Secrets

My grandmother once showed me the small pile of love letters my grandfather had written to her during the war. They were brittle with age, tied with a pale ribbon, and smelt of the violet soaps she kept in the drawer. Each began 'My darling Cherryblossom ...' I remember feeling surprised that Hugh would have written that. He was a man's man - ran a construction company, had little time for children, was tough, sentimental and nostalgic in the way the Scots often are. My clearest memory of him is how he always sat at the polished mahogany dinner table in the evenings, a cut glass tumbler of Scotch at his side, surrounded by black and white photographs of his fellow soldiers from World War II.

Not once did he talk about the war - he wouldn't have to children. He had been at the D-Day landings, so I can only imagine what he saw, the secrets he carried with him. One day he gave me a tiny carved ivory elephant pendant. He said a French girl had given it to him. Now of course I wonder whether it is the key to a secret wartime love affair. I remember driving through Holland and France with my parents when I was about twelve. We stopped at a pretty little village - poplar trees in the square and old guys in cloth caps playing petanque. We found the hotel where he was billeted, and amazingly the owner remembered Hugh. My father said 'Mon pere a couche avec votre femme?' He meant to say 'My father stayed here with your wife during the war?' What he actually said was 'My father slept with your wife.' The room fell silent, the man's eyes narrowed. He shrugged, and sighed. 'Probably, it was war.'

At the heart of my book is a wartime secret. Jerome Langley is a fictionalised Capa/Hemingway type character - artist, playboy, war photographer. It is hard for my generation to imagine these extraordinary times. For those without loved ones out there, warfare now seems so distant when you think of the Gulf and Afghanistan. I can only think how the families of the brave men and women feel. But to imagine a full world war where civilians are drafted and the threat of invasion is real and realise our grandparents lived this reality ... it makes you feel pretty humble. There was an incredible documentary about WWII on some time ago - it claimed around half the babies born during the war were illegitimate. Isn't it extraordinary - all those stories and secrets tucked away in each of our families that no one ever talked about. All that love and loss.

TODAY'S PROMPT: What have you never told anyone? What secrets do you carry in your heart? What have you learnt from them? How can this understanding help you with your work? There's no need to share these secrets with anyone - but it may be helpful to think how you have come through past situations and what you have learnt. You may like to fictionalise the experience. Picture a character in your writing - they find a box (what kind of box?). When they open it they are surprised to find ....