The Bolter
Page 30
Then there is the family: Idina’s children, nieces and nephews, and their descendants. They have been, as is clear, a huge resource in this resurrection of Idina. I started this book with only the remains of the Wallaces: my grandmother Pru, my mother, Davina, and her sister, Laura, and their five children and (now) ten grandchildren. In particular, my sister Kate Bain and my cousin Sophy Skeet have dug up both photographs and keen memories of what Barbie and her sisters told them about who said what to whom when. I have had immense fun getting to know the rest, and some uncanny moments realising how similar some of us look – Idina’s blood runs thick. Dinan’s children – Merlin Erroll, Peregrine Moncreiffe, Alexandra Connell and Jocelyn Carnegie – have all been a fount of pictures and information, as have Buck’s daughter Lady Kitty Giles and her husband, Frank. The Earl and Countess De La Warr and the Dowager Countess De La Warr have shared their traces of Idina and the Sackvilles with enthusiasm. Rowena Fielding has shown the way to all things Brassey. My father’s sister, Jane Townsend, who is no relation to Idina but a long-standing fan of the legend, has helped me find out more. And thank you to Ali Hope, an old friend and, coincidentally, a step-great-something of Idina, who therefore brought some of us back together.
But research is only a part of the creation of a book. And, were it not for the unflinching faith of my outstanding agent, Gill Coleridge, Idina would have dissolved back into the dust from which I have sought to resurrect her. Gill has been a heaven-sent guiding hand for an author in that well-known state of Struggling with the Second Book, nursing Idina through various metamorphoses and choosing just the right moment to guide me on to my wonderful new editor, Lennie Goodings at Virago. Lennie’s gentle suggestions unfailingly spark off dramatic growth in what have hitherto been mere germs of ideas and her faint pencil marks shift the scales from my eyes. It has been a joy to work with her and Vivien Redman, and everyone else at Little, Brown, in particular Jenny Fry and Nicola Hill, copy-editor Richard Dawes and proofreader Celia Levett. And, already, the next book is under way . . .
Finally I have my close family to thank: Mum, for being there for me and the children at all those crucial moments of both industry and enquiry; Luke and Liberty themselves, for patiently waiting for me to finish the book before any kittens could wreak havoc in the house; Suzie, for putting up with the said kittens when they did arrive and keeping the children and fridge full of food when I was absorbed in writing; George, for putting up with me then, now and all those years past and yet to come.
London, November 2007