My fifth novel, ‘Fallen Woman’, is set in the fens, a part of the world in which I have been privileged to live and work during the past four and a half years. Those who come to the fens for the first time sometimes call the landscape dull. It is certainly flat, but it has a beauty which is all its own. It is often the case that I have to attend evening meetings, and during the summer months, I frequently find myself driving into the sunset. The sky is never the same from one day to the next, and sometimes its beauty is enough to lift ones spirits. When Fay Prescott, the heroine of ‘Fallen Woman’, arrives in the fens, she longs for an artist’s ability in order to be able to paint the sunset that she sees.

Miss Prescott is met in March by a local clergyman, who tells her that those born and bred in the area are called ‘fen tigers’. I have come across a nuber of people who have referred to themselves in this way, but I haven’t been able to find the origins of the term. Fen tigers are very private people in many ways, but if they take you to their hearts, there is nothing they will not do for you.

The clergyman meets Fay at the Old Griffin, and it is at this hostelry that other scenes in the novel take place. The Old Griffin is situated on one of the main roads in March, and if it could talk, it would no doubt have many interesting and curious tales to tell. Incidentally, the food served there is delicious.

Fay’s place of employment is in Wimblington, a real village which is to be found between March and Chatteris, but Old Drove House is an invention of mine. The sixteen foot is one of the many channels which criss-cross the fens and provide the drainage which such low lying lands desperately need. On a bright sunny day, the water is attractive enough, but in poor weather, it can take on an ominous appearance. The road that runs alongside it is as straight as a die, but the surface is uneven, and more than one person has lost control whilst driving, and perished beneath the waters of the sixteen foot.