Chris Mapp

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write a novel. I cannot tell you why. I do not feel the need to unburden myself in other ways, and yet the ambition has burned brightly since my teenage years. I have always needed to write to get my thoughts in order - for me, things make more sense on a page - and since my earliest years I have been desperate to entertain; no doubt a therapist would have a field day about why that should be. Perhaps I am just an attention seeker.

Whatever the reason, writing has always been an itch that I just could not scratch. There was an abortive attempt at a novel in my early twenties, which thankfully never suffered the indignity of publication. Then life took over - the need to earn a crust, the demands of family. I could not give my writing the attention it deserved, and one thing I have learned about myself is that I either do something or I don't; I do not play at anything. 

And now, very happily retired, I no longer have any excuses, so here it is, 'Songs of Expectation'. It is inspired by actual events that played out over a period of seventy years, when 100,000 British orphan and destitute children were sent to Canada to work, mostly as agricultural labourers or domestic servants. The vast majority never came home, and over 10% of Canada's population is said to be decended from them. They are known as the 'British Home Children' and my aim is to bring those lost voices to life.

I have a passion to tell this story as my father was one such child; on my website you will find an article I have written about his remarkable life, as far as I know it. In writing this book, I can also call on my own experience of losing parents as a child and being uprooted because of it; to a degree, it is my story too.

To find out more about me and the background to my novel, please visit my website https://www.chrismapp.com