Beware This Boy (39 page)

As always I owe a big debt of gratitude to my school chums from Saltley Grammar school. Jessie Bailey led us around (and around) Birmingham city centre so I could find a suitable location for Endicott’s factory. Pam Rowan and Enid Harley are always willing to search out information when I need it. We all grew up in Brum, and their support and encouragement are precious to me.

There are so many wonderful sources that I consulted to get my facts right, but I owe a particular debt to Carl Chinn’s book,
Brum Undaunted: Birmingham During the Blitz
(2005).

Thanks to Donald Adams, who steered me to several useful sources concerning policing in Birmingham.

Especial thanks to my indefatigable, ever-patient editor, Lara Hinchberger. And to McClelland & Stewart, who gave me this opportunity to write the book I have always wanted to write.

Finally, a huge thanks to Deb Drennan, who, one afternoon, kindly asked what book I was working on. We discovered we both had a deep passion for the lives of the women who worked in the munitions factories during World War II. Deb because her grandmother had worked at a huge munitions factory in Toronto, Canada, during the war years, I because I was in the midst of this book. One thing led to another and from this concept has come a
TV
series,
Bomb Girls
.

I feel immensely privileged to have gone on this journey with so many terrific people.