The Idea came from my own ancestry....

...And from a part of British history you didn't know about.


Like most who watched Who Do You Think You Are, last week, I was most intrigued to discover that the well known TV Science presenter, Liz Bonnin, like me, also has Indian-Trinidadian roots. In fact, I didn't watch the programme at the time, but friends contacted me the following day to ask me if I had seen this most interesting revelation. So I watched it on Catchup TV.

The Indentureship period lasted for 79 years between 1838 -1917. An estimated total of 551,395 Indians were taken to work from India to the Caribbean, on ships that were previous slave ships, with the chains removed. The journey across the sea was horrendous and lasted between 3-6 months from Calcutta. Not all survived the journey. On arrival, life was far from the rosy picture that was promised. This Indentureship period, a part of  British history, is little known except by some historians - mainly ones who studied West Indian history.

My novel, The Last Year of Childhood, is set in 1917 Trinidad, in the backdrop of the tough living environment, where hard work was rewarded with poverty, dangerous working environments, injustice, sickness, and corruption. 

The main character, 12 year old Latchmin, is the daughter of indentured Indians, and is fortunate to have a better life than most in the village. She is a determined young girl with a plan to improve her future. But no one can escape the killer diseases they face. The novel opens in her bedroom where she is seriously ill, and dying from typhoid. 

This novel is one of a kind, but there are plans for more!

It is a sort of VS Naipaul come Khaled Hosseini.

It is Commercial Literary Fiction, -very readable, with plenty of depth for Book Groups to extract good discussion. The characters will intrigue you, show you something you really didn't know, but you will identify with all that happens because they are as human as you are, and their hopes and dreams are the same as you have for yourself and your children. They fear the same things you do, and they feel sad and lost when terrible things happen to the ones they love.

This novel will be published, whether it is by traditional means, or self published. I've been told over and over again, that it is a novel that needs to be published. I feel the market is ready for it! Fiction readers need more than what is already out there. There is nothing at the moment about this aspect of British-Caribbean History .

Brexit will bring the return of the Commonwealth in better ways than the past.

This novel is fresh and new. 

The Last Year of Childhood - Extract 2

Novel set in 1917, Granville Village, Trinidad.

Latchmin is twelve years old, and dying of typhoid. There are crowds around her bed.


Extract 2

Everyone may not have had a chance to say their piece, but Bassandaye stood in front them and put her arms up and out to stop them. She turned to the bed where Latchmin lay still as a chicken with its neck broken. She called out, quiet and courageous, her hands clasped.

'Latchmin, baitee. You hearing me? Come! Come home.' Bassandaye reached out and touched her daughter's bony forehead, and ran the flat of her palm over the child's face and the bulge of her closed eyes.

'She not dead.' A voice spoke from the doorway. Pundit Lall had heard from the gossip in the village. He knew the family well and hurried to the house as fast as he could. Pushing them aside, he made his way to the bedside and stood next to Bassandaye, looking at the thin body wrapped in the white sheet. 'No,' he said slowly. 'She not dead, even though she looking like it.'

There was a sudden abatement of breath. Her pale skin twitched.

'It happens sometimes.' Someone spoke up before the crying became louder,

'No. She not dead,' the pundit repeated. There followed a chorus of sighs and intake of breath all at once.

How I am trying to fix and edit the first chapters of my novel

First of all, I have changed the title again. Now, The Last Year of Childhood. 

I am also rewriting the early chapters of the novel. Maybe the first 6 or 8 chapters. So far, I have got to Chapter 3. I think on balance it is much improved.

First chapters in a first draft, prove difficult to me. Often it is where a lot of stuff get dumped together, and cause it to be lacking in a proper structure...although at the time of writing, it seemed good. The first chapters are where I try to introduce the important characters, and where the minor ones creep in and take over where they shouldn't. Also, it is where I try to give them personality, intention, and a position in the plot. It is where I am also setting up the plot ...maybe somewhat haphazardly, and where, more often than not, the background always seems an important aspect to include in order to help the reader understand where I'm coming from, and the world of the characters. Setting too, takes some space in these chapters, and therefore some description...maybe too much description. As character-voice helps make each character individual and unique, dialogue is important very early on.

But none of it is good enough in the first draft, so hence the rewrite. 

I have been restructuring, and making sure that my Main Character is not overshadowed by minor ones. That the Point of View is mainly from her perspective so as not to confuse the reader with head hopping. This is considerably easier, as in this rewrite, I am not introducing too much pertaining to the other secondary characters who are also important in the plot. They will have their turn and be introduced gradually. Also, I am leaving the backstory until well after the first 3 chapters, so as not to clog up the flow of the MC's story with flashbacks or backstory.


I have decided to post a paragraph that appears in my new Chapter 3. The novel is set between 1917-18, in a village in Trinidad.


Freedom to go to school again was probably going to be the most significant memory in her life, and the one she would speak of with nostalgia. Latchmin realised that day, that opportunities like that didn't come more than once in a lifetime. If she didn't grasp it fully, it would slip away like water over a rock, impossible to return after it was gone. How could it be possible to return to school once you've left school to work or to marry? It didn't need much more thinking. To her the answer was now easy. Though for many others, they never stopped to think about it long enough, but drift towards the next part of life like a stream  flowing into the hollows of a well worn riverbed. 

That first morning back at school, Mr Clifford acknowledged her with a verbal welcome, a nod as she went past, and a smile. Latchmin followed her line into her class and sat down. When the teacher began, she savoured every moment of classwork, like the first real meal she had ravenously devoured after recovering from typhoid.