Lost in the Flames Q 3

Tony

As well as the dedication, you are including a donation from each sale to the RAF Bomber Command Memorial Fund. Perhaps my previous questions answer this one. Do you have a close connection to this RAF Fund?

Christopher

No, the only connection I have to the Memorial Fund is that I support the Memorial (and will be attending its unveiling on 28 June) because it represents, at last, official recognition of the courage and sacrifice of those who flew in Bomber Command. I am contributing to the Fund something from each book sold because this is coherent with the reasons I wrote the book. I may only be able to contribute a relatively modest sum in total, but it’s important to me that I do contribute. One thing of which I’m fairly certain is that I won’t make a profit myself from the book – but that’s not why I wrote it.

Rosie and Rusty

Nearly forgot. On Sunday I had the company of both Rusty and Rosie. Both delightful dogs. Regretfully, the camera really has given up and neither photo came out.
If the owners of either dog would like to attach a photo to an e-mail, we'll put them on the blog.

Lost in the Flames - Question 2

Tony

The book is clearly in support of the bomber boys themselves but is ambivalent about the effect on German morale or capability. Have you an opinion on this?

Christopher

Historians of the calibre of Max Hastings, Richard Overy, and Robin Neillands do not agree on whether the bombing strategy was effective or whether the bombing was excessive or morally justified (particularly in the last few months of the war), so I don’t think I’m qualified to give a firm view either way. I could trawl through some of the arguments on each side of the fence, but would just be repeating what has been said by those more knowledgeable than I am. However, if you’re interested, I’ve included links to a couple of interesting pieces on my website (www.manorhousepress.com) – an article by David Bashow in defence of Bomber Command, and a debate between the philosopher A.C. Grayling and Christopher Hitchens (the former playing the prosecution, the other the defence). What is clear is that there were victims on the ground and victims in the air, and what happened can only have been dreadful for all of them. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the bombing strategy, to suggest that the airmen themselves were somehow culpable, rather than victims of the times and circumstances through which they lived, seems very wrong, and to judge them in hindsight and through the lens of modern-day peacetime morality seems a flawed means of evaluating what they did for this country when it was on its knees and engaged in a genuine fight for survival.

Lost in the Flames - blog interview

I've dropped a line recently, to Christopher Jory, author of Lost in the Flames. Over the next few days, I'll blog with some of the answers he gave to my questions. This first reply is particularly interesting as it makes clear that much of the book is based closely on F.O. John Ross, to whom the book is dedicated.

Tony

You dedicate the book to a named airman and 55,572 others. Who was Flying Officer John Ross?

Christopher

Flying Officer John Ross was my grandmother’s brother – something of a legend in the family, known to everyone now as Uncle Jackie. He served in 186 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command. Like Jacob in Lost in the Flames, Jackie trained initially as a pilot but ended up as a bomb-aimer. Jackie and Jacob share other characteristics – they both grew up in country towns, went to Grammar School, as boys wrote of their dreams of flying and in adulthood wrote poems, volunteered as soon as they could, trained in Canada, flew more than one tour of ops, felt some sort of guilt at what they were required to do (breaking down and saying, when very drunk and in floods of tears, ‘These hands have killed thousands’). They both knew they had little chance of surviving for long – six weeks was an average expectation in Bomber Command – but carried on regardless because they had a sense of duty and no real choice. They both left a cigarette stub on the mantelpiece before their last op (I saw Jackie’s for the first time just the other day, when I gave my grandmother a copy of the book), and they both flew the plane home on many occasions because their pilots’ nerves were shot away by the conditions in which they operated. Jackie was killed on his 36th operation, over Dortmund, on 3rd February 1945, aged 21. He could have stopped after thirty ops, but he said they would think he was ‘chicken’ if he did, so he carried on – and perhaps he loved flying too much to stop. I’ve learned these things about Jackie from my grandmother, and elements of many of her anecdotes about him occur in the book, so there is an authenticity to the actions and sentiments described. I also have copies of some of Jackie’s letters, and I have used elements of these too – Jacob’s letter on p.194, for example, is taken virtually word-for-word from a letter Jackie wrote, and I’m pleased that his words can be read – and his photo seen – by those who never met him, nearly 70 years after he died. I think he deserves this recognition, and more.

First calendars, now diaries.

We tried a few desk diaries and pocket diaries late last year and they went well. Now we have them in early, so look in to see if any would be suitable for Aunt Mildred in Australia.

The Totterings Diary, full of cartoons from Annie Tempest, was popular last year but Cats and Dogs always go well, the RHS diary has lovely illustrations and the Imperial War Museum one has a gritty wartime photo from service and civilian life for each week of the year.

Give them a look.

We have a clear day on June 12th!

Thyme Running Out - the paperback

Among the various exciting things to have happened recently, there's one that you might have missed.

OK That's enough suspense - it's the arrival of 30 paperback copies of Thyme Running Out by Panama Oxridge, the sequel to the amazing Justin Thyme.

If there is one book that has helped our bookstore stay open in the face of Amazon, The Book People, supermarkets and now The Kindle it's Justin Thyme.

If you have read it, you'll know just how ingenious it is. We've had nothing like it, ever! Until now!

With the arrival of the sequel, even Justin Thyme comes in second place for ingenuity, shocks and surprises. It is utterly brilliant and despite being about 60 pages thicker is an even more reasonable price. It also has the usual appendix of the more difficult words and there are clues and secrets everywhere. Oh! and lots of Time Travel!

Here's my review and do watch this blog for a possible special deal if you've not read Justin Thyme.


Thyme Running Out
Panama Oxridge paperback £6.99

I have been wanting to write a review of Thyme Running Out ever since I first read the hardback late last year. Now that the paperback is out, I really must get down to it. There’s a problem though. I can type a string of totally honest complimentary adjectives which will not help make up a reader’s mind if I don’t relate them to the plot. The plot, you see, is the problem. It’s almost impossible to mention any of the events in this book without giving something away. There are so many shocks and surprises that must remain secret that I daren’t mention any of them. Well, perhaps a few, eh?
   The book starts slowly and amusingly with Justin using his Thyme Machine to investigate the extinction of the Dodo, only to find that a baby one has hitchhiked back with him to the present. The dodo becomes an addition to the strange pets in the castle; Eliza the computer literate gorilla, Burbage, the Shakespeare quoting parrot and the eight legged cat, Tybalt.
   There are also new staff members, Peregrine Knightly, the drippy nosed butler and Evelyn Garnet, the ruthless replacement nanny (for Nanny Verity is still missing). Either could be planning to steal the Thyme Machine. The action soon starts to rush along with discoveries about Mrs Kof and the new Nanny being only minor news compare with some of the most amazing revelations that ace detective Justin discloses in a Poirot scene that will have you gasping, chortling and scratching your head, all at the same time. And I haven’t even mentioned the big surprise which locked up my brain for several seconds. I simple could not believe the trick that the author had played on me. If you thought Justin Thyme was tricksy, just you wait till you read Thyme Running Out. There is one sentence in the book that virtually demanded that I had to read Justin Thyme all over again.
   It’s ingenious and complex enough to challenge even Sherlock Holmes (and he does get a faint mention). It’s amazing. It’s funny. It’s gripping. It’s even moving. Finally, though it’s difficult to believe that it could be better than Justin Thyme, it is!

Signing error

If you receive your copy of

The Bourton/Moreton/Stow/Chippy Times through the door in the next few days,

you will notice that the twits at

Cotswold Bookstore have advertised

a book signing on 23rd May.

Of course, it should read 23rd June!

2012!

That's when Christopher Jory will be signing Lost in Flames and Derek J Taylor will be signing A Horse in the Bathroom.

Christopher will be bringing with him an original bomber jacket used by an RAF airman in the war, some pieces from a Lancaster shot down over Holland, a small navigational 'computer' used in Lancasters, a photo of the airman to whom the book is dedicated and perhaps copies of one or two of his letters.

Derek will not be bringing the horse.