‘In The Name Of My Father’
A brief background to my book…
This is a tale, a tangled web that I so enjoyed putting together.
The genesis of this story has its nebulous roots in murmurings that I heard in my youth, things that were whispered about, stories I wanted to know, but which remained mostly unresolved, at least for me.
As a child, this left me feeling both puzzled and curious…and you know how curiosity works!
As I grew older I made up my mind about so many happenings, some that were a little close to home, and others not so far removed from home.
I was on the horns of a dilemma. I wanted to write about it, but there was so much secrecy, so what I didn’t know, I simply made up in my head.
Over time though, the skeleton of a story gradually took root, but first I had to feed it…a lot. Though the draft was written some years ago, it languished in a notebook for a while, and then, the more I stoked it with possibilities, the more serendipitous it grew.
It grew larger than life, to be honest.
Readers will note, and hopefully not be confused by, the two Alistairs I have injected. That was yet another idea that just popped into my head as the story took shape.
You see, my husband is Alistair, as was his uncle, and his great-uncle, and yes, they all had black curly hair, and dark eyes!
Having same names in the family lineage is what Scottish people do, so that occasionally they end up with absurd ways of explaining which person they are talking about…Old Alistair, or Young Alistair, Skinny James, or Fat James. It’s totally absurd! Maybe it never occurred to parents that there were so many other names to choose from!
So two Alistairs had to be in the story, and it took me a while to work out ways in which they could imaginatively be woven into the plot…a priest and a surgeon…polar opposites!
I so wanted the story to have elements of my Scottish/Irish heritage, as well as my Australian culture, so clearly serendipity had to play an enormous part in how the story might pan out.
The gîte? If ever there was a truly serendipitous story, this is it. Some years ago, a friend’s daughter was in Oxford doing her PhD. She and her husband went over to England to visit her, and booked a holiday cottage in France for a few weeks. The owner was a Scot, and when he found out our friends were from Adelaide he told them that one of his best school friends lived in Adelaide. In fact he had designed Adelaide. My friend explained that Colonel William Light was responsible for Adelaide’s design, and he had died in 1839!
“But you may know him,” he replied. “We’ve lost touch in recent times, but I’m pretty sure he still lives there.”
“Adelaide is a large city,” she responded.
Undeterred he offered his friend’s name. It turned out to be my brother who was a town planner. She contacted me immediately, I contacted my brother, and within half an hour the pair was back in touch.
How could I not include a gîte experience?
Though there are no characters in this tale who ever existed, there are certainly similarities in the individuals who form part of the story, Bishop Scanlon being one! I really got into his head and teased out the bestiality of his thinking. It’s a chapter I really love.
I loved piecing together a story where serendipity played such a pivotal role.
Below you will find the Chapter Index for your convenience on ILLUMINATION Book Chapters.