WHERE DID THE IDEA BEGIN?

The idea of conflict makes a good start. But as we were taught in history, in any situation that arises there will be both underlying and immediate causes.

You might [as I did, long ago] take part in a workshop. We were invited to write a scene in which two people meet again after a long time apart. Now, I am pretty hopeless about doing on-the-spot stuff like this, but sometimes it's no bad thing to be asked to ditch the little voice which is always telling you what a rubbish writer you are and just go for it.

So I dreamed up Jane [she became Jenny in the serial] clattering cups in the sink in her run-down beach-hut restaurant while remonstrating with her wayward son, who'd turned up out of the blue after n years away. Back then, Gary was a real bad boy. He later changed the most of all the characters, but I always liked him and was glad I was able to keep that part of his character which saw things differently.

Then, like scenery shifting, other underlying ideas gather themselves into the writer's mind at any time, day or night, unbidden and [occasionally] unwanted or at least unrecognised until some obvious use for them presents itself. Usually at 3 a.m. when, frankly, saner persons will be asleep. Best to scribble them down, and hope to sleep again.

But the immediate, immediate cause will probably be one specific challenge which jolts you into getting down to something you'd always told yourself you'd do one day.

'How would you feel about writing a serial for us, then?' asked my editor.

You allow one gulp of astonishment before, of course, you reply 'Yes!'

Left out the rights information...

Sent off the serial words to Hale the publishers last week... and already a letter has come back to me with a request to let them know these words are truly mine to sell. Of course, that's an assurance I should've put in the covering letter! Silly me.

Must now write back asap, with lesson learned, I hope.

Meanwhile, a talk about the story to local group seemed to go well. Thank you, friends. You made my day when you said it sounded as if I 'just sat down and wrote a story,' because [even though among the arrows, the spidergrams and the sticky notes it's not quite the whole truth!] that was what I was aiming for...

THE CORNISH CHOUGH

This is, I'm sure, just how the battered sign looked - the one that creaked all the way through 'The Turn of the Tide' as it hung on its rusted hinges above Penarren's Patchwork Palace! On the other side it says, of course, 'Try our traditional Cornish pasties!'

But what exactly is a chough?

This special member of the crow family is the emblem of Cornwall. You can see it on the Cornish coat of arms, between the miner's axe and the fisherman's net. It has a red beak, red legs and a distinctive tumbling flight. It's call is - as its name implies - a harsh chee-och sound. Despite its emblematic status, for 50 years it vanished from its own land.

But in 2001, a pair of these birds - perhaps from Brittany - returned to nest again in Cornwall. Great care was taken to guard the site, and the Cornish bird has been able to re-establish itself once again.

And... its posh name is Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax, but don't let that worry you.

DOWN TO THE HARBOUR

There's usually an image in my mind, long before any words hit the screen. I like to have postcards, maps [especially maps] cuttings... a whole collection of memory-joggers in a box or pinned to a board. Not to mention notebooks or scrapbooks. Sometimes, it can get a bit tricky even reaching the computer! I also like to sketch characters' faces, their shoes, hats or clothes. Nothing very artistic, and nobody but me to see them of course, but just a bit quicker than words in the early stages.

I think this photo, taken from the box at random, is actually of Looe. That narrow pavement between the tall houses, that slope, and the harbour below - well, it all helped on a writing morning when I was about as far from the tang of salt or the sound of the waves as can be in the British Isles.

CORNISH MEMORIES

Well, this is pretty much where it all began! Cornwall was a far quieter place in the Fifties, although as I think you can see, the plastic mac was an essential as the sun didn't always shine even then. Can you spot the places? There's Mawgan Porth, Tolcarne Beach and Padstow all in there somewhere. Lots of waves, sand for castles, and just a glimpse there of the white, feathery tail of that most independent of companions, Punch the dog.

We were lucky to be there with friends, most summers as I was growing up. If you need memories to call on for writing a story such as Turn of the Tide [and of course you do] then these were like a wonderful library of them just waiting to be used.

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

A serial in 9 parts.

...of Love and Lifeboats.

This is the story of how the story came about... and perhaps about what happened next....

The first thing you'll notice is that this isn't the Etta Trelawney! This is because some of the research for the serial was done while we were on holiday about as far away from 'Penarren' as might be possible while remaining somewhere in England. We visited the Aldeburgh lifeboat station where everyone was most kind and patiently answered my questions.

[this serial was published in The People's Friend, Autumn 2009]