Acknowledgements must start with Caroline.
Caroline and I have been married for thirty years and writing partners for twenty-five. The original inspiration for the Skelton novels – the radio series we did together based on the casebook of Norman Birkett – was her discovery and her idea. For all three Skelton books, she has put endless patient hours into discussions of plot and character. Her involvement in the creation of Skelton’s Guide to Blazing Corpses became all the greater when, half-way through its writing, I had to take time off for illness. The German chapters in this book are mostly her work.
380The British Library had limited access in times of Covid, so much of the research for Blazing Corpses relied on other libraries, generous gifts (‘I’ve got some 1928 tram timetables if you think they might help’) and lucky finds. A list of every website and publication consulted would run to several pages, so here’s just a few of the sources that were particularly useful.
The British Newspaper Archive provided companionship, entertainment and work-avoidance potential as well as information about, for instance, how much British people would have known about Brownshirts in 1930, what you might expect to pay in those days for a hot gravy dinner with custard pudding, and attitudes in general towards cake, cabbages and Kings.
As always A. E. Bowker’s Behind The Bar supplied endless insights into the day-to-day life of barristers and their clerks in the first half of the twentieth century, and H. Montgomery Hyde’s Norman Birkett, which was where the idea came from in the first place, continues to entertain and enlighten.
Nigel Gray’s The Worst of Times, an Oral History of the Great Depression was the source of some of Alan and Norah’s experiences. Walter Greenwood’s Love on The Dole gives a flavour of the times as does The Long Weekend by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. And for historical detail, style and its celebration of the ordinary, I keep going back to (and would highly recommend) R. C. Sherriff’s A Fortnight in September. 381
Then there are the many people who have given help and support, practical, moral, spiritual and physical. They include, with apologies for any I’ve left out: every librarian and archivist in the world (may they thrive and prosper for theirs is the most noble of professions), Bill and Jen Baker, Jon Rust, Warren Sherman, Carol Reyes, Alexei and Linda Sayle, Keith and Rebecca Erskine, Stephanie Moran-Watson, Bill and Laura Oddie, Dion Morton, Charlie Dore, Tom Climpson, Nigel and Roberta Planer, James Wilson, Ellie Richards, Sue and John Thompson, Ben and Clementine Kelly, lots of Staffords – Michael, Edna, John, Connie, Georgia, Cosmo the dog, and most of all you, dear reader, without whom …