Fresh Fiction Blog | Liz Trenow, The Last Telegram

Hi there

My name is Liz Trenow, author of THE LAST TELEGRAM (published by Sourcebooks). I'm a former BBC journalist, and live in Colchester, Essex (Britain's oldest recorded town and its first Roman capital!). My family have been silk weavers for nearly 300 years, and I grew up next to the mill in Sudbury, Suffolk, which is the oldest family-owned silk company in Britain and one of very few operating today.

My debut novel was inspired by my father's memories of weaving parachute silk in the Second World War and, athough the plot and all of the characters are entirely fictional, parts of the story are based on real events. In 1938, my father's family were so concerned about the plight of their many Jewish friends and business colleagues in Europe that they decided to sponsor five German boys to travel to England and work at the mill. One of these boys fell in love with a local girl and, after internment in Australia and fighting for the Allies in Burma, returned to work at the mill, married and had a family, and lived a long and happy life. My hero, Stefan, is based on this man.

Then, from one of the company's yarn merchants I learned about an extraordinary and little known mission undertaken by his father at the height of the war to source vital silk supplies from the Middle East. This also became a storyline in the novel. I also fortunate enough to interview local people who had worked at the mill during the Second World War, whose memories helped me to understand the pressures of wartime. All of these recollections were invaluable, and made me really appreciate the vitally important work that they had carried out.

Many readers have asked me where and how I write. So here is my writing room.

writing room
I'm really quite a tidy person, though from this photo you probably don't believe me. I was tempted to tidy up before taking the photo but then thought: why not tell it like it really is? So here it is, mess and all.

I love having a dedicated office but don't like to be shut away so the door is always open unless it's mid-winter and I want to preserve heat. It's on the ground floor too, so I can hear people around the house and smell what's cooking. The window faces out onto the front garden so I can see people coming to the front door. By the keyboard is my trusty Moleskine notebook. I get through one or two for each novel, and they are with me wherever I go in case of inspiration. I love the quality of the paper and the sturdiness of their construction, but if you are listening, Moleskine, please will you make the covers in a wider range of colours, to reduce confusion? There's also a Mozart Requiem cd (my other main passion is singing choral music), the omnipresent coffee mug (which becomes a tea mug in the afternoons), my diary (I haven't yet learned to trust the electronic version entirely), and a paperweight that was a present when I left my last job. It reminds me of the lovely people there, but not the office politics I was glad to leave behind.

On the walls are photographs of my family and holiday snaps to remind me of white beaches and blue seas when things are grey and miserable here in the UK. I also stick up photos from magazines or from the internet to remind me of my characters - an ancient photo of my mum in her twenties is how I imagined Lily, the heroine of THE LAST TELEGRAM.

Out of my window is a prolific pink-flowered fuschia bush and a tall acacia tree. I often lose myself in its colours and the motion of its branches when I am looking for inspiration.

See more about me and my next book, THE FORGOTTEN SEAMSTRESS, at www.liztrenow.com.

One commenter will win a copy of THE LAST TELEGRAM. US / Canadian addresses only)

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