In answer to the often asked enquiry, I am happy to tell you that ‘Joy and Sorrow Unmasked – a story of Bath’, the third novel in The Westcott Chronicles, is progressing well: the first draft, with over sixty chapters and eighty thousand words, continues apace. Its Prologue describes the possible destruction of Chatham Row in 1972, whilst writing this I was reminded of the prologue in my first book and what Bathonians faced just over sixty years ago:
PROLOGUE
10.50pm Saturday April 25th 1942
Ernst Richter sensed the other nine Luftwaffe planes bank
and turn as he led them between the hills of the Limpley Stoke
valley. Flying in formation two thousand metres above the
meandering River Avon, the squadron of Junkers Ju 88s
followed the silver ribbon sparkling in the moonlight, guiding
them to the centre of Bath – Hitler’s immediate retaliation to
the Royal Air Force bombing Lubeck.
They were the first wave of a hundred and sixty German
bombers from France, loaded with more than three quarters
of a million kilograms of high explosives and incendiaries
destined for the city in the next six hours. The note written
below the two perforated aerial photographs of Bath, torn
from Richter’s target book simply stated: ‘Aim to the south
of the largest crescent shape housing block.’
Back to the future, and the objective of meeting the deadline of next Christmas for ‘Joy and Sorrow Unmasked’.