Egham is the heart of One Year One Night, the first Young Adult novel by Laura Meloni Bywaters and Sarah Onions.

The child at the centre of the story, Ben, was based on an original unlucky boy who was called Ken.

Sarah got the original idea when she was teaching at Strode’s further education college in Egham where Ken and two other children were killed by a bomb in WW2.

Laura and Sarah took the character of Ben and turned it into fiction and their first novel followed.

They then moved the action away from Egham by creating a new fictional village called Millside.

Their debut novel has had praise from the Queen and been published in America taking the little boy’s story a long way from Egham in southern England.

However Sarah has maintained links with Egham and Strode’s College and attends yearly reunions of staff from there.

At this year’s reunion the co-writer of OYON visited the plaque which is a remembrance of the death of the 3 children including Ben.

The red poppies laid last November were still looking fresh and this time the staff from the local supermarket had signed the card to go with the flowers.

The plaque shows the names of the 3 children who died when a bomb hit the house – Barbara Whitton Arkell who was 15, George Alan Button who was 12 and Kenneth James Carter who was 11.

George and Kenneth had been evacuated to Egham and Barbara was the oldest girl in the Arkell family – the Arkell family drapers’ shop on the high street also housed the Arkell family and included another child who survived the bomb as he was sleeping in another part of the house.

Details of sale to follow:

There’s more information about the story at
http://www.slroman.com.

Now on sale in the US : https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Night-2nd/dp/194715981X. Also, at https://redchairpress.com/node/657 and Barnes and Noble in North America.