The Bomb Girls' Secrets by Daisy Styles was released last month so we caught up with the author to find out a bit more about the woman behind the books.
Daisy Styles
I LOVE WRITING! It calms me, entertains me, it even pays my mortgage! But most of all I love the life force and energy it gives me day after day. Not writing is like not breathing; how lucky am I that I can do what I love most for a living.
I wish I could speak good Italian! I lived in Padua and Venice for a few years and should have learnt to speak perfect Italian but I didn’t and I don’t and it makes me cringe when I brutalise “the language of the angels”.
I so enjoy stories of other people’s lives, which is how I got hooked on “Bomb Girls”. I listened to women, sadly their numbers are decreasing as their generation fades away, who were conscripted during the war years and made huge sacrifices for their country. I don’t want their stories to disappear, they deserve to be recorded and applauded.
I adore high heels, especially sandals! I love the sound they make as you’re heading off for a night out!
I’ve written quite a few stage plays and adapted classics for the stage too; I really enjoy working with theatre companies, it’s so physically demanding and noisy – quite different from working alone all day.
I miss the Edinburgh Festival. I’ve not visited the city since we took my adaptation of “Hard Times” up there. It’s a great atmosphere 24/7, you come back exhausted, invigorated – and broke!
I like walking on Holkham Beach in Norfolk, I like it so much I set “Code Girls” right there. It was a great location to research - and get a suntan too.
I love chips! My mum had a chip shop in Lancashire and I’ve never tasted chips as good as hers.
I ran a creative writing course with Roger McGough in Deia in Majorca; it was one of the best writing weeks of my life. I often return to Deia where I can write under orange trees in Robert Graves’ garden overlooking the sea. That’s what you call a muse!
I always play music of the time I’m writing about, which right now is 1942, so it’s the Andrews Sisters “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy From Company B”, Glenn Miller “In the Mood”, “Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer” and “Yours till the Stars lose their Glory” by Vera Lynn. They make me get up and dance, and occasionally they make me weep too.
