Suzy Henderson

Yes, she's old and a little fragile, having been around since 1945 - 'Not that old' I hear you say. Maybe not, but in this case, VERA is a Lancaster Bomber. She did not carry out active service, being built in 1945 and therefore just missing out on the war. She's cared for by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, where she is privately owned. It's taken a while to organise, but our Canadian friends have managed to achieve an enormous task, in raising the funds to make this trip to Britain and grace our skies once more with another flying Lancaster. There are only two airworthy in the entire world. Incidentally, her civil registration is C-GVRA, but she has become affectionately known as VERA. She arrived here on August 9th and has been wowing crowds ever since, performing training flights, flypasts with the RAF and on board tours. A short while ago, I wrote a post about Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski, a serving Canadian gunner on a Lancaster Bomber,...

  "M.C.V. Egan twists truth and fiction until you question your perceptions.. it is a story of real love, triumph and search for self." - Beckah Boyd @ The Truthful Tarot On August 15th, 1939, an English passenger plane from British Airways Ltd. crashed in Danish waters between the towns of Nykøbing Falster and Vordingborg. There were five casualties reported and one survivor. Just two weeks before, Hitler invaded Poland. With the world at the brink of war, the manner in which this incident was investigated left much open to doubt. The jurisdiction battle between the two towns and the newly formed Danish secret police created an atmosphere of intrigue and distrust. The Bridge of Deaths is a love story and a mystery. Fictional characters travel through the world of past life regressions and information acquired from psychics as well as archives and historical sources to solve "one of those mysteries that never get solved." Based on true events and rea...

If you don't already know, there are only two airworthy, flying Lancaster Bombers in the world. Here in England, we have one of them. It's stationed at RAF Coningsby and is flown by our very own RAF team, used mainly for fly pasts and air shows. The second, is based in Canada. It's known as the Mynarski Lancaster, dedicated to the memory of Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski, a Canadian gunner serving in the RCAF during the Second World War. During the war, thousands of Canadian airmen and ground crew served with the RAF and RCAF Lancaster Squadrons throughout the UK. Meanwhile, back home in Canada, many Lancasters were being produced by workers at the Victory Aircraft factory in Malton, Toronto. So, this particular Lancaster is painted in the same colours  as the one P/O Mynarski flew with RCAF No.419 (Moose) Squadron. Touchdown in Iceland, en route to UK, 06/08/14. Andrew Mynarski Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski was born in Winnipeg in 1916 and joined the RCAF in 1...

America had Amelia Earhart. Britain had Amy Johnson, and Russia had Marina Raskova. "Who?" I hear some ask, while others will know straight away. Aviatrixes. Record breaking female pilots. While Amelia Earhart tragically went missing during a flight in 1937, Britain's Amy Johnson signed up during Word War Two to fly with the ATA, tragically losing her life in the Thames Estuary on a freezing day in January 1941. Marina Raskova, often regarded as the Russian Amelia Earhart, was the first woman to become a navigator with the Soviet Air Force in 1933. One year later, she began teaching at the Zhukovskii Air Academy, again the first woman to do so. Marina Raskova When WW2 broke out, many female pilots volunteered for service, but their applications were blocked. It would appear that they were actively discouraged from serving their country, undoubtedly a sign of the times. After all, female pilots were not engaged in active service in America or Britain either. They...

There are so many reasons why you might find it difficult to focus upon your writing - to take the plunge and finally begin writing the novel you yearn to read yourself. One of the more obvious reasons is perhaps a lack of discipline, lack of motivation or pure procrastination. Less obvious in the beginning might be planning - or rather a distinct lack of it. How many times I've read about other writers/authors who are ' pansters' and simply don't plan. This works for them. Great. That's what I mistakenly thought might work for me too, way back when my manuscript was but a twinkle in the sky. And then, as a couple of years went by, and I was struggling and nowhere near finished, I read how other historical fiction authors spent several years writing a tomb of a book, so I thought I was doing fine. How wrong I was although it's true to say that some books really do take years to write and perfect. Historical fiction is no easy ride. Research can be so labour ...

The Crimson Field is the new period drama set to grace our TV screens on Sunday evenings. Set during the Great War, it follows the lives of three girls who have volunteered to serve in a field hospital in Northern France. I've been looking forward to seeing this and can't wait for Sunday. This year as you know is the 100th year since the Great War began. The drama, by Sarah Phelps, presents one of the untold stories of the war. From a field hospital in France, the Army doctors, nurses and volunteers work to heal the physical and psychological wounds of the soldiers. Shell shock was indeed recognised  and diagnosed, but for those who could not escape its grip, it could be damning. It's the psychological scars that were perhaps considered controversial at the time, because for many such men, they would be labelled as having 'lack of moral  fibre .'  Some men were put on trial for military crimes such as desertion and cowardice, with a number paying the ultimate pr...