Learning to Type in the 1960s!!

I am a terrible hoarder of books and came across a book today entitled GREGG TYPING from the late Sixties. It is what you might call a 'text book' full of exercises for pupils learning to touch type and I could hardly believe my eyes. It seems like something from the dark ages now, yet this was the era in which Secrets in Appley Green is set.

In the example shown below, no doubt written by a man for his female secretary (just saying) the instructions are 'Using quarto paper and inserting a suitable date, type the following letter ready for signature. Take one carbon copy. Address a slip of paper, commercial envelope size, as the envelope. Production target - 25 minutes.' 

There are terms here that would be unfamiliar to many younger people. Even 'envelope' is something now rarely used what with emails and so on. 'Carbon copy' is the origin of  'cc' when you copy someone into an email, of course. The term 'bcc' now used would make no sense at all in those days as taking a carbon copy involved placing an extra sheet of paper in the typewriter and sandwiched between the two sheets of paper would be a sheet of thin, waxy, inky carbon paper. 

If you made so much as one mistake - just a single character - not only would the top sheet of paper have to be corrected with white liquid commonly known as Tipp-Ex, but also the second sheet of paper would have to be changed. It was such a faff that it taught us to avoid making errors! The concentration was intense.

So next time you delete so much as a letter or number, never mind an entire paragraph or page, think of this and be very grateful. No such thing as photocopiers or mobile phones with cameras so you could make a copy in seconds. Oh no, you just had to start all over again. And some women or girls, never a boy or man I would say, would have the unenviable job as Copy Typist! Imagine that.

Writing from Life - and some news at the end!

If you are new to my blog and have found me through Surrey Life you might like to take a look here: Surrey village people

'Writing from Life' was a title suggested to me once as a theme for a writing workshop and it got me thinking about how much I use real life in fiction.

Real life setting ...

For my first two novels I am rooted in my local area, but before I could begin to write Gypsies Stop tHere and No Gypsies Served, I needed to do a lot of research and groundwork relating to the culture and history of a particular group of people. I invented Appley Green, but it is very much based on real Surrey and Hampshire villages – as it straddles the county boundaries. Now I am writing about real village people both for LoveaHappyEnding Lifestyle magazine and Surrey Life.

With Shades of Appley Green, I used real life experience as a Community/Information Support Worker, firstly supporting teenage single Mums who needed information and emotional support; and secondly people with Parkinson’s. Both these jobs involved going out to see people in their own homes and it was rewarding, satisfying work that gave me an unusual insight into people’s private lives.

Be assured I do not use real people in my novels, at least never a whole one! But any fiction writer will tell you, I think, that they observe and pick up their struggles, attitudes, mannerisms and other character traits. These are stored away either in some brain compartment or a notebook and present themselves as you compose your story.

But the way Steph works is very much derived from my experience of working in the community and I could not have written it without this direct knowledge. Also my upbringing in the small town (some would say large village) of Tetbury inspired the whole community theme running through my novels and magazine columns.

As for Secrets in Appley Green, set in the Sixties, I have memories of being a teenager in that decade, and newly married in the Seventies. However, I had to study the so-called Swinging Sixties, reading fiction, factual books and magazines; browsing numerous websites and listening to music. It was great fun piecing together real-life memories, current affairs, fashion, pop music and the rest. I also read through my page-a day diary kept as an 11-going-on-12-year-old – sometimes squirming with embarrassment.

Coming up is something new and yet not new! Rings on Our Fingers, available to pre-order on Kindle now but not to download until 5 May, is a compilation of love stories I had published in magazines in the Eighties.

They are romantic, having appeared in Romance, My Story, True Story - and Christian Herald! But they also reflect real, everyday life of young people. More about this later, but if you’d like to take a look here is the link:   Rings on our Fingers on Amazon  A snip at £2.08 / $2.99 !  Another volume will follow in a few weeks’ time.  

Happy reading!

The Secret is out!

The list at the end of this post is constantly updated, offering links to other varied and interesting articles. 

Secrets in Appley Green – A 1960s village novel takes me back to my own teenage years but the writing of it also led me to reading around that decade, fiction, non-fiction books and magazines. Whilst it was hugely enjoyable to both research and write, getting the detail accurate and credible was challenging. 1960, for example, was very different from, say, 1965.  

I guess it may mean different things to various age-groups - you, your Mum, your Granny, your daughter!

Some of the icons of that revolutionary era, such as The Beatles, may not be mentioned, unless they crept in without me noticing. I did not want to ram endless clichés of the Sixties down the reader’s throat but rather to offer something fresh and yet quite everyday that evokes a time gone by. It is an emotional love story with a twist. 

Like Gypsies Stop tHere and No Gypsies Served, Secrets in Appley Green and Shades of Appley Green are connected but can equally well standalone. You do not need to read one before the other, but if you do read both you will recognise people at very different times in their lives and know more about them. One or two of the characters occur in all four books!

Without giving away spoilers for either book, there is a big question hovering over the end of Shades of Appley Green. One (lovely) Amazon reviewer said, ‘Miriam creates a perfect atmosphere in this book and keeps an electric suspense throughout. I never expected such a strong cliffhanger in the end – I am definitely left wanting more!’  Well, Heidi, this dangling hook is quite thoroughly answered by Secrets in Appley Green. Many of the same older characters appear as they were fifty years earlier – so yes, there is a link between the two novels. 

It has been a long time coming but anyone who has been following the plot will know that a few problems last year held things up somewhat. Cancer!

Three naïve, but very different, Appley Green schoolgirls pledge to stick together for ever, but when one of them gets pregnant, this pushes their promise to the edge.

A young girl in need of love is vulnerable to the charms of an older man with heart-breaking consequences.

This is Great Britain’s Sixties, an exciting era, gathering pace then in full swing as social change sweeps aside past attitudes, laws, fashion and culture. Youth is finding a voice as parents struggle to adjust.  Its characters span the full social spectrum and take us beyond Appley Green to Brighton, Margate, London, Vienna and Paris.

Miriam Wakerly’s  Appley Green village stories all standalone and can be read in any order, but they are connected. This one can serve as a prequel to all three, especially Shades of Appley Green.

Available on Kindle now and in paperback: 
All my books on Amazon.co.uk
and on Amazon.com 

I do hope you will enjoy reading it!  Look out for more articles and reviews :

New Book Launch on LoveaHappyEnding Lifestyle magazine

Talking about the nature of secrets on Bonnie Trachtenberg's blog:

Looking at the challenges of writing a novel with Anneli Purchase:

Reactions to a 1960s novel.  Linn B Halton's blog

An interview (brilliant questions!) with Zara Stoneley

Reinventing the plot with Sheryl Browne

An interview with Shaz Goodwin where I revealed a few things!

Kicking off a holiday reading list with funny books, courtesy of Anneli Purchase

Guest on Brook Cottage Books thanks to Debbie Johnston, aka @jontybabe, where I turn myself about face!

Review by Luke Marlowe  born in the eighties but transported to the sixties! 

Review by Adele @Kraftireader 'zipping through the chapters to find out what happened next.'

Interview with Bookgatherer  Thank you @Emalie2702

LLm Bookshop window - see a tempting extract! (Remember it's in paperback as well as KIndle)

Surrey Life Review January's Book Corner, full-page review by broadcaster and writer Juliette Foster  See page 72 !

Books and Authors  Guest author on Why I Wrote a Novel Set in the 1960s