Tag Archives: Historical

Not all Greek to me!

What a month! The builders are still finishing the renovations to my house, I’m pressing on with Book 3 of The Bletchley Park Girls and have recently returned from a fortnight’s holiday abroad – the first in three years.

The holiday incorporated the Mani Literary Festival in Stoupa, a beautiful village in Greece where I was invited to speak. It was a 2-day event straddling September and October. Two other writing friends, Carol McGrath, and Suzanne Goldring were also asked. We all flew out to Kalamata the day before and settled in quickly as we know the area, courtesy of Carol who has a house close by and has regularly invited us to stay.

One of the restaurants in the village offers its delightful gardens to the Lit Fest every year so the talks took place outside in perfect weather – very warm and sunny but not boiling hot. Each of us was invited to tutor a workshop and give a talk relating to our books. I decided to do the 2-hour workshop on Memoir Writing in the morning and in the afternoon spend the allotted hour discussing Bletchley Park.

I thoroughly enjoyed giving the workshop, where I had nine women and one man round the table, showing them through examples of my own two memoirs how to tackle them, and letting the attendees have time to do my set exercises and read them out. People’s lives are nothing short of fascinating, even though several of them apologised for not having done anything particularly exciting.

‘It’s like jokes,’ I told them. ‘It’s not the content – it’s the way you tell ’em.’

Suzanne Goldring and me after our talk

Then in the afternoon Suzanne interviewed me about using Bletchley Park as a setting for my series. I explained that the story wouldn’t have worked in any other location and had become a character in its own right. They were a very attentive audience of about 50 and several people asked me questions at the end, but it was surprising to learn that so few had ever visited the Park. I told them Hitler said the Enigma would be impossible to crack as you’d need 10,000 people to do it and asked them how many staff they thought ended up at Bletchley Park. They were surprised to learn it was 10,000!

‘And when you visit you’ll get a good idea of what took place as you wander through the various Huts and Blocks,’ I continued. ‘The atmosphere plunges you right into the Second World War and you get a real sense as to how it must have felt for all those who tirelessly worked there. It’s been calculated many times that Bletchley Park shaved two years off the duration of the war, besides saving hundreds of thousands of lives, so I do urge you to experience it for yourself.’

I had two copies of the first book of my series: Summer Secrets at Bletchley Park to give away. When I said: ‘The first person to put up their hand—’ a lady sitting in the front row immediately shot her hand up. I wagged my finger at her. ‘You don’t even know what you’re volunteering for.’ To much laughter, she said, ‘I’m happy to take the risk.’ So I handed her a book but she said, ‘I’ve read this one,’ and gave it back to me, saying she’d read all my books and loved every one. What a thrill to meet such a fan. She came up to me afterwards and said I’d kept her sanity! She’d been going through a rough time with her family and my books had given her an hour or two’s reprieve at night.

 Margaret, if you happen to be reading this, I do hope you won’t mind my telling it, but that’s what we authors hope will happen when we write our books. They can provide not only an escape from our problems but sometimes even throw a light on how we might overcome or resolve them in real life.

As writers we usually never have the chance to know the impact our stories are having when they go out into the world. It’s quite humbling, when you think about it, but it’s the most rewarding part of the whole process – that the reader loves what we do. You can’t ask for more.

Happy writing to all the new Mani memoir writers!

And until next month, happy reading!


Summer Secrets at Bletchley Park is out now.

September 1939. London is in blackout, war has been declared, but Dulcie (Dale) Treadwell can think only of American broadcaster, Glenn Reeves, who didn’t say goodbye before leaving for Berlin.

Heartbroken, Dulcie is posted to Bletchley Park, where she must concentrate instead on cracking the German Enigma codes. The hours are long and the conditions tough, with little recognition from above. Until she breaks her first code…

But when a spiteful act of jealousy leads to Dulcie’s brutal dismissal, her life is left in pieces once more. Is it too late for Dulcie to prove her innocence and keep the job she loves? And will her heart ever truly heal if she doesn’t hear from Glenn again…?

A Winter Wedding at Bletchley Park will be published on 24th November this year.

When Rosie Frost was jilted on her wedding day, she didn’t think life could get any worse. But six years later in the throes of the Second World War, she is unceremoniously dismissed from her dream job after they discover her illegitimate child.

Thankfully, top secret war office Bletchley Park recognises Rosie’s talent and recruits her to decipher their Italian naval signals. Happy to be doing her bit for the war effort, Rosie settles into her new life.

But when she spots a familiar face at the Park, Rosie’s world threatens to come crashing down once more. Can she put her heartbreak behind her? And will wedding bells ring out across Bletchley Park before the year is out?

Moving slowly forward…

It’s been another hectic month for me, what with viewings on my house which recently went on the market and accepting an offer within days, then a week later falling through, so more viewings and several offers, I’m hoping the estate agent (my ex-company!) has finally produced the right family who’ll stick with it until the proposed exchange and completion next month.

Getting rid of stuff that won’t fit into a smaller place is a job in itself. I’m really hopeful that I’ll soon be moving from Pembury, near Tunbridge Wells – where I’ve been perfectly happy for 30 or so years – to Ringmer, near Lewes. Now I’m on my own, I want a change. My sister moved to Lewes a year ago and loves it so I bought a place needing a full renovation just two miles away. She’s become my project manager and slowly, mostly because of so many delivery delays, it’s taking shape.

I’ve had to sell or give away stuff to friends, donate to charities, tag items for auction – mostly my late husband’s myriad collections, furniture and over a thousand books that I can’t cope with (I’ve kept around 100 of Edward’s books because he had an amazing variety of reference books on the Second World War which I mostly write about), and generally declutter. All difficult decisions.

And the third thing that’s keeping me busy is that I’ve managed to finish my second novel in The Bletchley Park Girls series. This one is called A Winter Wedding at Bletchley Park. I now have it back from the editor for me to look at her suggestions and do another full edit. I like this part of the process because every change I make will ensure a better book. But it takes a lot of thought with even small alterations as these can still ripple through the novel causing more read-throughs and checks to be made.

My current novel, the first in the series: Summer Secrets at Bletchley Park, was published at the end of April, and I’m thrilled to say that last week on Amazon it made No 1 in both paperback and kindle version in the category ‘Military Romance’. I couldn’t believe it when I read it one evening just before getting ready for bed, but here’s the proof:

At the time of writing, the e-book is on sale for just 99 pence.

As well as editing, and after three attempts to write Chapter One of the third book in the Bletchley Park series, I’ve finally settled on where I think the opening should take place. But even my lovely editor at HarperCollins doesn’t know this yet, so I’ll keep it under wraps for the time being. It will probably change again anyway when I get right into the thick of the characters and the plotting.

Well, I’d better bring this to a close and carry on with the edits of Winter Wedding as although publication day is not until 24th November, I notice it’s already on Amazon for pre-order! That’s a good enough incentive to crack on.

Enjoy the lovely summer weather we are about to have and hope to see you next month. Happy reading!

Changes on the horizon…

Photo of white cat called DougieWell, we’ve made it through grey January and already in foggy February. But as I write this and look out of my cabin window, I can see a part cloudy, part blue sky through which a weak sun is shining. But it’s enough to cheer me up, especially when we only have a few weeks before nature bursts into life. I’m hoping at the same time that Dougie, my rescued cat, will also burst into life. He’s been comatose practically all winter, sleeping 22 ¾ hours out of 24. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s part hedgehog.

This month, I will be completing on a property I’m in the process of buying in Ringmer, a village just outside Lewes – the town where my sister moved only months ago and loves. Although I won’t be moving until summer, I’m getting quite excited about beginning a new chapter in my life. I come from Norfolk originally but have lived in various parts of the Tunbridge Wells area for the last 40 years, after working in different countries abroad, so this is going to be a real change. But when I told Dougie we’re going to move he put his paw over his ear as if to say, ‘I like it here, thank you very much, Mummy.’

Beginning a new chapter leads me to update you on my new Bletchley Park series called The Bletchley Park Girls.I’m thoroughly enjoying writing them but my goodness, what a lot to learn. I’ve visited Bletchley Park four times during the last 20 years – once being last year and I’m due to go again at the end of this month. There are several questions I need answering, so I’m hoping I’ll get to talk to one of the historians who will hopefully be on hand. I need to take notes of the particular section of codebreaking work carried out in the Huts pertaining to my stories, and refresh my memory of the general layout of the Huts and buildings and lake to the Mansion. Then there are the books on the subject. You should see them all spread out on my cabin worktop and sofa, with some lurking on a bookshelf, not to mention a couple more that I’m rereading in the sitting room indoors. There are more than 20 on the go!

Summer Secrets at Bletchley Park comes out on 28th April, and I am chuntering towards the ending of a very rough first draft of A Winter Wedding at Bletchley Park, due to be published in November. And between now and then I should be well into the first draft of a third book, title yet to be agreed.

I’d better get cracking to meet those deadlines! See you next month

Molly Green