#Speedwell background story. http://amzn.to/1SjD4cD #amwriting

I never thought I would be researching country garages in the 1920\’s but that\’s one of the best things about writing. Your imagination takes you down paths logic never would!
I started the story of Daffodils because I was fascinated by the history of the village we lived in when our kids were born. One thing lead to another, as it so often does. So, after writing Peace Lily, I had to find out what Katy Phipps would do with her engineering experience, how Jem would react to his wife becoming an entrepreneur and how it would test her friendship with the aristocratic Cassandra, and wrote Speedwell. http://amzn.to/1SjD4cD
My Dad, now nearly 94, had an uncle who had a garage in just this era. As a very young boy, he would ride, Toad of Toad Hall-like, through Battersea Park in London as the mechanics test drove the cars. He imparted that enthusiasm and excitement to me as he recalled the sheer joy of those trips in open-topped cars.
But as well as picturing the scene in my head, I had to do some serious investigation into, literally, the nuts and bolts of starting up an enterprise like The Katherine Wheel Garage in the post-war 1920\’s.
Here\’s some pictures from that fascinating journey:

Very neat storage of tools

So many makes! Quite sophisticated bit of kit here This is just how I pictured the office at the back of the workshop at Katherine Wheel Garage. I think it would have had a flat cap on the cabinet until Jem returned from America!