We returned to England from Italy by car on Saturday 4th and two hours later, I had to take my lovely husband to A & E when he said, “Something’s not right; I can’t remember stuff.” He knew who I was and I recognised what might be happening. A few years ago I had experienced a frightening bout of transient global amnesia myself and so a quick turn around, with all our suitcases and boxes scattered about the living room, I took him to hospital. It was a very traumatic experience and, basically, he will likely never remember about eleven hours of his life. But he has not had a stroke and his heart is in good health, thank goodness. Now, I am in bed, pulling out of what has been a horrid couple of days suffering from flu. Feeling delicate, we flopped on the sofa last night by the stove and switched on the first two episodes of a #ww2 drama: Rogue Heroes

I sat further forward as an important scene from my own book, The Sicilian Secret, reeled out before me.

Chapter 24 of my Sicilian book describes the landings on the south eastern coast of the island: Capo Murro di Porco (the Pig’s Snout). It is a stone’s throw from where I lived and worked in my early twenties. And I visited it again in 2023 and mention it in my author’s notes at the back of my book.

This came up on the screen: the spot where I had lived in the 1970s and where the allies landed for Operation Husky

Here is a section from my author’s notes: “ … special thanks must go to Giovanni Abela and our serendipitous meeting. In May 2023my husband and I revisited Sicily specifically to research Operation HuskyA security guar.d turned us and Giovanni away from the landing sites. I speak fluent Italian and I was moaning to Giovanni, who turned out to be a keen, amateur historian of that very period. He showed me books he had in in his car boot and then, when the guard had disappeared, sneaked us down a footpath to explore the ruined barracks and battery positions. To be able to see the inscriptions on the walls, still intact and relatively unspoiled after eighty years, to stand on those cliffs battered by the winds and waves and imagine what happened on that night, was gold dust…Anything that can help an author step into a scene, also helps the reader.”

Giovanni at the landing point standing by a gun emplacement

The lighthouse at Capo Murro di Porco

I’m not sure where that BBC scene was actually filmed – the coastline looked different and buildings were not what I had snooped in, but it was thrilling to watch the events unfold. Tragic too. When I had visited the Commonwwalth War Graves cemetery in Syracuse, I’d discovered there had been two hundred and fifty fatalities when the gliders missed their landing marks. Paddy Mayne ordered his men to avoid rescuing them from drowning in the sea, to concentrate on the task ahead. I included this in my book too, but Paddy Mayne is not Irish in my version, but a Scot and named Hamish Moyes. Such is the power of the sword when a writer thinks “what if?” and wants to circumvent legalities.

There is a very poignant scene in the second film instalment where one of the SRS men (Special Raiding Squadron) asks to confess to (a rather dodgy) priest. He was haunted at not having reached out to save one of the glider pilots clinging on to the landing craft. Another soldier cut him loose. The confession aspect reminded me of something that my own father had told me. He too was in Italy during the war. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he told me that he’d found confession very helpful during the traumatic times of war. A comfort.

My account of the landings and horrific glider accidents

When I write my #historical fiction, I am trying to impart pieces of social history. My books are not history lessons (an equivalent phrase is written at the start of the episodes of Rogue Heroes by the way). I include facts but I want to explore lives, the effects of war, the events that fairly ordinary people live through. Mind you, the SRS – formed from the original SAS were not really ordinary. They were zany, rebellious anarchic, slightly crazy and I love the anachronistic rock music played in the background of these episodes during the madder, more tumultuous scenes.

I have obviously read Ben McIntyre’s wonderful book on which the episodes are based and I recommend it but my own book departs from the rest of the account of the invasion of Sicily because my character,Savio,goes into hiding. But what happens after then, I won’t divulge. If you like, you can read about it in The Sicilian Secret.

I’m looking forward to watching the remaining episodes and being transported back to my beloved Sicily, where I met my husband more than forty seven years ago. I never dreamt back then that I would write a novel set in beautiful Sicily. But #dreamscome true.

In the next days I have to put finishing touches to Book 8 before I submit to my lovely editor at Bookouture