This novel is based on my father's World War Two experience when he fought to defend the French port city of Calais in May 1940. Out of ammunition, food and water, he and the few remaining soldiers surrendered and spent the next five years in Prisoner of War camps in Poland. As I read and re-read my father's fifty pages I researched books written by other survivors.  In the end I had a collection of actual events, many of them mirroring my father's and almost down to the day. 

It was a quite an experience to travel with my father as he went to war, fought for his life and then fought for his sanity as he and his mates never gave up hope that they would one day return home to their family and loved ones.  My mother waited for my father to return and once the British government found out he was still alive and where he was., she wrote to him every day for the five years he was a POW.

This is a novel of guts, determination, love and commitment and faith in oneself.  I hope you enjoy it.

Always & Forever was how my mother signed off her letters. She always wrote in mauve ink.

---