The seaside town of Brighton on the English Channel was the birthplace of the original unlucky boy whose story was used in the novel One Year One Night.

Ken Carter was born in 1929 so when war came to Britain in 1939 he was due to be evacuated out of the coastal firing line to a Surrey town further north. The child was killed by a stray bomb in Egham with 2 other children in November 1940.

Sarah Onions, one half of the authors of One Year One Night picked up the story when she taught media studies at Strode’s College in Egham.

Ironically a lot of children or ‘vaccies’ as they were known had been sent away from British cities down to the southern coast. But rumours of Hitler’s plan to invade southern England by sea led to a change of government policy regarding the children and they were hastily brought back.

Before war broke out the unlucky boy lived in Withdean north of Brighton and went to a local private school.

Authors SL Roman – the pen name for Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters made research trips to Brighton Museum and Library to build up the picture of the child who was the inspiration for the novel – published in North America and elsewhere, by Red Chair Press.

Note to editor. SL Roman is the pen-name of Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters who both live in the borough of Kingston in SW London. Sarah was born in Brighton in southern England and Laura was born in Rome.

Now on sale everywhere: at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com in North America and – in the UK, at Amazon.co.uk and in Surbiton, SW London at The Regency bookshop.