Morgan Golladay asked Jacqueline Winspear:

MAISIE DOBBS was the first novel I had read which gave me a clear insight into the struggles of the British during WWI -- the rationing, deprivations, fears for the men (and women) engaged in the war -- on a very personal level. Here in the US, we were isolated from the war, but for the last year, and while great loss was incurred, I don't think it matched the losses of England. What were your sources?

Jacqueline Winspear My sources are too numerous to mention - but at the heart of my knowledge was the pain suffered by my grandfather - he was shell-shocked, gassed and sustained terrible leg wounds at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and was still removing shrapnel shards when he died at age 77. My maternal grandmother was partially blinded in a munitions factory explosion. And when I was a child there were several women on our street who had lost their sweethearts or young husbands to the Great War, and would never have had the chance of remarriage given the sheer number of men killed in that war. So my research begins close to home, always, and I go from there - but I do research very deeply.

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