A question that I’m often asked is “Where do your ideas come from”. There is, of course, no easy answer – people you meet, news items, overheard snatches of conversation, something you see. It can be anything.
A classic example for me came during our visit to the Falkland Islands in 2002. Dee was there for the BBC to make a programme 20 years after the conflict and I went along for the ride. (At my own expense, of course.) One day we went out to Darwin and while there saw the Argentinian cemetery. Most of graves had no names but some had bunches of flowers lying on them. At the time it was difficult, if not impossible, for Argentinian families to visit the Falklands and we later learned the flowers were left by a local woman – which was not a popular act. When she was challenged and asked why she said:
“Because his mother can’t.”
Fifteen years later that became the title of a story in my “Personal Islands” collection about isolation and being alone. I still find that statement very moving.
