The principal written sources for life in London at this time are The London Observer: The Wartime Diaries of General Raymond E. Lee, the London head of US Intelligence (Hutchinson 1971), and the Diaries of Sir John Colville, Churchill’s private secretary (Hodder & Stoughton 1985). Also fairly useful were Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer (Knopf 1941) and Hess by Peter Padfield (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1991). Backs to the Wall by Leonard Mosley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1971) was indispensable.
I’ve bent a few bits of history. Clothes rationing was not introduced until June 2nd, after the sinking of the Bismarck-Churchill thought a major victory might soften the blow of clothes rationing and held it off until he’d got one. Food rationing was more severe than I’ve suggested-I doubt any restaurant would have served Reggie with the meal he orders at the Dorchester as late as June 1st 1941. And to the best of my knowledge the US Embassy never supplied coffee beans for the exclusive use of its officers billeted in London hotels. I made that up too. Al Bowlly did die in a German air raid in the small hours of April 17th 1941, but the reciprocal raid on Berlin did not begin until after midnight and lasted nearly three hours (which wasn’t quite as useful for this fiction) and I’ve no idea whether the raid, targeted on the Alexanderplatz, hit any building in Kopernikusstrasse, a mile or so to the east-I just liked the name.
Lastly, Robert Churchill really existed and his life and work were recorded by MacDonald Hastings in The Other Mr Churchill (Harrap 1963). I’m grateful to my brother Frank, who knows more about guns and bullets and things that go whizz or bang than most people alive, for reminding me of Robert Churchill’s shop in Orange Street, and for a wealth of knowledge on the Smith and Wesson.35.
John Lawton
