JOHN OWEN

 

The Chair is pure fantasy fiction.

It is an attempt to show that it is misleading (and sometimes, dangerous) to apply present-day morality and social norms to historical events. In the 18th century life was brutal for the poor, irrespective of their ethnic or geographical origins. In Georgian and Victorian Britain child labour was often as brutal as slave labour. Domestic and estate employees had very limited ability to seek better employment, and Indentured Service was common. We treated our own poor just as badly as the unfortunate West Africans.

Charles Kingsley’s book ‘The Water Babies’ (1862) was intended to rouse public revulsion against child labour. He reinforced Charles Dickens’ attempts at social reform. Although he, himself, made outrageous remarks about Catholics, Jews and Irish!

 

In the later chapters we learn about Canadian bomber pilots who frequented Betty’s Café in York during World War II.  This is a real restaurant in the centre of York and still, beside the men’s toilet, it has a large mirror which is adorned by hundreds of etched names of Allied flight crew members.

 

Andy’s Apprenticeship is a sort of biography.

Someone once observed that all biography (especially autobiography) is heavily laced with fiction!  Equally, one could claim that most fiction is riddled with the writers’ personal biases and agenda. This story is about a boy growing up in post-war Britain. He struggles at school and eventually finds himself drawn into the fringes of cold-war espionage and counter terrorism.

This story balances fiction with biography and it is left to the reader to speculate as to where the balance lies.

 

The Engine is entirely fictional. 

It deals with three generations of engineers. The grandfather just may have stumbled across a revolutionary automotive invention, but the War prevented development. The father tries to find out what happened to his family but he is obstructed by War service. The Grandson traces his family in Eastern Europe and learns his Grandfather’s secret.

 

The Cornet

is the factual biography of Alexander Owen.  All the vital details are based on census returns and Register Office files. The ‘meat on the bones’ is mostly speculative. His accomplishments are factual and the manner of his death raises interesting questions.

 

Fire is a short account of an uninteresting domestic interlude.

 

France is a small collection of anecdotes about France. Among them are pieces that draw on France’s continuing struggle to reconcile its divided history in World War II, and before.