Swindon Railway Village | Author, Jane Lark's stories

As I said in my previous post, three of the things that lead me to ideas for books are people, places and pictures. Last time I told you about some of the people, over the next three days I will tell you about some of the places behind the GWR Girls series.

I have split the places up so I can include lots of pictures!

I grew up living near Swindon, in Shrivenham and then Faringdon. I often travelled into Swindon town. My father worked in a factory there. Then I started working in the town and for a couple of years I commuted daily before moving into Swindon when I was twenty-one. So, the Railway Village cottages, the hostel that was the old railway museum, and the park and swimming pool, were places I have known for as long as I can remember. However, despite having had a daughter who I took to the STEAM – Museum of the Great Western Railway a few times, I had never made the time to get to the small museum in Swindon’s historic Railway Village.

So, three years ago, I finally did make the time to go along and look around the beautiful, if compact, 34 Faringdon Road – the Railway Village Museum, that captures a moment in Victorian life in the Railway Village. The layout, though it is earlier than the date of my books, was still inspirational. For instance, I visited at Christmas and paperchains hung around the room, and of course they were using open fires as my families would have, and old stoves, as well as tin baths, and outside toilets. Seeing things in real life, feeling them and hearing them, does help a writer to bring things to life in words.

I have included a few photos so you can see what a perfect little time capsule of a museum this is on the inside. This gallery of pictures from the ground floor. The cottage is the layout I have used for Maggie’s family in the Great Western Railway Girls.

These images are from the ground floor, there are two original rooms on the ground floor of the foreman’s cottage and a lean-to extension that incorporated the outside water pipe and created a kitchen.

The below images are from the upstairs room. The foreman’s cottages have three bedrooms. It was a frequent reality that people rented out rooms, as Violet’s mother does in my story, to bring in more money.

As you can see it is such a little gem of a museum, and a wonderful inspiration.

Three of the things that lead me to ideas for books are people, places and pictures. Today, I thought I would tell you about some of the people that inspired the GWR Girls series.

Most of my books contain elements of a story that someone, somewhere, has lived. That story will be fictionalised, exaggerated and twisted, frequently to a point it barely resembles the real-life story. But the idea is sparked from a true story I have heard or read. Often, more than one story moulds a book, as snippets of people’s life stories merge into a collage that becomes a good plot idea. So, here are three of the life stories in my inspirational collage for this series. But as I say, please remember my characters are not at all representative of these real people, other than the idea was stimulated because of something they said, or something that was written about them.

Firstly, let me introduce you to, Peggy Thompson, a lady who began working for Swindon’s Great Western Railway factory in 1940. In the late 1980s she recorded her story for Swindon Borough Council to use in the newly created ‘STEAM’ – the Museum of the Great Western Railway. She even met Prince, later King, Charles, when he opened the museum. The Evening Advertiser article on the event is here, which quotes Peggy’s words. I have visited STEAM many times over the years. However, it was only when I began thinking about writing a saga series, that I stopped and listened to Peggy’s story that played in one of the museum’s video stands. Peggy talks about working in the Bomb Gang, as she called it, making 25-pounder bombshells during World War II. There we go, right there. What a great premise for a story about women in WWII. She also shared a cheeky little story about meeting up with her boyfriend for a kiss while they were working and rushing back so they didn’t get into trouble! Such a character incentive.

Next, there’s a young Jewish teenager in The Great Western Railway Girls. It is important to me to include diverse characters in my stories, to represent more of the breadth of our society. In this series, I particularly wanted to include a Jewish family. I looked up lots of information about the Jewish community in Swindon and discovered that there was no recognisable Jewish community in Swindon until the refugees arrived during in WWII. Then I came across a story about a German, Jewish, teenager who came to England in the Kindertransport. He was one of about one thousand of the older children who were separated out and interned in an ‘Enemy Alien’ camp, either on the Isle Wight or in Cumbria. This was done just in case the teenagers supported the Nazi cause.

A Swindon family fought with the authorities to free him, and of course, right there is another great back story for characters, for the family who took him in as much as for a teenage character.

Last of all, I’ll tell you about my grandma. Catherine May Howell, nee Smith. Yes, my character Catherine is named for her. I have the letters that she received from my grandfather during the war years. He was a pilot. She didn’t live in Swindon in the war years but she had lived in Lagos Street in Swindon in the mid 1930s. So, when I moved into Swindon in the 1990s, she shared lots of stories of the town. Including telling me about a butcher that used to serve the nicest faggots. That butcher shop was still there then. I think it was in Market St, or Havelock St. It’s not there now. It’s the family stories that are passed down from her and my other grandparents, that have helped to add the day-to-day picture of life for my girls.

So, that is just a taster, a quick view, of some of the stories of people who helped me come up with the ideas for my characters, because, lots more people have created the collage that makes up my railway girls. Of course, there are a lot more stories to come through in later books in the series.

The pictures at the top of the post are of a letter my grandmother wrote to my grandfather in 1942…

Preorder the first book in The Great Western Railway Girls series here… https://amzn.to/3WoM3ig