Melvyn Fickling - Author
The Bluebirds Trilogy
Melvyn Fickling - Author
The Bluebirds Trilogy
So what am I doing here?
So what am I doing here?
It started in a grubby cinema seat in a tatty local cinema in an unassuming seaside town in 1970. I was a dishevelled eight-year-old boy and I sat open-mouthed in front of a sparkling Technicolour movie. Before my eyes the very foundations of British life and society were defended from tyranny by dashing, devil-may-care pilots riding in sleek, powerful fighter-planes. The film, The Battle of Britain , instilled a life-long fascination for the events of 1940, although my own ambition to become a Spitfire pilot one day was cruelly snatched away by the progress of aviation technology.
In my late teens I discovered one of The Few had grown up in my home-town and was buried in our local graveyard. Taking basic career information from available listings (in books, mind you, this was way before the internet) I started to research the life and times of this man and the Squadron in which he flew.
In early 2016, finding myself with time on my hands, during what could be described as a lull between careers, I opened my files and re-read my research. I realised the story was strong enough to provide the basis for a novel.
A few months later the first draft was finished, weighing in at 83,000 words. I dived straight into the first full edit. After a month of harsh self-editing, my novel stood at a shade under 77,000 words.
I sent the manuscript to half-a-dozen beta readers. While I waited for their reports I ran a second edit. Then, having received consistently good feedback from my beta readers, I began the long process of finding a way onto a publisher's list.
Before That..?
Before That..?
I was born in Wells-Next-The-Sea on the North Norfolk coast and spent my first 26 years in the town. I was educated at Wells Primary and Fakenham Grammar School, worked in my family’s painting and decorating firm (established by my grandfather, Harry, on his return to Wells after the war) and then in the nearby animal-feed plant at Egmere. In 1988, a three-month stint on an inshore shrimp-trawler ended in a force-ten gale and a rescue by the Wells Offshore Lifeboat (assisted by an Inshore Lifeboat and a Sea King helicopter).
Hanging up my sea-boots, I moved to London in search of safer employment and spent the next 18 years working in import and distribution, purchasing, company administration, interior design and project management.
After developing skills in internet marketing and search-engine-optimisation, I took advantage of work-from-home technology and moved to the picturesque medieval town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, arriving just in time to be involved in the major flooding in 2007.
Following a move to Kent, I helped to run a micro-pub and fledgling brewery, concentrating on research and development of historic beer styles.
I returned to Wells in early 2015 and completed my first novel, based on the life and times of a local war-hero.