AUTHOR FEATURE ON JUNE TATE

A letter to you from June

Hello lovely readers,

Thank you for buying this copy of WHEN SOMEBODY LOVES YOU. I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing the story.

The question most asked of authors is: where do your ideas for a novel come from? This is the hardest question to answer. It can be something you read about, something you hear, a comment made by someone, a song title, a memory . . . Something strikes a cord and it grows from there. I imagine my main character, her background, her family and friends, and I’m away. It can be very exciting when a character walks across my page and grows into someone really important to the story.

We authors get very involved with our characters because we know them so well. I can be thrilled at some joyous occasion, worried to death when they are in danger, and I confess I feel their pain and cry when the situation is sad. When a reader writes to me and says that they cried too, it’s wonderful!

For this novel, love was the main catalyst. It is such a complex emotion—it can be wonderful and it can be cruel—and I wanted to explore these feelings.

I prefer to write about the past. It’s a nostalgic journey really to what many of us call ‘the good old days’ but, of course, that wasn’t true for everyone. We all live in our own little world. I try to lift the curtain and peek inside the lives of others.

Happy reading!

Love and best wishes,

June Tate

Author’s Note

I spent several years as a hairdresser on the Queen Mary, before being transferred to the Mauritania. This ship used to leave Southampton for New York, and we spent the next six months making short cruises around the West Indies and the Mediterranean, before returning to the UK. I was fortunate to meet many Hollywood film stars on my travels.

At that time I was courting an airline pilot who was flying in India, so it was a long-distance courtship! It was just after Christmas and we were due to sail from New York for a two-week cruise. My boss sent me and another hairdresser to the Hotel Taft to represent him at a hairdressing display.

When we arrived I was shocked to see Alan, my pilot, standing there (it had all been a cunning plan). I was so shaken that Alan took me into the bar for a brandy. There he told me he had missed me so much that he wanted me to go home and be with him. ‘In what capacity?’ I asked. He roared with laughter and said, ‘I thought you might like to get married . . .’

The next morning, I went to see the Chief Steward and told him I wanted to resign. We arranged that I would do one more cruise and when the Mauritania returned to New York, the Queen Mary would also be in dock. They planned to swap me for one of the hairdressers on that ship and I would sail home in her place. However, he wasn’t sure the Cunard Company would agree to this and couldn’t give me an answer until we returned from the cruise.

In the meantime I had my own cunning plan if they refused! I was going to board the Queen Mary, in uniform, and hide out in the cabin of an engineer friend of mine until the ship sailed, when eventually I would report to the bridge and tell the Captain, ‘I’m a stowaway!’

I was saved from doing so as Alan went to the company office in Southampton and told them if they didn’t agree, he would fly me home! And so I came home working my passage as planned. I never regretted it and had thirty-nine years with the man I loved. Sadly, Alan died of cancer and I lost my soul mate. But he gave me two wonderful daughters, Beverley and Maxine, who bring me such joy.

June’s Top Tips for Aspiring Novelists

1) The most important thing is to learn your craft. A good idea is to enrol in a Creative Writing class. Writing is so much more than putting words down on paper; there are technicalities that can be learned with the right tuition.

2) Remember that publishing is a business and an agent and an editor have to believe they have a story they can sell. You need a strong plot, characters that jump off the page at you and which you and your readers care about, and that certain ‘X Factor’. The novel has to compel the reader to turn the next page and see what is going to happen, so it needs to have pace as well.

3) Rejection will happen—you’ve got to get over it. Just dust yourself off and start again. No one gets it right the very first time, no matter what you read in the papers. If your novel is rejected, there is probably a good reason, so learn by it. If you are precious about your writing, then you may be in the wrong business!

4) Make sure your research is impeccable. If you are writing about the past, the background must be thoroughly researched, and make sure you get important dates right. Beware of numbering buses or trams unless you know such a number was used on that particular route. Someone will always be there to find you out! Use the Internet; it has a world of information, but if you cannot verify a fact . . . don’t use it.

5) Apart from talent, you need three things to become a writer: determination, dedication and passion. If you don’t have the latter, you are a dead duck. You need to feel deeply about what you do. If you don’t, it will show on the written page.

Good luck!