Secrets and Shadows

Neutral Ireland tends to be overlooked when we talk about WWII, or maybe even forgotten. I remember reading Joan Lingard’s The File on Fraulein Berg which, although set in Belfast, still brought home the enormous difference between north and south of the border. The fact that they had lights on in Dublin, and things to buy in the shops.

Joan’s book was about two girls who thought the German teacher at their school had to be a spy. Brian Gallagher’s Secrets and Shadows is almost the same, in a way. Set in Dublin, Liverpudlian refugee Barry and the local but nevertheless bombed-out Grace, suspect Barry’s Polish PE teacher of being a spy. The man asks too many questions, and is simply too pleasant.

This is a good story, showing the effects of the war in Liverpool, explaining why Barry ends up going to live with his grandmother in Dublin, and also that being in Ireland wasn’t always totally safe, because bombings did happen. Grace and her mum have to live with her grandfather, which is how the two children meet and become friends.

Then there is the spy chase, where Grace and Barry take to observing and following Mr Pawlek, and finally breaking into his house (which is far too big for one man).

The question is whether they find anything to prove their suspicions, or if they have made a mistake. Very exciting, and as I said, just that little bit different for being an Irish story. Nice piece of time travel too, seeing how people lived then.

‘what should have happened’

Day 3 was short, but sweet. Being in the same room as Joan Lingard is quite a bonus. And the press pod was full of people wanting to interview Griff Rhys Jones. Daughter said ‘who?’, and I tried to explain, but could come up with nothing that worked. Even seeing Griff being interviewed did nothing for her. Hopeless.

The witch and her very useful photographer had gone to some trouble to beg tickets for Friday’s event, and we were delighted to meet up with the lovely Georgia from Random, who puts lots of great books our way. We were even introduced to her equally nice Random boss. (That’s Random, not random, btw.) A bit of networking may even make me think I’m doing something grown-up, rather than just play.

Just one event made the day feel almost like a holiday. Theresa Breslin had  worried she’d have no audience, seeing as she was on at the same time as Michael Morpurgo. But she did have an audience, and between you and me, the smaller venue was preferable, and the feeling of not being a sardine was beneficial. Not standing in a Morpurgo-sized queue was another bonus.

Theresa is a former librarian, who even as an adult was so scared of the librarian from her childhood library, that she crossed the road to avoid meeting her. And writing historical fiction, she has been contacted by her former history teacher, too, so her past seems intent on catching up.

She picks up the oddest ideas and sentences wherever she comes across them, and writes a story around them. It can be simple things like selling your alligator at a car boot sale, or the more advanced notion of collecting amputated limbs in a bucket. And stuff in-between.

We should believe in horoscopes and it’s apparently ‘normal’ to be loopy around a full moon. I think that Theresa was trying to tell us that her scientist husband can prove that the planets rule our lives, or some similarly far fetched idea. Mr B wore his Nostradamus tie, and Theresa read from The Nostradamus Prophecy, and as a witch I sort of have to agree with all that stuff. Sort of.

The next book from this Dickens-reading library-ticket-cheat is about the Spanish Inquisition, and we got to hear a little from the first draft. No doubt she will now go and change it all. And her editor will find more things still that hadn’t been invented at the time, thus having no business being in Theresa’s book.

(Photos by H Giles)