What Inspired my Latest Book

I used to think that cruises were for the very old and rich. Never wanted the slightest inclination to go on one. Then a friend of mine nagged me to death to go with her and her family and I was bullied into putting down a deposit and spending then, until arriving at the docks, thinking I’d made the world’s biggest and stupidest mistake. I had visions of the kids falling overboard and being eaten by sharks. How wrong I was. Diamonds and diamante mixed beautifully, all ages mingled and the biggest relevation of all was that I rested. For the first time in donkey’s years, I switched off my brain for longer than the length of a sleep. I gazed out to sea and tried to spot dolphins, I’d have been twitching for ‘wasting time’ like that at home – except that I wasn’t wasting my time, I was recharging my batteries and when I got home I was so full of energy I could have powered the town’s electricity supply for a month.
I booked another, and another – and another. The kids and I need extension files in our brains for the amount of memories we’ve gathered over the years. We’ve walked in the ruins of Pompeii, posed with parrots, run on the first Olympic track, sailed on underground lakes, stood in Russian palaces, even toured the Gdansk shipyards (‘You know how to holiday you, Mill!’ said my ex-boss when I told him that I’d done that). Despite how dull that must sound, it was one of the most moving tours I’ve ever done. The gastronomic experiences haven’t been half-bad either – crude breads and cheese on Sardinian boats, Limoncello testing in Sorrento, prawns the size of lobsters in Corfu, Canadian icewine, hot waffles by pure Norwegian lakes, steaks cooked on lava stones, a room full of chocolate creations that makes Willy Wonka’s factory look like the penny tray in the corner shop. I could go on, but I’m salivating too much.
Then there is ‘cruising bingo’. There are always constants on every cruise: the guy who ignores the captain’s tannoy messages that the sun is stronger at sea and is smearing himself with Crisp ‘n Dry. The next morning he’s walking like – and shares the complexion of - a cooked crab. The ‘braggers’ who have to tell you how many cruises they’ve been on and how often they take them. The couple who eat the equivalent of their body weight at every sitting because ‘it’s free’, the child who will NOT wear the costume that her mother has been making out of crepe paper all morning in the kids’ club. The drop-dead gorgeous headwaiter who makes you salivate more than the chocolate extravaganza, the very ordinary looking chef who carves the most fantastic and delicate sculpture out of ice using what looks like a big spade. I love the same things and I love the different things. I just love cruising full stop – and I had to write a story set on a ship. It was more compulsion than idea.
I keep saying that we will try cruise lines other than P O, but it’s too tempting to return to their lovely familiar ships and dear faces of waiters and cabin stewards that we’ve come to know over the years. So I’m sticking with them, and two lucky beggars are going to experience a cruise for themselves in September because P O have donated a 12 night Med cruise on one of my favourite ships. You can find the 'Here Come The Girls' competition on this site.
Can I say that I’m proud of this book, without appearing up myself? I love all my characters, they become real people to me and this set of Barnsley birds feel like friends. You have to like even the lousy characters and there’s a family in this book who I just have to bring back as cameos in the future. I could have written the whole book about them. Terrible, awful people – and I was just as fond of them and wanted them to have their happy endings too.
I’ve written this book with a lot of affection – I hope that comes through. I hope that it inspires people who have been teetering on the brink of taking a cruise to take the plunge and book one. I hope those people don’t blame me when they find themselves ploughing into their savings to book more. I’m including a disclaimer in this post.