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The steps at Middle Harbour where the book starts as Jimmy's boat - 'Maryann' - draws up, having lost their 12 year-old cookie overboard in a storm
Why fiction?
Jon explains the risk he's taking turning to fiction to tell the history of ordinary people.
He explores his view that history is necessarily speculative, indeed most historians do a good deal of guesswork (!)
He argues that historical fiction based around real events becomes tricky because people begin to mistake it for history. Such as in the brilliantly written but historically incorrect Wolf Hall trilogy.
A Spring Marrying is not based on real events. It’s a story that could have happened. He says that 'all the background - the little port, the beautiful sail trawlers, even the weather is as close to reality as an historian can make it.' The same goes for the annual Regatta, the man who swims every New Year's Day, the ship's doctor, the Danish sailor who set the exams for mate and skipper, the refugees coming across from Belgium in little boats (and being WELCOMED) at the start of the war, and the U-boats in the Channel.
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