Tag: Humour

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #71

Dear Reader,

I made great progress this week with the writing of Branches, book two in The Olive Tree, my Spanish Civil War saga, and the editing of Operation Broadsword is nearly complete. My thoughts are turning to Operation Treasure, book four in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series, and Stormy Weather, Sam Smith Mystery Series book eighteen, a novel about climate change.

Met some friends on the Bwlch this morning.

My latest translation, available soon, Invasion in Afrikaans. Also, delighted that Nelmari has agreed to translate Blackmail, book three in my Ann’s War series.

‘Potato’ Jones, captain of the cargo steamer Marie Llewellyn. During the Spanish Civil War, ‘Potato’ Jones ferried 800 refugees to safety. In total Welsh sea captains ferried 25,000 refugees to safety.

He also delivered fuel, food, medicines, guns and ammunition to the anti-fascists in Spain, breaking the blockade at Bilbao.

Cardiff International Brigade veteran Tom Williams: “The fight for democracy in Europe is carried on by the British ships carrying predominantly Welsh crews, and we are known on the continent as the ‘Welsh Navy’.”

Eve is back at #1 🙂

Merthyr Mawr this week

It’s a simple job, they said. We want you to wander down to Maddox Street and Conduit Street in Mayfair and attach the main telephone cable to a new support wire…

I’m reading George Orwell at the moment, his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Very lyrical and insightful.

Meanwhile, no irony here…

With Joana and Sandra, started work on two new translations today, Mind Games, Sam Smith Mystery Series book eleven, into Portuguese and Operation Locksmith, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE book two, into German. Great respect for translators and the talent they bring to these projects.

Hands up if you’ve said or heard these words 🙂

Responding to QI, the other followers said ‘I’d won Tweet of the Day’ and ‘I’d won the Internet’ with this comment 😂

Incidentally, I received well over 1,000 likes, which is easily a record for me.

I’ve completed Operation Broadsword, book three in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series, and now I’m looking forward to January 2021 and Operation Treasure, book four in the series, which is now available for pre-order.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L9G7V4Z/

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #70

Dear Reader,

Stabbed was obviously Shakespeare’s default modus operandi, but I’d love to work The Winter’s Tale’s Pursued by a Bear, or maybe Titus Andronicus’ Baked into a Pie into my books 🙂

Members of a Jedburgh team who supported Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, 17 – 25 September 1944.

After D-Day, Jedburgh teams assisted SOE agents and the local Resistance. The teams usually consisted of three men: a commander, an executive officer and a non-commissioned radio operator. One of the officers would be British or American while the other would originate from the host country. The radio operator could be of any nationality.

The October 2020 issue of our Amazon #1 ranked eMagazine, Mom’s Favorite Reads 🙂

A beautiful murder ballad…Jean-Paul Marat murdered by Charlotte Corday with a dagger in the bath.

Sunday, 4 October 1936, The Battle of Cable Street when 20,000 anti-fascists clashed with 3,000 fascists. Facilitated by the Tories, Mosley sent his blackshirts into the East End of London to intimidate the Jewish community. However, the locals supported the Jews and repelled the fascists.

Colette, A Schoolteacher’s War was going to be a standalone novel. However, my research has taken the book into a trilogy. Based on the French Resistance and D-Day, each story will centre on a different lead character. Working titles, A Student’s War and A Housewife’s War.

Stories are universal, of course, so it’s lovely that I now have readers in 44 countries 🙂 America, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, El Salvador, England, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland. Italy, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Wales.

Modern Philosophy

One of the dogs trained to deliver first aid kits to frontline medics in the fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War.

Movie stars who appeared in the Lux Screen Stars series weren’t paid. Novices at beauty product advertising, they didn’t think to ask.

By common consent, Violette Szabo was regarded as the most beautiful of all the SOE F Section agents. A mother, she served the SOE in France until an unfortunate incident led to her capture and murder by the fascists.

This memorial by Karen Newman, featuring Violette Szabo and dedicated to all SOE agents, was unveiled in 2009.

I wrote a chapter today where two of my characters in The Olive Tree: Branches, part two of my Spanish Civil War saga, walked along the banks of the Seine encountering a scene similar to this painting by Georges Seurat.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #69

Dear Reader,

Where do you get your ideas from? Is a common question asked of authors. My answer is, my ideas always stem from my characters. Where do my characters come from? The answer to that question is various sources, including old photographs. Here’s an example of a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. I don’t know her name or background, but her strong features immediately spoke to me and just by studying the picture a fictional character, Lise Lazard, took shape. You can read about Lise in Branches, book two in The Olive Tree, A Spanish Civil War Saga. Available soon 🙂

I write, therefore I am…

In September 1953, sugar rationing in Britain finally came to an end. The wartime government introduced it in January 1940. A weekly sugar ration ranged from 8oz to 16oz per week.

Where to collect your ration if you lived in Birmingham. Maybe we’ll see similar Brexit inspired posters in the new year.

Station IX, which developed weapons and gadgets for SOE agents, created a small motorcycle called the Welbike. Although 3,641 bikes were produced they were rarely employed by the SOE. Instead they were issued to the 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions who used them during the Anzio and Normandy landings. The Welbike also featured at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden.

Bulgarian joke. Red Bull gives you wings. Vodka gives you 4×4 🤣

One for the album. Operation Zigzag has entered the Brazilian chart alongside John le Carre, Tom Clancy and Stieg Larsson 🙂

Eve at #1 for the first time 🙂

Philosophy humour.

I’m reading A Moment of War, Laurie Lee’s lyrical account of his time in the Spanish Civil War.

“Eulalia turned and smiled at me brilliantly, showing her tongue, her face cracking open like a brown snake’s egg hatching.”

Vertigo, what vertigo?! Acrobats do their thing on top of the Empire State Building, 1934.

A lovely weekend for my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series, #1 in America and Britain, and now in Australia 🙂

Fat Banished!

No exercise!

No diets!

No baths!

No ill effects!

No danger!

Easy to swallow!

The solution you’ve been waiting for, sanitised tape worms!

October 1944, the Allies cross the Belgium-Germany border and prepare to write the closing chapters of World War II with the defeat of Hitler’s brand of fascism.

My article about SOE agent Odette Sansom is on page 24 of this month’s Seaside News 🙂

Met a friend on the dunes 🙂

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #66

Dear Reader,

Published this week, Looking For Rosanna Mee, my seventeenth Sam Smith Mystery. The intention was to write just the one book, but Sam thought otherwise…

Freshwater West this week.

Maslow’s hierarchy for modern times 🤣

A tearful farewell at Paddington Station c1942, by Bert Hardy.


In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech to D-Day veterans, discussing those who‘d died under his command. Before D-Day, he wrote a letter stating that whatever the outcome he’d take full responsibility. The memories moved him. Great leaders have empathy, they respect their men.

Delighted to announce that my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series will be translated into German 🙂

Introduced in Paris in 1932, this is the Cyclomer, an amphibious bicycle. With four air-filled floats for buoyancy and propelled by two fan blades, as you might have gathered the idea didn’t catch on.

I’ve completed the writing of Operation Broadsword, book three in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series. Editing to follow. This story ends with a Westland Lysander, a short-range aircraft that was adapted for clandestine operations. 

The Lysander could use small, improvised airstrips and therefore was well suited to delivering and recovering agents from behind enemy lines particularly in occupied France with the help of the French Resistance. 

Just made a bread pudding, based on my grandmother’s recipe 🙂

Cécile Rol-Tanguy and Henri Tanguy, the French Resistance couple who conducted clandestine operations, relayed confidential messages and participated in the liberation of Paris. Read their remarkable story here 👇

https://hannah-howe.com/eves-war/cecile-and-henri-rol-tanguy/

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #64

Dear Reader,

My new Twitter page. If you are interested in my Spanish Civil War and Second World War posts please follow.

https://twitter.com/HannahSOEAuthor

It’s always exciting and a relief to finish writing a novel. Just finalised the edits for Looking for Rosanna Mee, book seventeen in my Sam Smith Mystery Series 🙂

My latest translation, Ripper in Spanish. Available soon 🙂

On 21 August 1944, more than 4,000 Spanish Civil War veterans joined the Maquis in Paris to drive the Nazis out of the city. A sweet moment for the anti-fascists. After the liberation the Spanish soldiers took their rightful place in the victory parade.

Ann’s War, a mini-series I wrote for my own amusement, is #1 for the eleventh time 🙂

The world where we live…

Keep your eyes on the watch. Watch the watch. You are becoming sleepy, sleepy…

I published Operation Locksmith this week, book two in my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE Series, which was exciting. However, even more exciting was the support from my readers who pre-ordered Operation Broadsword, book three in the series, and placed it in the top fifty hot new releases, alongside Ken Follett 🙂

Jacob Naken, a seven foot six inch German soldier, talks with Canada’s Corporal Bob Roberts, five foot three inches, after his capture at Calais on 29 September 1944. Before the war, Jacob was a doorman at a West End cinema.

Soldiers of the Great War paying tribute to the eight million horses, donkeys and mules that died during the conflict.

I’m going to try numbers 17, 19, 21 and 30 tomorrow. If they don’t work, it’s number 40, stand on a corner and cry then number 24, looking for ‘leftovers’ 😂

The proof copy of Operation Locksmith has arrived from the printer 🙂

My updated store with paperbacks from £0.99 to £2.99

https://hannah-howe.com/mystore/

Judgement at Nuremberg is more relevant today than when it was made in 1961. Three hours long, it doesn’t waste a minute. How do tyrants prosper? Through the support of men and women who know the tyrants are tyrants, but remain silent out of fear, greed or ideology. With superb performances from Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Maximilian Schell the film helps us to understand the atrocities of the Second World War and the dangers facing our age. Easily one of the best films ever made.

Ernst Janning, a judge during the Nazi era and now on trial for crimes against humanity, says, “I never knew that it would come to that.” (The mass murder of innocents). 

Judge Haywood, the chief judge at Nuremberg replies, “Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.” 

At the Battle of La Madeleine on 25 August 1944 Cristino García led 32 Spanish anti-fascists and four French Maquis against a Nazi column of 1,200 soldiers. 

Garcia’s men blew up a bridge in front of the Nazis and mined the road behind the column. Boxed in by a forest on either side of the road, the Nazis were trapped. 

In the confusion, the Nazis thought they were under attack from a large army so they negotiated a truce then surrendered. 

Such incidents were taking place throughout France in August 1944 as the Resistance sprang to life and helped to defeat the occupying Nazis.

A spotter on the alert for Nazi warplanes during the Charlton Athletic vs Arsenal match at The Valley, 1940.

26 August 1944. The Allies have liberated Paris. However, a Nazi sniper opens fire.

A forerunner to Coca Cola, Coca Wine was a mixture of cocaine and alcohol. Queen Victoria and Jules Verne loved it while three Popes awarded the wine a gold medal for excellence. Note: medical men and clergymen could receive a bottle for free!

André Hue, the SOE agent who escaped from a sinking ship in the nude, took part in a major battle against the Nazis and organised a series of sabotage operations after D-Day. A hero of the war, he continued in espionage as a spy for MI6.

https://hannah-howe.com/eves-war/andre-hue/

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx