.
But strict, but also you know, kind underneath. But you would,
as I said, you wouldn't want to get on the
wrong side.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
No, no, And Jane, what about Nancy's story. Do you
know somebody who was living under a silent sentence?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Well, as I said, when I was when I was
working as a writer in residence for prison, this man
told me that his mother couldn't go out of the house.
But also one of the things that happened in the
prison was that every now and then, the prison authorities
would organize a family and friends' day where the men's
(14:46):
family and friends would come in and visit. And some
of them asked me if I would like to come
and meet their parents. And I mean, really, it was
just such a weird, strange life in and working in
her prison. When I talk about it now, it feels
almost as though it was unreal. But I went along,
and if I say that, many of those families did
(15:10):
not look like the kind of families who would have
people in prison. Does that sound awful? It's just that
they didn't. They could have been. They looked like my
next door neighbors. They looked like some of them. They
looked just like ordinary, ordinary people, not the kind of
people who would have children who had committed some of
the worst things you can imagine. Often, I have to say,
(15:32):
through drugs and drinks. So although I had never been
a great drinker, I had been the kind of person
who might have a couple of glasses of wine a week.
I actually completely gave up alcohol when I worked there,
and I haven't had a drop since because I just,
you know, just and as I said, I wasn't a
(15:53):
great drinker at all. It just made me realize some
of the things that people did when they weren't in
control of themselves. It was very frightening. So, going back
to your question, seeing some of those people at the
family and Friends' days and talking to them about what
I was doing there and what my brief was that
I was employed by a charity to go in there.
(16:15):
My brief was to help people write almost anything, letters, stories,
life stories. And the plan was or not the plan,
the idea behind it is that people write about what
they have done. It makes it sink in because many
people that I came across were in denial of their
(16:36):
crimes because they had been obviously sent to prison for them,
and they admitted that they had done it, but even
denial about facing the consequences and thinking about how much
they'd hurt people or scared people. And I remember helping
one man write his life story, and he had actually
(16:56):
never killed anybody, but he had frightened people almost to death,
and he actually didn't seem to think that was a
big deal. But when he wrote about it, I actually
burst into tears at one point, and then I thought, oh,
this is dreadful. I know this is not professional. And
I went and told someone at the prison and they said, well,
actually it might have helped him. It might have made
(17:18):
him realize what he'd done. And the next morning when
I went back, he said, well, Jen, I haven't. He
hadn't slept all night because he'd upset me. And I said, well,
it's not me you need to think of. It's the
people you nearly scared to death. And he went on writing.
I helped him write his life story. I had permission
from the governor to take my computer in as long
(17:39):
as it wasn't connected to the internet, and I wrote
down his story and it won a prize. I would
enter my men's work for a prison award called the
Kester Awards. And you might think, well, why should a
man be allowed to win a prize? And he'd done
the things he had done, but actually it changed his
behavior and I was told this better gods and the governor,
(18:02):
and he faced what he had done and decided that
he would make a better life. And also he repented.
So I mean, it's difficult to tell us that people
change their minds. You can only do what you can do.
And I felt that I was meant to do this.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
That's so amazing, Like it's so nice to get this
insight from you because it just really kind of connects
it all together back to the story and you know
everything you had to kind of look up and you
were able to meet evacuees and get all this information.
That that information at the gym sometimes it is okay
to listen in on conversation.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well, the thing is, as I said, I trained the journalist.
I still write a lot for a newspaper you may
have heard of called the Daily Telegraph, so I still
write for the Telegraph. And so as a journalist, you know,
you have this constant curiosity. I'm afraid, but if you
can do some good with it, then I think, you know,
I think imant.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, And like we said, we've just been introduced to you,
but we're looking to looking forward to reading I died
on a Tuesday in one of our upcoming Yeah, book
club reads, for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's very kind. So I don't know if you know
my other books, but My Husband's Wife was my very first,
and that was a Washington Post bestseller back in twenty sixteen,
so you might like to check that one out as well.
That was published in America and Canada, came out in
Britain in twenty sixty. I think you came up in
(19:33):
Callagien America in tw and seventeen, but as I said,
it was a Washington Post best seller, My Husband's Wife,
and that was about a young woman, a woman lawyer
who'd just come back from a rather unsatisfactory honeymoon and
was sent by her boss to handle a criminal's appeal
and she falls to him. So but I'm really really
(19:57):
thrilled to be published by Double Day I'm very excited
about about both books, and I hope, I hope your
audience and everyone in America and kind of enjoys them.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, sure they certainly will.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, catching up with what we've missed already. Yeah, those reads.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Jane.
We really appreciated getting again that insight from you, and
like we said, we thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's really kind of you. Thank you so much. It's
been lovely to talk to you. And if you'd like
to talk to me about I died in the Tuesday,
then I'd be very happy to talk to you about
that as well.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Perfect. Yes, I'm sure we will be in touch with
you to get that arranged as well, for sure. Thank you,
bye bye, bye bye bye. Just wanted to be her.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I know she seems a small seaside village and oh
my gosh, I don't have a first husband, but I'll
try and get it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Totally. And thank you for listening to another episode of
the Relaxing Reads podcast. Until next time, thank you for
kicking back and relaxing with us.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
We hope you will join us again on Relaxing Reads.
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