Guest feature by Jamila Gavin: the research and influences behind MY SOUL, A SHINING TREE, Nero Prize category winner

"I knew that many Indians (1.5 million) had volunteered for the First World War, and I wanted their unknown stories to be represented."

Jamila Gavin was born in the foothills of the Himalayas in Mussorie, India, in 1941. After the war, her family relocated to England where she spent the remainder of her childhood.

Those first experiences of life at that time, between two countries and cultures, became the main inspiration for much of Jamila's writing. She wanted to reflect the changing face of multicultural Britain, knowing the importance of every child being able to find their mirror image in books. Her first book, The Magic Orange Tree, was published in 1979, followed by numerous other short stories, collections and several novels including The Surya Trilogy (Egmont,) Coram Boy, (Egmont: winner of the Whitbread Children’s Prize 2000) and Blackberry Blue, (Random House.) She lives in Stroud. Find out more on her website.

'I have inherited two rich cultures which have run side by side throughout my life.'

Some books seem to leap, almost fully formed into the mind, with the characters waiting for you to notice them, name them, and build them into the narrative. Coram Boy started life like that, for which I researched on the hoof – so to speak – as the narrative took hold.

Although Coram Boy was fiction, it was set in a real period, with one or two historic characters, so research was essential. In any case, research is my main way of confirming that my plots work – and that it could have happened. This is especially the case with the so-called “historical” novel; you always take a chance, when writing fiction in the context of real history. There’s always someone who is bound to wag the finger, and say, “Aaah! That didn’t happen” or, “you got that wrong!” Then your whole book can lose its credibility. In any case, for me, to fully engage with the plot and the period, I need to satisfy myself that my scenario and characters were as thorough and as credible as could be in fiction.

My Soul a Shining Tree started life as a contribution to an anthology, Stories of WW1, commissioned by Tony Bradman. I knew that many Indians, (1.5 million) had volunteered for the First World War, and I wanted their unknown stories to be represented in this anthology. In researching, I came across Khudadad Khan, a British Indian soldier in the Regiment of the Duke of Connaught’s 129th Own Baluchis. It was his uniform that clinched it – especially the red trousers - my title was definitely going to be The Man in the Red Trousers. Everything else had to make that title viable.

The original short story, set in in WW1, involved a young ten-year old Belgian character, Lotte. Lotte lives with her family on a farm in the village of Gheluveldt in Flanders, where she encounters a man in red trousers.

But to make it a novel, as Tony Bradman later recommended, I needed to extend the scenario, which had started with Lotte and Khudadad Khan, to Ernst, an under-age German Cavalry hussar. I knew what I wanted Ernst’s character to be. However, to make sure his story was viable: I found myself seeking out a book I had heard of, by Robert Musil: The Confusions of Young Törless. This book confirmed what I knew was most likely to be the case in a German military boarding school where Ernst was sent: the bullying, the need to find a way to survive, and the friendships that developed. I also felt certain that the issues I had read about many years earlier in Tom Brown’s School Days, by Thomas Hughes, would also apply to Ernst in his school.

Finally, almost insisting on a voice too, was a walnut tree, which dictated the title. It became their shelter, and was also able to observe the characters and events into which they all got swept up. I even researched the walnut tree to be sure it could actually have grown in Flanders. The deeper I delved, the more I wanted to be sure of my facts, so I went to Gheluveldt, to see for myself its geography, and where there was highish ground – so essential to my story. The outcome was My Soul, a Shining Tree. The title is taken from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, Tree and Sky – this poem and so many others by First World War poets were part of my emotional research.

My Soul, a Shining Tree is published by Farshore

Stories of WW1, where Khudadad Khan's story first appeared, is edited by Tony Bradman and published by Orchard. It includes stories by WR contributors Paul Dowswell, Adele Geras, Linda Newbery and Leslie Wilson.