Five Boys: Writing the book

The book started life at a one-day bee-keeping course which the author attended at the City Farm in Hackney in 1994. The woman who ran the course - a beekeeper called Cathy Maund - had brought along a couple of frames that her bees had drawn out into perfect hexagonal comb and a few items of beekeeper paraphernalia, such as a smoker and a veil. At some point she mentioned how one of the governors of the Bank of England had kept hives on the Bank's roof in the middle of the City and the story of an old beekeeper's funeral in which his bees abandoned their hives to gather in the trees overlooking the grave.

Jackson developed these and other elements of beekeeping lore into a short screenplay - an enigmatic bee-keeper arrives in a village and, like the Pied Piper, steals the local children away - but when Jackson sold The Underground Man his publisher asked if he had an idea for a second novel and the bee idea was simply what seemed to have most potential to it.

Back in the early 1980s, when Jackson had been studying at Dartington College of Arts he heard how the South Hams had been commandeered by the American forces and Slapton Sands had been used for rehearsals for the D-Day landings. During one set of manoeuvres out in the Channel, American LSTs had run into German E-boats and several hundred men had lost their lives. At the time the survivors were sworn to secrecy but by the late-'70s some of the veterans had begun to speak publicly about their experiences, books were being published about the 'cover-up' and the local media in Devon were filing reports on the subject, including contributions from local witnesses.

Having decided to write a book about bees the author chose the idyllic village where he'd lived during his last year at Dartington as the setting and as he researched the book drew on some of the area's local history. Jackson got into the not-unpleasant habit of hopping down to Devon where he still had friends and interviewing local beekeepers, farmers, people who'd been evacuated from the area when the Americans moved in - and even evacuees who'd come down from London and decided to stay.

The research was such a pleasure that it possibly took a little longer than was strictly necessary. The Imperial War Museum in particular was very helpful - their audio archives are something to behold. But eventually the novel found its way into print.

Instead of the conventional reading, the author devised a slide show similar to one which appears in the novel which allowed him to talk about beekeeping - what had first inspired him to write the book.

Some of the books Jackson found useful whilst researching Five Boys:

'Akenfield' by Ronald Blythe - classic portrait of the people of a typical English village - Blythe's observations of changes in rural life are interspersed with first person narratives (the chapter on bellringing, 'The Ringing Men' was especially useful).

'The land changed its face' by Grace Bradbeer - a local woman's recollection of the evacuation of the South Hams and probably the most enjoyable book the author read whilst researching Five Boys.

'Land at war (the official story of British farming 1939-44)' - government publication detailing the changes to British landscape and farming practices, with text said to be written by Laurie Lee (well, that's what the bloke who sold it to the author told him).

'Children of the blitz' by Robert Westall - a wonderful collection of anecdotes and photographs from the war.

'No time to wave goodbye' and 'The day they took the children' by Ben Wicks - two collections of personal memories of evacuees.

'How to do London in a Day' by W.E. Hambley (which is combined with 'London Landmarks' by Marjorie C. Bates to create the book Aldred uses to imagine life in London.)

'The forgotten dead' by Ken Small - a personal account of retrieving a tank from the bottom of Start Bay and investigating Operation Tiger.

'Channel firing' by Nigel Lewis - a more scholarly assessment of what actually happened in Operation Tiger

'A short guide to Great Britain' - published by the U.S. War Department. A booklet for the American servicemen who were going to be based in Britain, giving them a potted history of Britain, warning them about cultural differences and basically advising them how to behave. Strangely moving (and perceptive). This booklet was recently spotted in a bookshop, repackaged, with a sort of brown paper cover. Definitely worth a look.

Innumerable bee-keeping books, such as: The bee master of Warrilow by Tickner Edwardes and The Life of the Bee by Maurice Maeterlinck.

'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson - Jackson was given this when he was in his twenties by a friend who was studying American Literature. The community of eccentric characters, the way their own individual stories intertwine and the tenderness with which they are drawn is an absolute delight to read. An obvious template for Five Boys.