My Inspiration from Women on the Front Line in WW1 and During the Time of Covid

Juliet Greenwood

One of my inspirations for The Girl with the Silver Clasp was a passage I’d come across in my research into the First World War, which talked about the many 1920s women who experienced what we would now call PTSD, as a result of their experiences. I’d read about men coming back from the front and the efforts to overcome their trauma, but I’d never seen anything about the VADs, the nurses, and the ambulance drivers working on, or just behind, the front line. In fact, I’d never really thought about it before.

But of course, like the nurses and the care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, those women working with the horribly wounded and the dying must have seen things no human being would ever wish to experience. Even if they survived physically unscathed, it stands to reason that many would have been scarred for life, emerging into a world that did not yet recognise the reality of shellshock and other traumas, and a time when the population wished to put the agony of the past behind them. Not to mention a new generation throwing themselves into the roaring twenties with little first-hand knowledge of the horrors faced by those caught up in the war. 

In The Girl with the Silver Clasp, this legacy of global upheaval is reflected in Rachel, whose frustrations with middle-class expectations before the war later becomes an agonising desire to come to terms with all she has seen as an ambulance driver on the front line. Like so many of the women returning from the extremes of war, she finds herself expected to slot back into her role as the dutiful daughter, the one who will be a companion, and most likely later a nurse, to her mother, while her own life slips away, unnoticed, always under the control of others.

I loved the character of Rachel, passionate and troubled, seeking to find a way of assuaging the guilt of the faces that haunt her, those of the wounded, and of the innocent civilians, the women and children she was unable to save. And I love the way she uses her own trauma to help those in dire need in peacetime, as well as to fight against the odds to save the traditional little harbour community her brother-in-law wishes to sweep away without a second thought in the cause of his own petty self-aggrandisement. 

Where Jess, the silversmith, is driven from the time she is a child by a passionate commitment to her creativity and her art, Rachel’s own passionate commitment to building a better world grows out of loss and suffering and watching lives being torn apart. It feels strange looking back now to think that when I was writing the story I had no idea we would so soon be watching a world battling a pandemic that has also torn so many lives apart and left a legacy of trauma in its wake.

I wanted The Girl with the Silver Clasp to be a story of resilience and optimism, as three women battle the odds, as well as their inner demons. Three young women who refuse to compromise, to let the past overwhelm them, or be what others wish them to be, but rather find the strength to follow their dreams. 

The world was changed as a result of the First World War, subtly at first, and not immediately, but rather sowing the seeds of women being able to break free of the shackles of being assumed cowardly, stupid and incapable of ingenuity, to prove themselves as professionals and businesswomen, building on the strength and experience gained under the most dreadful of circumstances. And here in the UK, it pushed forward the stirrings of a move towards a universal right to healthcare that eventually became our amazing NHS. 

It’s impossible to know how our own world will be changed by the time of Covid, but, like Rachel, I can hope that, at least in some way, it can lead to the beginnings of much-needed change. I can also hope that this time it includes a recognition of just how much women have held things together and kept the world turning under the most agonising of circumstances, both at work and at home, and that this, too, becomes a part of the story told by future generations, and is never glossed over, or forgotten. 

The Girl with the Silver Clasp

St. Ives, 1916.

Jess Morgan always hoped to become a celebrated silversmith, but when the men return from war she’s forced to return to her job as a seamstress. All she can cling to is the memory of that delicate, unique silver clasp she created for a society bride.

Rachel Bellamy served as an ambulance driver on the front line during the Great War but now it’s up to her to save the family home and picturesque harbour from her wealthy brother-in-law, before it’s too late. 

Giselle Harding fought her way up from poverty to become a Hollywood movie star. Yet even the most beautiful jewels she owns will never replace the man she lost.

As the lives of the three women collide, will they be able to overcome their differences and fight together for the dreams they once held so close?

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Juliet Greenwood is a historical novelist published by Orion. She has always been a bookworm and a storyteller, writing her first novel (a sweeping historical epic) at the age of ten. Juliet is fascinated both by her Celtic heritage and the history of the women in her family. She now lives in a traditional cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, set between the mountains and the sea, with an overgrown garden (good for insects!) and a surprisingly successful grapevine. She is currently working on her next novel. 

Website: http://www.julietgreenwood.co.uk/

Blog: http://julietgreenwoodauthor.wordpress.com/

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing