by David Belbin
It’s been pointed out to me that the character Rosaline, while often referred to, never actually appears in Romeo and Juliet, yet in the novel I have Ms Howard cast her (inappropriately, given that the character is described as “virginal”). Was this a deliberate joke, a dig at the character, or a straightforward mistake? I don’t recall, but I’ve left it in.
More sources. Phil’s home in Radford is based on the terraced house I lived in from 1982-85: 119 Forster Street, in Radford, opposite the Marathon Knitwear factory. Stonywood is an invented school (in my head, it was a combination of Rushcliffe Comp in West Bridgford, where I had my only permanent teaching job, from 1985-1994, and Henry Mellish Comp in Bulwell, where I worked as a supply teacher in early 1985). After finishing the novel I found there was a real place called Stoneywood, in approximately the right area, though luckily it doesn’t have a secondary school. How did that happen? I kept the “e” out of its name to emphasise its fictionality.
One final happy note. Since I wrote the previous afterword in 2008, the novel’s dedicatee, my former editor, Julia Moffatt, has become a successful writer of romance novels. Check out her work (under her married name) at www.juliawilliamsauthor.com
David Belbin
August 2013