The important thing about Saltbury is that it belongs to a parallel Universe, which is almost the same as ours, but not quite. Or as the books put it:

 

The Multiverse Theory:  Or why science tells us that all love stories are true.

              Scientists, such as the legendary quantum physicist Dr. Mary Jenner-Burns, have long hypothesised the concept of a multiverse. They argue that although our universe by definition contains absolutely everything that exists, it is by no means the whole story.  Instead they offer the possibility of an infinite number of universes existing in parallel with our own – which would then just be one of the crowd.  The vast majority would probably contain nothing whatsoever, or at least nothing recognisable as matter.  Why? Because they were too small or because in them the laws of physics would be sufficiently different that matter simply could not form.  There is, after all, no reason why all universes should have the same laws of physics – indeed it is most unlikely that they would.  Other universes might remain forever dark, because their physics would not allow the nuclear fusion that drives the stars, or the force of gravity might be too weak to allow stars to form in the first place.  Even in most of the more familiar universes of stars and galaxies, life would never emerge.  Perhaps there the special chemistry of carbon would be sufficiently different, or the hydrogen bonding that allows water to be such a good biological solvent would be too weak to work its magic.

            Of course the number of universes in which intelligent life evolved, although the tiniest fraction of the whole, would still be infinite.  That is one of the paradoxical things about infinities:  they can overlap and be of different sizes.  Indeed one infinity can be wholly contained within another and yet still remain infinite.  Think, for example, of the infinity of whole numbers, which is just a tiny part of the far (in fact infinitely) larger infinity of all numbers.

            The number of universes in which you or I exist would be tinier still.  Because in many the Earth would never have formed, or it might lack our large stabilising Moon, or be too close or too far from the sun for life to exist.  The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs may have missed, so that mammals never came to rule the Earth or, more mundanely, our parents may never have met;  never took a shine to each other;  used a more effective form of contraception, or simply decided that they did not feel like it that night.  And don’t even think about the countless different people, of whatever gender, that we could have been depending on which of tens of millions of sperm got to the egg first.

            The multiverse hypothesis would suggest that these universes are still breeding at a phenomenal rate.  In essence, every time any decision is made anywhere within a universe, then a whole new universe will be created in which a different decision is made.  If you take tea when given the choice of tea or coffee, a whole new universe will form, in all its full majesty, identical in every respect, except that here you chose coffee instead.  And if you simply do not like coffee, well, there will be universes in which you do.  There will be universes in which you did not go to the dance where you met your spouse, where you picked a different career or where you did any or all of a million and one other things differently with consequences large and small.  And it is not just you, and not just humanity.  Decisions made by computers, random sub atomic phenomena, or acts by the rest of nature will all join in the game.  There will be a universe in which your cat caught the mouse she just chased, and another where she missed.  There will be a universe in which the ammonia breathing creature on a planet orbiting a red dwarf a billion light years away and a billion years ago flipped a coin and it came down heads, and another where it was tails (or quite possibly tentacles).  There will also be a universe in which one specific uranium atom just split in a random act of fission, and others where it did not.  Once we get down to that sort level you can soon see why the number of universes is so vast, because that atom, just one amongst thousands of trillions, could split at any moment between its formation and the end of time and there will be a universe for every single possibility – an infinite variety in its own right.  When we then double that infinity to give each one the possibility that your cat did or did not catch her mouse, double it again to allow for you choosing tea or coffee, and so on and so forth, we get an infinity of infinities, which is somewhere between mind boggling and downright silly.  In fact, in theory, if something is possible at all, there will be a universe in which it happens.

            The thing, though, is this.  This book is based largely in Great Britain.  But it is not the Britain of our Universe.  It is that of a nearby Universe, to be sure, which is not really all that different.  We could walk its streets quite happily, without feeling out of place, or being pointed out and laughed at for our bizarre fashion sense – well unless we happened to have bizarre fashion sense, in which case all bets are off.  We could still watch the electric blue flash of a kingfisher in flight, listen to Mozart, or take the train up to London.  If we looked up at the night sky we would see the same Moon and the same constellations.  But it is different nonetheless and if we took the time to look more closely we would start to see the variations.  It is a slightly kinder, more tolerant Britain for a start.  There, for example, 1967 saw the full equalisation of rights for the LGBTQ community, including the introduction of same-sex marriage, rather than the grudging decriminalisation which was all that our Britain managed until 2014.  We would also see other differences.  A glance at the map, for example, would reveal whole settlements which simply do not exist in our Britain, such as the prosperous little market town of Saltbury in Wiltshire, or the pretty village of Wyeburn just a few miles to its west.  Elsewhere, the mile is still an Olympic running event and smoking does not give you cancer.

            And then there are the people.  It is traditional for a novel to begin with a declaration that all of its characters are purely fictional.  But all of the characters in this book are real.  They are possible, after all, and so the multiverse theory dictates that there must be a universe in which they and their stories are true.  There will also be other universes in which their stories are slightly different, so it is perhaps as well that no one has yet successfully sued someone in a different universe for libel. 

There really is a kind and rather busty schoolgirl called Hazel Fauld, with a taste for Goth make-up and an impish sense of humour.  She is indeed the daughter of famous, rather stocky, fashion guru Martine Fauld and the younger sister of the increasingly well known model Roisin.  Martine really is blissfully happily married to workaholic rock goddess Debbie Stewart, who has been voted one of the top five guitarists ever and was several times voted as one of the most beautiful women on Earth.  Hazel’s best friends are indeed blond pocket Venus, Annie Roberts, and an intelligent and increasingly pretty young redhead called Christine Burns, who drinks rum and Coke and gets detentions for smoking during lunch breaks at school.  The spectacular, but temperamental, Saltbury school teacher and athlete, Caroline Baxter, really does strike terror into her pupils’ hearts and, of course, Dr. Mary Jenner-Burns really did formulate the equations that finally proved the very existence of the multiverse and thus won the Nobel prize for Physics.  They are all every bit as real as you and I.  It is just that they exist in their universe – Saltbury’s universe – and not in ours.

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