Hello and welcome to the website for my new book, Vincent: The Long Silence. I do hope you enjoyed or are enjoying reading it. As explained in the book, the story is based on a framework of the company’s war diary entries, which were kept religiously by the commanding officer every day of the war. These contained a summary of the work done by the company that day and their location, usually given as trench map locations. Thus, from this information, I had a very good idea where my father was on any given day.
As he never talked about his experiences during the war, or indeed, never even told his family that he took part in the war, I had to fictionalize what he was doing, to give some body to the book. But if I said he was in a certain place at a given time, rest assured, he was in all probability there.
Please give me your thoughts on the book, and ask any questions regarding the story you wish. I will endeavour to answer them as best I can and provide as much information as possible.
Derek McCann.