What does history mean to you?

For some, history means kings, queens and political intrigue. For others, it’s a litany of colonisation and war. At my school, history leapt from Roman Britain to the industrial revolution, where history meant innovation, manufacturing and machines.

Now I enjoy fiction that honours the lives of those the history books have often neglected: working-class people; marginalised communities and identities; people of colour and women.

When I worked in a long-stay psychiatric hospital, I’d get annoyed at how a patient’s history was deemed to start with their admission. So when I wrote my novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, set in a psychiatric hospital in 1989, I was determined to include my character’s backstory, the girl she was before the asylum ruled her life.

In doing so, I glossed over the fifty years she spent in hospital before that story starts. You could say I didn’t want to overburden the narrative. You could say I was insufficiently curious about her recent past.

It wasn’t until a few months after publication that I began to wonder about that fifty-year gap in Matilda’s history. How did she manage the shock of her incarceration? How and when did her quirky alternative reality materialise?

When I started writing, part of me doubted enough could happen to create a satisfying story. Asylum life can be incredibly dull. But, as I delved deeper into her situation, I discovered a surprisingly rich seam. With the support of my online critique group, a dual-timeline novella emerged.

It’s dedicated to the women wounded by warped twentieth century morality. You can read more about it here.