![]() ![]() ![]() In my early research I immersed myself in letters written between soldiers and their families, analysing the change in tone between those written in Aldershot training camp, for example – where Will Bancroft, one of The Absolutist's central protagonists writes letters to his sister Marian – and those written by soldiers at the heart of the fighting to their loved ones back home. I realised that I had barely scraped the surface of stories that could be written about this less familiar period of history and wanted to dig deeper, to entrench myself in the narratives that could spring from such a terrible time. ![]() Upon finishing The Absolutist, I knew that I would return to the war at some point although I was uncertain how, when or in what form I would do so. Alfie's father, Georgie, signs up to fight on the day the war breaks out – coincidentally, his son's birthday an unwanted present – and suffers an extreme and traumatic case of shell-shock which is ultimately played out in an army hospital before his confused and frightened son. The former concerns itself with a homosexual relationship formed in the trenches between two young soldiers at very different stages of their emotional development, while the latter examines the war as seen from home through the eyes of a nine year-old boy, Alfie Summerfield. The exception to this has been my two connected novels of the Great War, The Absolutist, aimed at adults, and Stay Where You Are And Then Leave, aimed at younger readers. ![]()
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