It seems to be that stage in the writing of ‘Sisters’ when suddenly I find myself actually writing something else entirely and cursing myself. One of the future books in the Saltbury series is going to be called ‘Martine’ It is a prequel to the stories so far and deals with how Hazel’s mothers, Debbie and Martine got together back in the 1970s.

It’s strange how the imagination works. We know from the earlier books that Debbie married young and was widowed before she was 20, and the book starts as she is beginning to recover and rebuild her life.

Deb is, as we know, a Rock star and in the section I wrote today she went to see her drummer, Charlie Hides to start planning her come-back. His parents are farmers and she found him driving a tractor, cutting thistles on a hilltop field and I found I could see every bit of the amazing view. It stretches from Deb’s home village, and beyond to her estranged parents’ house and further to the west to the house where her husband’s parents still live.

Then some miles to the south is the market town of Saltbury where Deb went to school, with the River Murtle and the railway snaking off to the east, through a gap in the hills. And then, of course, three miles to the west of Saltbury is the little village of Wyeburn where Debbie now lives and where in the future, my central character, Hazel and her sisters will grow up. The whole little world of Debbie’s childhood is laid out at her feet in warm summer sunshine, with the buzzing of insects and with the skylark singing overhead. As far as I know there is no such place, but I can see every inch of it even so.