by Daniel Torday

Revisiting Kent and Poxl West

At some point during the years I spent researching the London Blitz in order to write key scenes from my debut novel, The Last Flight of Poxl West, I came across a line in a book that mentioned that thousands of Londoners had lived in caves in the Kent countryside to survive the bombing. First I’d thought, Oh, that would make for a nice scene in a novel—if I was a novelist I’d want to use that. Then I thought, Oh, right. I am a novelist. I should use that. As many as 15,000 civilians had moved to the Chislehurst Caves in the immediacy of the nine months of the Luftwaffe bombing of London in fall of 1940 and winter/spring of 1941. Some would move there again in 1944 when the Nazis were firing their V weapons from the French coast. The former I would just have to find a way to use in a novel that already had been drafted. It was too good not to. So I did, and I finished the book. Read more ›