Inspiring Women Magazine November 2023

lessons from their cross-cultural experience.
The eldest, Wanda, wants to be accepted as
an English girl and she sets off for London in
search of her dream. The second girl, Zosia, is
her grandmother’s pride and joy and revels in
Polish language and history. She embarks on a
fateful trip to Warsaw and Krakow, then still in
the depths of communism. The youngest boy,
Jan, has no real interest in his background, but
remains in his hometown determined to make
money. The novel explores the themes of
generational antagonism, class, cultural conflict
and the meaning of belonging.
What was your inspiration for the book?
The inspiration for my novel came from my
father's and grandmother’s history. My father
was one of around 120,000 Poles who arrived
in the UK in the 1940s. They set up communities
and a network of Polish Clubs across the
country. As children, we spent our weekends
at the Polish Club and attended Polish Saturday
school and Polish mass. My grandmother was
allowed to leave Warsaw in 1957 and came
to live with us, bringing her language, culture
and cooking skills. I thought the story of this
little-known group of immigrants deserved to
be told.
How long did it take you to write the book?
It took me around 18 months to write the novel
and it went through many edits and rewrites.
I had the help of a wonderful editor and my
cousin in Poland, a novelist herself, who
arranged for publication of the Polish edition
of the book.
What kind of research did you do, and how
long did you spend researching before
beginning the book?
Most of the ideas for the book came from
stories I’d heard within the Polish community
and accounts from my own family history. I
also used my own memories of a trip I made to
Poland as a teenager in 1977. However, I needed
to research Polish historical events to make sure
names, dates and places were accurate.
What is the most important thing you want
readers to take from your book?
I hope readers will enjoy the story, will learn
something about this period of history and will
identify with the characters. I think it’s important
for the world to show empathy towards
immigrants in these increasingly hostile times.
When did you start writing?
I wrote the synopsis and first three chapters
of the novel when I was in my early twenties (in
the mid-1980s). That was when the image
came into my head of a proud and elegant
elderly Polish woman who had been a widow
for many years. I then put the papers in a
drawer and forgot about them. When I was in
my early forties, I found them again and decided
it would be an interesting concept for a novel
so I started writing.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
We have all heard of the Brontes and Jane
Austen, but I’m fond of lesser-known 19 th
century English writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell
and Arnold Bennett. My favourite Bennett novel
is The Old Wives’ Tale, a family saga, set in the
part of the world I come from.
What is your favorite childhood book?
As a child, I loved the stories of Milly Molly
Mandy written by Joyce Lankester Brisley in
the 1920s. Milly Molly Mandy is a young girl
who lives in "the nice white cottage with the
thatched roof" in a small English village. With
two or three friends her age, she has small
adventures such as camping in a field, learning
to ride a bike or building a tree house. The iconic
pictures, drawn by the author, and the gentle
stories have stayed with me all my life. I loved
to study the map of the village in the front of the
novels and imagine myself walking to the school
across the fields, buying a cake at the bakery or
watching the blacksmith strike his anvil.
What are you reading now?
I usually have a non-fiction book and a novel
on the go. The non-fiction is Politics on the
Edge by Rory Stewart. The novel is The Night Ship
by Jess Kidd. Over the summer, I read The
Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocum which I
really enjoyed.
If you could tell your younger writing-self
anything, what would it be?
My advice to my younger self would be to
have more confidence in my abilities, to write
every day and to start sending off as many
short stories to magazines as possible. Magazine
stories are formulaic but they teach brevity and
the ability to form characters and create a great
plot. These days it’s possible to do a degree
in Creative Writing, but that was not the case
when I was 18. In fact, fiction writing was not
considered something that could be learned –
you either had the talent or you didn’t. Now I
know the way to become a better writer is by
reading widely, writing every day and joining
writers’ groups to critique others’ work.
What’s next for you? Are you working
on anything new you’d like to share with
our readers?
After The Black Madonna of Derby, I
wrote Sweetest Enemy which is a sequel to
the earlier book. In the past few years, I have
been writing travel and history articles for a
website and I recently wrote a travel article
about the Polish port of Gdansk for the
Sunday Times. I have a new grandson and
I’ve started writing a little book about my
childhood with water colour illustrations
(I took up painting during lockdown!). The
book is intended just for my family but I
never say never to publication!
Books presented in the
Inspiring Reads feature are
available for purchase via
the FAWCO website in the
Books by Members or Books
by Clubs sections.
Enjoy!
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