News of two talks. One at Tooting, the other at Crawley

This blog is for friends, fans and local history scholars in South London and the Crawley area of West Sussex.

 

On Friday October 13th I shall be giving a talk in Tooting Public Library at 6 00 in the evening. I’m looking forward to it very much because I shall be going back to my roots in every sense of the words. I was born and bred in Tooting and still have links there, and knew and know it well. For some time, when I was a teenager, I lived in Mitcham Lane and Tooting Library was a happy home for me. So naturally, I have set part of my latest book ‘Everybody’s Somebody’ there. Or to be more accurate ‘there’ as it was during and after the First World War, when there was a military hospital in Church Lane, which became St Benedicts, and injured soldiers in their bright blue uniforms taking the air on the common or down in Mitcham Lane. Lots of memories of Tooting in the 30’s too which we can dip in to.

 

And next day Saturday October 14th , between 11 am and 200 pm, I shall be giving a talk in Crawley Library as part of their Authors’ Book Fair. ‘Everybody’s Somebody’ starts in Sussex in a very small village called Binderton, just north of Chichester in the year 1908 when my heroine is just twelve years old and is sent to work in Arundel Castle. The story takes her to London and later to Worthing during the 30s. Lots of local history  in this one for local fans and some of it might surprise you.

 

If you live in the Tooting or Crawley area, I do hope you will come and meet me. I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. I promise we can have some fun together