Elements of this story of are loosely based on various real locations, events and people from our family life in the mid-2000s. For example, the house in the story is our family home at that time; there was a run-down house opposite; we painted numbers on snails to track their movements; the lady in the newsagent gave my younger daughter packs of football cards; we had a trampoline in the garden and there was an old chap who was a little like the character ‘Old Shuffler’. Whilst some elements of the story are imagined, it is rare that a day passes without me seeing a (my) blackbird and thinking of my father. In truth, the letter writer in the story is me, writing through the persona of my elder daughter (Kate in the story). Some of the references in Kate’s letters to her parents and her sister Annie definitely capture attributes displayed by my wife and I and our younger daughter.

Eventually I would like each of the letters in the story to be accompanied by a picture of the kind that might have been drawn by the child writing them. At present, only the first three letters have such pictures – these have been created by my elder daughter who was always drawing when she was younger and now works as a Graphic Designer. We have talked about her producing the full set of pictures but she has enough going on in her life without me continually badgering her to do so!

(c) Tim O’Hare, February 2024

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