Just Jane Goes to an Airshow

Books, bombers, brilliant people and one unforgettable sight over the skies of Woodchurch.

Taking Just Jane to an airshow felt like bringing the book directly to the people who would understand so much of what inspired it. For an entire weekend I was surrounded by historic aircraft, people with their own connections to wartime aviation, family stories being passed down through generations and, every so often, the unmistakable sound of an aircraft overhead that made practically everyone stop what they were doing and look towards the sky.

It was exactly my sort of weekend.

Taking Just Jane to Woodchurch

By this point, I had already survived my first author event and my first public reading at the Woodhall Spa Festival of Storytelling, so I arrived at former RAF Woodchurch feeling slightly more prepared for the strange experience of sitting behind a table covered in copies of a book with my name on it. Only slightly.

There was something particularly special about selling Just Jane at an aviation event.

The book is fiction, but the history surrounding Jane and Bill is what gave their story life. The Lancaster, Bomber Command, the airfields, the WAAFs, the ground crews and the thousands of people whose lives became connected with those stations are the reason the novel exists.

At Woodchurch, I didn't have to explain why any of that fascinated me. People got it.

Visitors stopped to look at the book and conversations quickly moved from Just Jane to Lancasters, squadrons, airfields and relatives who had served during the war.

Once again, I found myself discovering that one of the loveliest things about taking this book out into the world isn't actually selling it.

It's what happens after someone stops at the table. Someone mentions their grandfather.

Someone remembers an airfield. Someone tells you about an aircraft they have spent years researching. Someone picks up the book because a Lancaster on the cover means something to them.

I might be there to tell people about Jane and Bill, but I nearly always come home having been told stories myself.

Meeting Colin Bell DFC

One of the absolute highlights of the weekend had nothing to do with aircraft flying at all.

I had the privilege of meeting Colin Bell DFC.

Colin served as an RAF Mosquito pilot (as a pathfinder) during the Second World War, and meeting someone who had actually experienced the history that I spend so much of my time reading, researching and writing about was incredibly special.

But what struck me just as much as his remarkable story was the man himself.

He was simply wonderful.

Warm, funny, generous with his time and an absolute pleasure to talk to. There are some people you meet for only a short while who leave a lasting impression, and Colin is certainly one of them.

There was also something rather lovely about the fact that we were both there with books.

I was selling Just Jane, while Colin was there with Bloody Dangerous, which tells the story of his wartime experiences.

Mine is historical fiction, imagining the lives of people caught up in Bomber Command.

His comes from someone who actually lived it.

Standing there with those two books at the same event was one of those moments that quietly puts everything into perspective.

The history I write about isn't really very distant at all.

When everyone looks up

Of course, it wouldn't be an airshow without me becoming completely distracted by the aircraft. Woodchurch provided plenty of opportunities.

Throughout the event, the flying display brought the history we'd been discussing on the ground into the sky above us. That's something I never really tire of at historic aviation events.

You can read specifications, study photographs and stand beside aircraft in museums, but seeing historic types in the air gives them another dimension entirely.

Suddenly you understand the sound. The movement. The scale.

And, perhaps most importantly, you find yourself imagining what skies filled with aircraft must once have been like.

There were some wonderful aircraft displaying throughout the event, and inevitably there were moments when conversations at the book stall temporarily stopped because something interesting had appeared overhead.

The Dakota — and a sky full of parachutes

But there was one moment I had been particularly looking forward to. The Dakota.

There is something instantly recognisable about the shape and sound of a Dakota in the air, but seeing one fly is one thing.

Seeing paratroopers leave one is quite another.

Watching the aircraft approach and then seeing figures emerge from it before parachutes began opening across the sky was extraordinary.

For a few moments, it felt as though the airshow had shifted from a flying display into something much more evocative.

The sky filled with parachutes. Everyone was looking up.

And despite knowing perfectly well that this was a demonstration taking place safely above an airshow in modern Britain, it was impossible not to think about what the sight must once have represented.

Young men stepping out of aircraft into occupied Europe with absolutely no idea what awaited them on the ground.

History can sometimes become very neat when we look back at it. Dates. Aircraft types. Operations. Units. Numbers.

Then you see a Dakota overhead and parachutes beginning to appear beneath it, and suddenly your imagination fills in the human part.

That was my flying highlight of the weekend.

Books beneath an airshow sky

By the end of the weekend, lots more copies of Just Jane had left my table in the hands of new readers. That in itself was wonderful.

But what I remember most isn't a number. I remember the conversations, meeting Colin, hearing people's family stories and trying to talk about my book while simultaneously keeping half an eye on whatever was flying overhead.

And I remember looking up and seeing parachutes scattered across the Woodchurch sky.

Events like this have also helped me realise what I want Bomber County Books to become.

Yes, it's the home of my historical fiction.

But I want it to be about the history that surrounds those stories too — the aircraft, museums, airfields, people and organisations keeping aviation heritage alive.

And through Just Jane, those two things are already connected.

100% of my royalties from the novel are donated to the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, meaning every copy sold helps support the aviation heritage that inspired the story in the first place.

Perhaps that's why taking Just Jane to events like Woodchurch feels so right.

A book inspired by aviation history. Surrounded by aviation history. Helping, in its own small way, to preserve aviation history.

One for the memory book

When I started writing Just Jane, I never imagined there would be weekends like this.

I certainly never imagined I'd one day be sitting at an airshow selling my own Bomber Command novel, meeting someone like Colin Bell DFC and occasionally abandoning all pretence of being a sensible author because there was a Dakota dropping parachutists overhead.

But I'm very glad there are.

Woodchurch gave me another weekend of wonderful conversations, wonderful aircraft and wonderful people.

And if future Bomber County Books events involve this particular combination of books and aeroplanes, I think I'm going to be very happy indeed! Thanks so much to Sophie at Aero Legends for inviting me along!