It may be the sight of the convolvulus climbing through the undergrowth [I’m watching the trains, waiting for my dad and waving to the servicemen coming home on leave] or perhaps a vague scent of a perfume - a reminder of my mother [she’s going out fire watching]. It doesn’t take much to restore memories of a past era and for me, who spent my childhood during WW2 with air raid shelters, blackout, and ration cards – not forgetting the wonderful community spirit ,it didn’t take long for me to jot down memories in a simple exercise book. As I wrote it was as though my brain was my hard drive recently injected with extra powerful batteries: the words just slipped from my pen and my book was formed.
I took up writing when I retired and like most it was one of those pleasures I always dreamed of doing – when I had the time. And now, after encouragement from my grandchildren who were always asking me so many questions:
‘What was it like in the war Granny?’
‘What did you do for fun?’
‘Did you get bombed Gran?’
‘Did you really have a lavatory down the yard?’
The time was right and my book came into fruition. I typed my words onto the laptop using the jottings in my notebook. I started with Chapter 1 – My Earliest recollections, followed by another chapter about the small north eastern town of Bishop Auckland where I lived. I covered school days, washing days, entertainment, a wartime wedding and so many memories right up till V.E Day and the street parties.
It was a wonderfully enlightening experience and one I can recommend to retired people or anyone who has a store of memoirs just longing to surface. It is good for the soul and promotes a fantastic sense of achievement. The sales and profits were an added bonus.
I took up an offer with ‘You write on’ for free publishing –a small charge of about £30 for the ISBN and other overheads. The book went onto Amazon. I ordered and supplied the local sales outlets.
The hardest part for me was the instructions for the formatting, and worse still placing the photographs amongst the print which had an amazing way of jumping around; this was all before converting it into a PDF file- the final step before sending it off to the printers. Within about four weeks I had my book in my hand and ready to order as many copies as I wished. I admit it almost drove me bonkers the formatting bit but eventually Craig my friend’s son offered to help me. My son-in-law designed the book cover.
It was all a great experience and I’m definitely not out of pocket , and my memoirs have been enjoyed not only by my family but many others too.
So anyone considering this I say go for it but either improve your computer skills or enlist help and save a lot of frustration.
This content was provided by one of our users, Mary22
