Many thanks to all those people and memoirs that helped with The Waterway Girls, Book 1, and in addition, to the Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal, which inspired me to think of it as a place of healing, which was essential to the novel. It really is a lovely six miles; tranquil and unspoilt.
I must also thank Mr Pendse, an amazing orthopaedic surgeon who put together my shoulder after I was remiss enough to trip on the handles of my bag (why was I such an idiot?), and to Graham, my High Wycombe Hospital physiotherapist who beat and thrashed me (not really) to a stage where I could type and not hold up the writing of this novel.
Mr Pendse also said, after digging, delving, plating and screwing, that I had the bones of a thirty-year-old woman, which has earned him my undying devotion. The same cannot be said of Him Indoors, who was heard to mutter, ‘Shame about the rest.’ Well really!