Day nineteen of the ‘advent calendar’ focusing on some of the historical/genealogical sources that I used in the writing of Barefoot on the Cobbles.
Previous advent posts have mentioned the importance of local archives, local history books and relevant websites, when an author is trying to recreate the geographical context for a novel that is set in the past. When my character, Polly, moved to East-the-Water, Bideford, to take up her position with the Powell family, I needed information about the area. An excellent summary of life on the eastern bank of the Torridge appears on the Human History pages of the East-the-Water website. Page 8 was the most relevant to my story but the other pages also provided interesting background.
More information about Barefoot on the Cobbles can be found here. Copies are available at various events and at all my presentations. You can order from Blue Poppy Publishing or directly from me. Kindle editions are available for those in the UK, USA, Australasia and Canada.
When a novel is firmly set in a recognisable geographical location, it is important to exploit the resources of the experts. By using Clovelly as the backdrop for much of the book, I was placing my characters in an iconic village that, is well-known far beyond the immediate area. I was fortunate to be able to have access to the expertise and archive material of 
On day three I mentioned one of the ways in which I researched the railway journeys taken by my characters when traveling between Clovelly and Torquay. Not only did I need to investigate likely routes but also the timetable that might have applied at the time. Fortunately, my library includes facsimile copies of Bradshaw’s Railway Guides. My copies are for 1922, 1923 and 1938 and I suspect that there may have been an adapted timetable during the war but I felt that these were close enough and at least this gave me an indication of how long each leg of the journey may have taken. My copies were reprinted in 1985 by Guild Publishing and there are some available on the second-hand market.
Two of the longest chapters in the novel are set in war-time Torquay. Torquay was the home-town of the crime writer Agatha Christie. She does make an appearance in the book, although you might not recognise her. Like my character, Winnie, Agatha worked at the Town Hospital in Torquay, nursing convalescent servicemen. The 
A novel about a coastal community is bound to include characters who were in the merchant service and Barefoot is no exception. I was fortunate to have access to the seaman’s log, that had been handed down in the family, for one of the characters. This gave personal details, a description, a photograph and details of the various ships on which he served. In this way, I knew exactly which ship he was on at the end of the war, where he had been, where and when he docked and the name of the captain. I also used the seaman’s records on 
Getting the timing correct is important when writing an historical novel. Firstly, I needed to make sure I knew the day of the week when certain events took place. There a number of perpetual calendars online but my favourite is 
When I decided that Daisy and Winnie would pay a visit to the ‘picture palace’, I was aiming to reflect the increasing popularity of the cinema at the time. Having chosen the appropriate main feature and ‘B’ film, that might have been shown, I decided to add a newsreel. These three elements would have been the norm in the early twentieth century and indeed for several decades afterwards. In order to pick the correct newsreel for the date, I turned to the 
Many of the characters in Barefoot in the Cobbles living in the countryside or earn their living from the sea. The impact of the weather was immense. I was determined to reflect the actual weather conditions of the time. Fortunately, thanks to the Met Office, ![Fromelles 1916 by [Cobb, Paul]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51aWYDTG-IL.jpg)
I had chosen the character who was to be my vehicle for portraying the battlefields of the Great War. It turned out the the campaign in which he was involved was not one of the more famous ones, unless you are Australian. The Battles of Fromelles features prominently in the Australian narrative because there were huge numbers of ANZAC casualties. Most of the books are written from the Australian point of view and for a secondary account, I relied most heavily on Paul Cobb’s 
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 