Barbara Mutch on writing the wartime love story 'The Girl from Simon's Bay'

26 February 2017 - 02:00 By Barbara Mutch
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Barbara Mutch says the greatest challenge in writing the book was to recreate a vibrant, wartime Simon's Town and its uneasy, peace-time successor.
Barbara Mutch says the greatest challenge in writing the book was to recreate a vibrant, wartime Simon's Town and its uneasy, peace-time successor.
Image: iStock

I first caught sight of Simon's Town as a child from the fynbos-clad heights of Red Hill - it captured me not only with its beauty but also its rich history.

Founded by the Dutch as a safe anchorage, the port grew to be the home of the Royal Navy's South Atlantic fleet.

The ghosts of sailors past, the ships that came and went, the folk who served ashore ... I had a sense they were watching me as I explored the town's alleys, discovered the old naval hospital, and followed the fortunes of the warships whose crests can still be seen on the walls of the dry dock.

And then, from the post-war era, a new set of ghosts began to populate my imagination: people who'd once lived on the mountainside above the dockyard but had been evicted in the 1960s.

Was it possible, I wondered, to marry these two threads in a novel that would stretch from the sea battles of World War 2 and onwards into an uncertain future?

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My greatest challenge was to recreate a vibrant, wartime Simon's Town and its uneasy, peace-time successor - and drop into their midst two spirited characters.

My research took me from the local naval and heritage museums to the national archives at Kew, the British Library at St Pancras and the Imperial War Museum. Some of this work revealed deep insights, but often it highlighted intriguing trivia of the day.

I read reports from the hospital's surgeon commander lamenting a lack of funds and the annoyance caused by marauding baboons. I listened to the recorded words of sailors who'd survived the sinking of their ships, and I examined cabinet minutes in which British ministers debated the handover of Simon's Town to South Africa in the 1950s.

Appropriately for a story set in a naval port, four ships lie at the heart of the novel. Each is real, each played a distinguished part in World War 2, and each passed through Simon's Town for repair or refuelling. They became the seaborne home of my fictional hero, David. I turned to the records of four seamen, different but real individuals who became the template for my hero.

There is one who I acknowledge as a particular inspiration. He was Lieutenant (later rear admiral) Richard Washbourn, of HMS/HMNZ Achilles. He was awarded the DSO for his bravery at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939.

And Louise - the girl from Simon's Bay. It turns out she lived not far from where I live today, on the mountainside above the dockyard. She watched the ships from her doorstep, and knew the names and histories of each one. She longed to break free from a life that seemed to be mapped out for her in advance. 

 

'The Girl from Simon's Bay' by Barbara Mutch is published by Allison & Busby, R290.

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