Memoirs of a WAAF – concept to exciting publication!
Hidden, rarely mentioned diaries.
The Tester family (Mum, Dad, brother Jim and me!) had many get-togethers with both family and friends at their home of 40 years in East Grinstead. However, like many other veterans who lived through world war 2, Mum rarely spoke about her time in the WAAF, or her diaries that she wrote during that time. So we weren’t even aware they existed, until…
Downsizing
In 2008 Mum and Dad made the difficult, and very emotional decision to downsize. They had lived in the same house since 1960, when I was around 6 months old. As life changed they extended their house to incorporate my grandad (Dad’s father).
Then, later on, as grandad passed away and us two kids gradually moved out and got married, the house and large garden had become hard work, too big and almost a burden for just the two of them. Both Mum and Dad became less mobile, so, towards the end of their time there, he hired someone to mow the lawn and gave up growing stuff from seed.
Clearout revelations!
While clearing the house ready for the move, Mum came across her diaries, which she had more or less forgotten she still had. She called me with a ‘by the way’ type of conversation – “Oh, I’ve found my old WAAF diaries.” she said, ” I’d forgotten about these, but I’m not sure what to do with them. What do you think? Shall I just throw them out?”. My immediate response was “Oh no, don’t do that. Keep hold of them and I’ll have a look next time we come over”. So, when she showed me them, I was absolutely amazed, and so thankful that she hadn’t disposed of them, which she was about to do. In hindsight I’m so glad she didn’t!
The precious diaries, all 5 of them in total, plus lots of notes and sketches (Mum was an artist), tucked away in a box in a drawer, were lovely – all leather-bound, and the tiniest handwriting! Some of it was so faint it was no longer legible. So, Mum suggested I type them up into a document to give to the family. So, that’s what we agreed on. It was only when I looked at them more closely, and started working on them, that I realised how precious, important and interesting this ‘find’ was.
What next?
At that time I was running my own marketing/secretarial/cv writing business. Having made a start on typing it up, it became clear to me how interesting it all was. Always open to opportunities, it was then that the idea came to mind to turn it into a book.
Self-publising
Being a busines owner, I often attended networking and business meetings, and it was at one of these that I met a fellow business person who took an interest in what I was doing. He suggested he could help me publish the book, including creating an ISBN, which I would need to create a paperback book. This excited me hugely, and so the concept of Memoirs of a WAAF was born. Once I had the diaries and started work on them, Mum was quite happy to leave it all entirely up to me, as I was confident that the challenge was doable.
The work
The road ahead was long and challenging – the book took over 2 years to produce, with lots of typing, research and collating pictures, and part the way through I stalled and nearly gave up working on it. However, with encouragement from my dear, supportive husband Phil, I got going again, finally finishing and publishing Memoirs of a WAAF in 2015? When I opened the first delivery of books, I cried! I was so proud of myself, as were the whole family. I had done it!
What next? Self-publish?
As I had gone down the route of self-publication, it was up to me to promote and market the book, so that’s exactly what we did. So now, it was time to promote it.
Why didn’t I go to a publisher you may ask? Well my research told me that publishers tend to be only interested if you have more than one book to publish and, you lose all rights to your book if someone else publishes it, with very little profit left for you. It was a steep learning curve but enjoyable.
We took the book to lots of independent book shops (some agreed to sell them, some didn’t) as well as Waterstones in East Grinstead, where Mum and I even did a book signing. I sold lots at Uckfield late night shopping.
In the end I had a total of 300 books printed, and we sold the lot! Not quite up to J K Rowling standard, but never mind! You’ve got to start somewhere!
