"Charentin,
1918" came about because I had finished my WWII Series and didn't want to
stop writing. I had never considered
writing about the Great War -- it seemed so long ago, its origins so
notoriously convoluted. But as I came up with the idea
of a handicapped boy working on the trains of New Zealand I knew I had my way
in. Then, when I decided to write it in
the present tense, the war took on an immediacy that compensated for its
distance in time.
I've
always been fascinated by trains, and was lucky to have been born at a time
when there were still some steam locomotives running in Britain. I vividly remember standing on Stratford
station as a Britannia came through, a most elegant locomotive.
The
ANZACs -- Australian and New Zealand divisions -- have always been considered
the epitome of bravery. Sadly, they were
largely employed in the doomed Gallipoli campaign. But many took part in the fighting on the western
front, too, distinguishing themselves as always.
The
British had come up with the idea of the tank earlier in the war, but the
Germans were late to the game, entering just a few into the fray in 1915. I wanted my protagonist to come up against
them in some way, and he does, to save his friends. His handicap -- deafness -- comes to his aid in the end.
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