How a Forgotten Memoir Inspired Jack’s Promises Historical Novel
How a book I’d never heard of helped me write Jack’s Promises.
About fifty years after Doris Gill, who wrote under the name Raby Long, wrote her memoir, Tomorrow’s Promise, my mother received a copy in the post.
She had no idea the book existed. It had been published privately for Doris’s friends and family, so you can imagine her surprise when it arrived.
I often wonder what would have happened if that book had never found its way to my mother. The story of the Gill family and their lives in outback Queensland might have been lost altogether.
My mother, Rose Gill, had her own memories of those days, and listening to her stories, alongside reading Doris’s memoir, gave me a glimpse into a world that had long since disappeared.
I drew on both to write my historical fiction novel, Jack’s Promises. Without Doris’s book and my mother’s recollections, I doubt I would ever have written it.
It’s a strange thing how these things happen. A woman writes down the story of her life, never imagining that fifty years later, someone she didn’t even know would use it to bring that world back to life.
I’m glad Doris took the time to write her memoir. Otherwise, so much of that family history might have been forgotten.
And now, in its own way, the story lives on in Jack’s Promises.
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