October 2017

The recent hurricanes put me in mind of 1987…remember…not only the big storm but a heap of man-made disasters and some momentous decisions?

• Margaret Thatcher was returned as Prime Minister for a third term
• the Church of England voted to allow women’s ordination
• the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy was kidnapped in Beirut
• party hostess Cynthia Payne went on trial again and a film of her life, Personal Services, was released
• the British and French governments formally approved proposals for a Channel Tunnel
• a passenger ferry capsized in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, killing one hundred and ninety-three
• Rudolf Hess died in prison by his own hand
• a gunmen ran amok and killed sixteen people in Hungerford
• a hurricane killed twenty-three in southern England
• a few days after which automated computerised share trading, possibly, precipitated Black Monday
• an IRA bomb killed 11 and injured more than  60 at Enniskillen’s war memorial on Remembrance Sunday
• accumulated rubbish under an escalator at King’s Cross fuelled a fire which killed 31 and injured many more.

 Seems incredible doesn’t it. Even more so, how did I weave this background into the story of a woman’s investigation into the life of the great aunt she never met and the romance she found along the way. Read THE YEAR I FOUND GREAT AUNT ALICE to find out. Available on Kindle or from Amazon Books and watch out for a coming Giveaway on Goodreads.