Seeds?

Whilst I was enjoying the lovely weather in the UK, despite the saddest of reasons for having to go there, I was given a few old photos of my mother-in-law from her days in Athens before moving to the UK.

Here they are...

Helena (Lela) Tziortziou (various spellings allowed!), Athens circa 1946

The bloke with the sunglasses is my father-in-law, Kenneth, who was a Warrant Officer in the British Army stationed in Athens at the end of the war. Next to him you'll recognise my mother-in-law. To her left is her brother Theodorakis, who played a mean accordion. I have fond memories of long, warm evenings in the 70's and 80's at a taverna with Theo playing whilst everyone sang along to old traditional songs.

Effie, Lela and Katie. Three sisters in Athens circa 1946.

...and here's one my other half will murder me for posting, but I so love it...

This was taken about 6 months before I met my wife, who's second from right in this photo. To her left is cousin John, who is the son of aunty Katie (seen in the picture above this one, to my mother-in-law's left). On the left in this one is my wife's brother Paul, her mum of course, and little brother Philip, who's now in his fifties!

And this is the same photo after I've 'repaired' it.

These photos were a wonderful gift and, as it happens, some of the information I learned while in the UK will help with the formation of the structure of the next novel. My sister-in-law, who died, was married for a second to time really nice guy whom we all came to love. At the funeral, despite his finding it extremely difficult to continue at times, he gave a moving, personal eulogy to his wife, which contained information about her birth in Athens and other things that I was hearing for the very first time. Why is it that we so often forget to talk about stuff that, once we lose someone, we desperately want to know?

Anyway, not to get too moribund, I just wanted to share the fact that the next novel will have elements of my wife's family history in it. Of course it will be a work of pure fiction, but what my mother-in-law went through in Athens from 1939-45 and how she came to live in the UK will parallel to some degree the main character in the book, which is going to be called (provisionally) Panayiota.

As usual, I plan to build a few twists into the story, hopefully to surprise the reader. It's interesting that in my previous books, I've always built in what I thought were unexpected twists, and the majority of reviewers have expressed surprise and commented that they never expected them. But there's always, it seems, one that will post a review and say: "Predictable. Saw it coming." You know what I think? One can always theorise what's going to happen. Now, just suppose you do that and what you theorise actually does take place. Isn't that going to make you think that it was easy to work out? Of course, chances are you could have got it wrong, but coincidence is bound to happen now and again and, like I said, when it does, someone may think that they're just dead clever to have worked it out. I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well, but I think you get my drift.

Suffice it to say, novel number 6 is beginning to take shape at 'blueprint' stage. My visit to the UK has aided in planting some seeds for the development of the story. Maybe I'll dedicate the book, when it finally sees the light of day, to my late sister-in-law.