Road Ends (43 page)

In the morning she got everyone up and dressed and breakfasted and packed Peter and Corey off to school and told Adam she was going out but would be back shortly. And then she went out into the billowing snow to find the boss-guy and get herself a job.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The town of Struan is an invention, but in my mind it is located at the northern edge of the vast and beautiful area of lakes, rocks and forests known as the Canadian Shield, in Northern Ontario. I imagine it west and a little north of the real towns of New Liskeard, Haileybury and Cobalt, the last of which was the site of a spectacular silver rush back in 1903.

When researching the section of the novel that deals with that silver rush, I consulted a number of books, among them
Two Thousand Miles of Gold
, by J.B. MacDougall (McClelland & Stewart, 1946);
Six War Years, 1939–45: Memories of Canadians at Home and Abroad
, by Barry Broadfoot (PaperJacks, 1974);
Ten Lost Years, 1929–39: Memories of Canadians Who Survived the Depression
, also by Barry Broadfoot (PaperJacks, 1975);
Cobalt, Ontario
, by Michael Barnes (Looking Back Press, 2004); and in particular
We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death, and Life of a Mining Town
, by Charlie Angus and Brit Griffin (Between the Lines, 1996). I am indebted to Paul McLaren, owner of the wonderful Chat Noir Books in New Liskeard, Ontario, not only for telling me of the existence of this excellent and invaluable book, but for giving me his own copy.

In a section of
Road Ends
set in England, there is reference to a painting by Paul Delaroche entitled
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
, which hangs in the National Gallery in London. A character
in the book (Megan) is very moved by the painting when she visits the gallery in 1969. Art historians will be aware that, in fact, the painting did not go on display there until 1975. My excuse is that I myself was very moved when I first saw the painting, and I so badly wanted Megan to have the same experience that I played a little fast and loose with the dates. My apologies. But after all, this is fiction.

I would like to thank the following: in Canada, Patricia Anderson of the town of Cobalt for a fascinating tour of a silver mine; Tamara Fishley and Breanna Bigelow at the Cobalt Mining Museum for their help, advice and hours of photocopying from the
Daily Nugget
, back copies of which, along with the
Temiskaming Speaker
, provided a vivid picture of life in Northern Ontario over the years; Eddie Sagle and Chris Callaghan, former snowplough drivers on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, for the lowdown on ploughing northern roads; Malcolm Loucks, formerly of Montreal, for suggesting the Sicard snowplough; and Denise Organ of Manitoulin Island for sharing her memories of life in the early mining communities.

In the UK, my thanks to Steve and Elleen Warren, owners of the fabulous Penally Abbey Country House Hotel, near Tenby in Pembrokeshire, for their memories of running a small hotel in London “back then”; Amanda Grant, for her insightful reading and sound suggestions; and Carolyn and Nigel Davies for encouragement and support through good times and bad—and Nigel in particular for all things relating to aerodynamics. The flying diaper would never have come into being without him.

Heartfelt thanks to my peerless agent, Felicity Rubinstein of Lutyens & Rubinstein, and to my wonderful editors and publishers: Louise Dennys and Marion Garner in Canada, Clara Farmer and Poppy Hampson in the UK and Susan Kamil in New York. Special thanks to Alison Samuel for her great patience, encouragement and tact, and for the remarkable skill with which she kept all the editorial balls in the air.

Last, but definitely not least, I would like to thank my family on both sides of the Atlantic, without whom I would never have managed to write one book, far less three: my brothers, George and Bill, for their meticulous reading and advice on everything from the use of flame-throwers in the Second World War to the northern limit of poplar trees in Ontario; my sons, Nick and Nathaniel, for their perceptive reading and their unwavering support; and above all, my husband, Richard, and my sister, Eleanor, who, as with both
Crow Lake
and
The Other Side of the Bridge
, were involved every step of the way. For both of them, once again, thanks are not enough.

Mary Lawson, 2013