Yay! Nearly Ready!

The book is almost ready for printing. We're having our launch on 19 June.  Here's the proof copy - doesn't it look good?

We've done a lot of work since we got the proofs so the final copies will be even better, now the typos are sorted out.

The Cover!

Here's the art work for the book cover!   I'm so pleased with it.   It looks inviting and intriguing.

Russell has paid some homage to vintage illustrated books, particularly Toby Twirl (see below) with its plain colour background with full colour characters in the foreground. Although Edward Jeffrey created them in the 1940s and 1950s, the annuals are 1930s in style.
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So if Mabel had been set 25 years later,  we'd have done the whole art deco thing with the font and brilliant colour.  But since she is in 1915, we've decided a "typewriter" font to give the book a more Edwardian feel, and the background has khaki, to suit the military theme.

Some of the illustrations are full page.  Here are the fleas spotting the evil robbers come to steal the "good drugs" off the train......

Other picture are in comic book format

I love the way that all the characters have different personalities, and Russell's drawings show this.

So, delighted.  Now, just have to wrestle with the intricacies of Lulu.  Oh, and ...well, there are actually LOTS of things to do. 

Historical Accuracy Bites the Dust

We have finally completed the text, which is all in the Boutcher children's own words (with a few linking bits from me).

We had to decide whether to make sure the material was all historically accurate, and in the end we decided not to.   We didn't actually suggest that they had steampunk soldiers like the ones above, but there was so much that the children had to learn, and no chance of them becoming historians in the time available, so we had to let a certain amount of accuracy go.

Of course we did our best to explain how different life was then....

"So I'll put that Mabel emailed her friends - "
"But they didn't have email or any sort of internet."
"All right, she skyped her friends."
"They didn't have skype."
"All right, then, she got out her phone and - "
"Hardly anyone had phones"
(Baffled silence)

And the children did very well indeed to understand how in Mabel's day there were no modern communications. They were interested to learn that horses were widely used, that trains were powered by steam - not to mention getting their heads around the idea of a flea circus and an ambulance train.   But it was clear that their story would be much better if they could be themselves.  Which meant letting a certain amount of reality escape out of the window!

Angels of Mercy

In the First World War, nurses like Mabel (and my grandma) were sometimes called Angels of Mercy.  I spotted these (with real wings - well, almost real) at World Travel Market in London a few weeks ago. They, and the WW1 officers behind, were promoting battlefield tours in Belgium.  I have no doubt that the soldiers who were injured or killed there would have been only too glad to go on a Battlefield Tour with a nice cosy hotel every night -  rather than experience the real thing. 

One thing that is nice, though, is the way these nurses are laughing and having a good time.  Grandma got a lot out of being a nurse, and looked back with satisfaction on her time on the ambulance train.