My new novel, The Silver Ladies Do Lunch, is quite special to me as it’s set in an Oxfordshire village very like the one I lived in as child. I went back there to research the book, and it brought up a lot of forgotten memories. I didn’t expect to feel nostalgic but…

My first place to stop was the woods where my dad and I used to go. Nothing much had changed. It’s from him I get my love of woodlands, the sound of feet crunching twigs, the narrow path between nettles and plants and tall undergrowth, that patch of sky you can see through dense trees if you look up. Of course, we weren’t just going for a walk – he’d come back with a brace of pheasants in his pockets, but that’s a different story for another time.

I stopped at the primary school and remembered the classes of forty children, rows of desks, those huge radiators that belted out heat and the smell of school dinners that clung to the hall all day. We had a radio programme every Monday morning where we were made to sing along with a warbly-voiced woman. The line the teacher speaks in the novel, ‘Sing, you buggers, or I’ll make you sing,’ can be directly attributed to a teacher in primary school, who’d cane you if you weren’t singing Shenandoah loud enough. Or, as it turns out, if you sang too it with too much gusto. You couldn’t win. The country dancing story about girls being forced to dance with boys with sweaty hands smelling of the farm were true, too. I was lucky – my dancing partner was a good friend and we used to have a great time.

I went to look at the old village green, where the willow tree and the church are. Josie, in the novel, sits beneath the willow and thinks of Harry, her husband. Very little has changed in the village since I lived there. Even my old house looks exactly the same, although there are many newbuilds on the estate now.

I went down to the railway station, and tried to access the river Cherwell beyond. You can’t get down there now – there are private property signs. I used to get into so much trouble by the river. Two friends Wyndham and Clifford and I took off in a punt one day – I couldn’t have been more than nine – and we sailed down the Cherwell until the leak let in so much water that we sank. It was a long, soggy swim back to the bank…

The corner shop has gone. It is a Tesco Express now. But not much else has changed. The pubs, the old recreation ground where we all hung out, were still the same. I remember the fun we had there as youngsters, and as older kids, drinking a bottle of Bulmer’s between six of us and pretending we were drunk. And the police house is still there, although the young copper who smoked weed and made friends with all the teenagers has probably long gone from the profession.

I was surprised to feel so much nostalgia going back to the place where I spent so many years. But the close community, the quaintness of a country village, the sense of time standing still was really useful in preparing The Silver Ladies Do Lunch.

The characters in the novel include the ninety-year-old teacher, Cecily, who has strong views about woman’s rights and drives along on a purple mobility scooter. Lin and Josie are old school friends, Lin approaching her fiftieth wedding anniversary to Neil, who was the best-looking boy in the class at primary school, and Josie, newly widowed. Minnie completes the old friendship group, although she’s an Oxford academic who keeps in touch regularly and wholeheartedly, despite treading a very different path.

Florence, who is twenty-two, works in the café and has a secret she won’t be able to keep for long. Her father Dangerous Dave believes she’s his princess and he’ll be broken hearted when he finds out. The women take her to lunch and an even closer bond forms, each of them supporting the other through the difficult moments of their life.

The Silver Ladies… is about much more than lunch dates – it’s about friendship, fairness and making each moment count. It’s about community and loyalty and the power of love.

I do hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

J xx