Now the War Is Over (54 page)

The nursing school had suggested she rejoin her training in February and repeat the second year. She had already done her weeks in the training school and was now overjoyed to be back on the
wards. She had been nervous at first, fearful of a repetition of her problems when she left. But there had been no trouble and her worries soon disappeared. Even with the tiredness and hard work
and sore feet, she felt useful and truly herself. She was loving it even more than before. She saw Reggie as and when they could manage it. But he was still in Worcester and once he had got over
his disappointment, he had become used to it and could see the sense in them both finishing their training before they settled down.

‘I know where you are,’ he said. ‘And –’ it had taken him some time to admit this – ‘I know you’ll be good at it, nursing.’ He had had to
adapt, gradually, to the fact that she had something else in her life as well as him – and he could see that his girl was even more glowingly happy.

But as they watched Gladys and Dudley make their solemn vows to each other, they did look at each other, each knowing that if things had been different, they would soon have been making their
vows as well. As Gladys spoke her final ‘I do’, Melly laid her hand on Reggie’s thigh for a second.
I do
, her hand said.
I’m here, and I love you.

They all showered Gladys and Dudley with rice and confetti outside, amid cheering and whistles and laughter.

The photographer got them all lined up. Melly found herself next to Tommy.

‘You all right?’ she asked as they shuffled into place on the church steps.

‘Yeah,’ he said. She could see he looked happy. ‘It’s nice.’

‘Jo-Ann all right?’

‘Yeah. She’s – all – right.’ He reached out with his good arm and touched her hand for a second. ‘Ta, sis.’

The photographs which they saw later had caught Tommy’s face in a lopsided smile of utter joy.

The next morning, Melly was back at Selly Oak hospital: an early shift on a women’s medical ward. Getting up that morning did not feel any hardship. Despite all the
excitement of the celebrations yesterday, the drinks and sandwiches in the pub afterwards, she did not feel tired.

As she dressed in her uniform – the stockings, dress, apron with its crossed straps, her cap – she was conscious of every piece of it, loved every piece of it, aware that this meant
she could be a nurse. She was sad that her other trainee friends had gone on without her, but she was back now and the new group were all nice enough.

When she said goodbye to Reggie the day before, after the wedding, they had held each other close. She looked up at him, with solemn intent.

‘You know I love you, don’t you?’

‘Oh – and I love you an’ all.’ And he followed it with something he had never said before. ‘I love you – and I’m proud of you, wench.’

Walking into the long corridor of the hospital, Melly thought of this and held it close to her, feeling in it all the warmth of his love. And then she walked into the ward to begin her work.

Thanks for particular help with the research for this story are due to: Adam Siviter, David Barnsley and Anthony Lunney of Cerebral Palsy Midlands for their generosity in
giving time, information and insights; once again, Iris and Gordon Parker for their hospitality and for talking to me about life on the Rag Market – it was such a pleasure meeting you both;
Anne Howell-Jones and Professor Paula McGee for information about nursing in the early 1960s; and Jim Rawlins of Disabled Motoring UK who was invaluable in answering questions, as was Stuart Cyphus
of the Invalid Carriage Register. Others who helped were Debbie Carter and Maureen and Fred Hyde.

The Birmingham History Forum is always a valuable resource. I used a wide variety of books, but of particular help this time were: Mary Joyce Baxter’s
The Past Recaptured;
Judith
Smart’s
I’ll Never Walk Alone
;
Out of Sight
by Steve Humphries and Pamela Gordon;
A Fifties Childhood
by Paul Feeney; and, as ever, the collected works of
Professor Carl Chinn.

A very big thank-you also to the staff at Pan Macmillan, especially Natasha Harding and Kate Bullows, and all the others working hard in the background in so many ways. Also to my agent Darley
Anderson and all the staff at the agency. I couldn’t ask for a better team.

How does it feel to be publishing your twentieth novel?

It feels rather astonishing. Writing a novel is like being in a dream state which you can re-enter if you read the books again (which in the main I don’t – I’d
rather be reading someone else’s!). So it’s strange to look back at all those books, all those dreams, and think, did I actually write those? And where did all that time go?

How did you come to choose Birmingham as the setting for your novels?

It was my home at the time so it was what was all around me. I had gone there for my first job and ended up staying and having all my four children there. It’s a city that
often seems to get ignored. Not many people were writing about the city and its experiences at the time – at least not in the form of fiction, though there were a number of personal accounts.
I was – and still am – a very interested outsider.

Can you tell us how you research historical settings?

When I began, in the early 1990s, there was no Internet. That has its uses now, certainly. But I’ve always done my research by a mixture of listening to people’s
stories, using personal written accounts and history books, looking at the many photographs of old Birmingham and, very importantly, drawing on old maps because the place has changed a good deal
and keeps changing. I always go and walk around the areas I’m writing about, even though some of the inner-city wards have changed almost beyond recognition over the past fifty years. Apart
from that, like anyone else writing stories, I draw on my own experience or imagination about how things would feel.

How long does it take you to write a novel?

There is an expectation of producing one book each year. I write the first draft in about six or seven months.

Do you have a favourite novel that you particularly enjoyed writing?

I think at the time of writing I often have a love/hate relationship with each one – I have chosen to write it because I love the idea but also hate each one at times,
because of the difficulties it presents. But in terms of subject matter, I remember particularly enjoying researching and writing the two books about canals,
The Narrowboat Girl
and
Water Gypsies
. For one reason or another I liked all the others as well, though.

Now the War is Over
revisits the characters of
War Babies
. How does it feel to return to characters from a previous book?

It’s a good feeling. You already know them, quite deep down, and what has happened to them, so you are not starting from nothing. You can live on with them and see what
happens in their lives and how it affects them.

Your characters go through some very difficult and emotional experiences – does this affect you while you’re writing?

Yes – especially once I have got past the first draft, which entails working out what’s going to happen. There are so many details to worry about at that stage that
the emotion is slightly secondary. After that, when you are reading it back to rewrite it and following the thread of it like a reader, that’s when it hits you. In fact the older I get, the
more unbearable it seems to become to imagine your way into the things some people have suffered.

Do you have a particular place you like to write?

I have a work room at the back of the house, one wall of which is formed by glass doors looking out at the garden, and where I have a lot of the books I need. I love light rooms
and it is quite cheerful even in winter. It feels right. However, sometimes I just take off with a notebook and sit outside or in some odd place in the house and write by hand. It’s important
to have a change now and again. For some reason it helps ‘creativity’ – though I’m still trying to work out exactly what that is.

What inspires you to write?

I find life and the world and people so very interesting and that is always the way I have responded to it – by wanting to make stories out of it. It honours life and
makes it meaningful. It’s what makes sense to me.

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

If you want to write, you’ll write. I suppose ‘aspiring author’ means unpublished author? In that case, I’d say, keep writing, keep working at
understanding the process and improving and find some other writers who you feel a kinship with and share your writing with each other. It’s always really good to get constructive feedback
from other people who you trust. It is also a way to find encouragement in what is otherwise a very solitary activity.

Who are your favourite authors? Do you feel they have influenced your writing?

Everything you read influences you one way or another, I think, though you feel much more drawn to some writers. I have different kinds of favourite authors. I love world
literature which shows me people and places and experiences I would not ordinarily see. There are so many, but for example, Rohinton Mistry and Andre Makine would be two. And then there are the
long-term favourites that you read when you are growing up and they teach you about stories and always stay with you – like Dickens and Charlotte Brontë and Anna Sewell who wrote
Black Beauty
and Helen Forrester’s books about her family in Liverpool. I am a fairly conventional writer in that I enjoy narrative storytelling in the way it has mostly been written
for the past 150 years or so. I’m more interested, in the end, in people, than in experimenting widely with form.

How has the publishing process changed since you published your first book in 1995?

The main thing, of course, is that everything is done on computers. This has, among other things, speeded everything up. Twenty years ago there was a lot more paper. I wrote my
first few novels by hand and then typed them up, before I felt compelled by the demands of speed to learn to write more on the keyboard. And back then there were parcels of thick typescripts to be
sent in the post, when now you can submit your book as an email attachment. Actually it feels much less of an occasion doing it at the press of a button instead of carting it along to the post
office and queuing with the other people with dripping umbrellas. This has also meant a more print-on-demand approach to publishing, rather than the old discussion of how large a print run there
should be. And now a lot of it does not even get printed because so many people are reading books electronically.

How are you going to celebrate the publication of your twentieth novel?

With a nice glass of something red, I hope.

Do you have an idea for your next book?

Yes – and the one after that!

Are you on Facebook? If so it would be good to hear from you. You can follow my author page on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/Annie.Murray.Author
or search for ‘Annie Murray Writer’ on Facebook. You may also like my website
www.anniemurray.co.uk
.

BY
A
NNIE
M
URRAY

She’ll have to fight to keep her family together . . .

Rachel Booker has had a difficult start in life. When her father dies, deep in gambling debt, it’s up to her mother to make ends meet. Hardened by the daily struggle,
she has little time left for affection or warmth. Mother and daughter work together at Birmingham’s Rag Market, selling second-hand clothes to put a little food on the table.

There is a silver lining as Rachel makes her first childhood friend, Danny, at the market. As they grow older, friendship blossoms into something more. But at the tender age of sixteen, Rachel
falls pregnant just as World War Two breaks out. The young couple marry in haste but it isn’t long before Danny is called up.

Left on the home front with a new baby, Rachel must scrape by with the other residents of Aston. If Danny ever makes it back, will he be the same boy she loved so fiercely?

A
NNIE
M
URRAY
was born in Berkshire and read English at St John’s College, Oxford. Her first ‘Birmingham’
story,
Birmingham Rose
, hit
The Times
bestseller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written many other successful novels, including the bestselling
Chocolate Girls
and
War Babies
.
Now the War is Over
is Annie’s twentieth novel. She has four children and lives near Reading.

P
RAISE FOR
A
NNIE
M
URRAY

Soldier Girl

‘This heart-warming story is a gripping read, full of drama, love and compassion’
Take a Break

Chocolate Girls

‘This epic saga will have you gripped from start to finish’
Birmingham Evening Mail

Birmingham Rose

‘An exceptional first novel’
Chronicle

Birmingham Friends

‘A meaty family saga with just the right mix of mystery and nostalgia’
Parents’ Magazine

Birmingham Blitz

‘A tale of passion and empathy which will keep you hooked’
Woman’s Own

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Birmingham Rose

Birmingham Friends

Birmingham Blitz