CHAPTER FIFTEEN– SUNLIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

 

My mother's great friend in Exmouth, novelist and playwright Ronald (R.F.) Delderfield, told me in the Sixties on a visit with my parents to his then home near Sidmouth that everyone has at least one novel in them.

 

It was a statement which impressed me at the time being a young journalist starting out on a weekly newspaper, as he had been when my parents first met him, having learnt his journalistic skills on his father William's Exmouth Chronicle.

 

Over the following years, I would sometimes recall his words and feel that he had been wrong in my case - though I was always comfortable re-writing the work of others during 30 fulfilling years on the Western Daily Press morning newspaper in Bristol, competing with the nationals for the attention and loyalty of readers in seven West Country counties.

 

And as my legendary mentor, Eric Price - the greatest post-war editor never to be officially honoured - said in his autobiography, The Boy In The Bath: "There never was a more tenacious news editor."

 

But I never considered myself a natural writer, unlike Nige, although I could compose poem after poem with personally-satisfying ease, whether for family, friends or the loves of my lives.

 

In compiling the chapters and footnotes on this website I have been merely re-writing my own history, re-jigging the remembered stories, anecdotes and sayings of my mother so that her shining worth, selfless sacrifice, indomitable spirit and over-riding love for her husband, sons and friends can be appreciated by her descendants and the wider world.

 

However when novelist Jilly Cooper, who had become a friend over the Western Daily Press years, heard that I had discovered my mother's precious archives of intimate correspondence, she told me, : " It's a book, Peter - you must write it."

 

I decided on the title, The Tunnel of Love, and set to work on the three chapters she said I would need to present with a synopsis to a publisher in the first instance, along with a cast of characters and photographs – all of which I had in abundance.

 

I had already gathered a wealth of information in a month of research for our family tree and found, as I sat in front of my laptop, that this, my first and possibly only, novel, was writing itself.

 

The three chapters were completed in as many days although my conceited admiration for my glowing prose was punctured when my friend, Pat Calver, read the first one and declared: "It doesn't work - it's just a succession of albeit fascinating facts." - well I am a journalist.

 

She was absolutely right, but as I mentioned earlier, re-writing comes easy to me and all three chapters were revised within an equally short time.

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So rapidly in fact that I wondered for not the first and probably not the last time whether my continuing happiness and lightning word-smithing might be evidence of a return to the occasional hyper-drive, which has sometimes helped and at other times bedevilled me.

 

I think not, for as in my newsdesk days - rather nights - I had always enjoyed chasing a really good story, relishing the thought of presenting it to the reading public.

 

I am also, like my father, a born organiser never happier than when assembling facts to make a cohesive readable story or arranging a spectacular promotion for my newspaper or, as in my later fairly-brief PR years, a client company.

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Later after helpful advice from an editor at Bloomsbury Publishing they were to be totally rewritten to become the love story of my parents rather than the family history that you can now read on this website.

 

This latter exercise has also had the unexpected bonus of allowing me to highlight ancient wrongs visited on my loved ones and ancestors by an often cruel world and at times some especially nasty and venal individuals.

 

So here it is - my record of the Gibbs family’s ever-enthralling history, detailing incident-filled journeys through tunnels both of love and grief that span an ocean and continents and world wars and centuries.

 

My undying thanks to Grandmere, Grandpere (by now my father must be aware of the name given to him by his grand-daughter, Katie) and my Sally, who taught me the real meaning and joy of all-encompassing unselfish love.

 

Thanks as well to my dear friend, Sue Loder, who gave me support and affection on my return to Clevedon, sensing my sadness and wrapping my unhappiness with a blanket of warmth and understanding, which, while not removing my depression, made it easier to bear.

 

Thanks also to her husband, Lyn, who introduced me to the delightful pastime of bird-watching and despite enduring the physical and psychological hardship of a terminal cancer diagnosis found time to design the cover of the Tunnel of Love, “getting exactly” the feel that I wanted to achieve.

 

Another special mention of course to Jan Newton, who dispensed welcome wisdom from Edinburgh; Pat, who was brave enough to tell me when my sparkling writing failed to hit the mark; my handfast sister-in-law, Vivvie, whose unstinting support assured me that I was not “going bonkers again”, my ever-supportive extended family and wonderfully faithful friends and not forgetting Nige, my ever cheerful and hedonistic walking mate, who in typical adventurous fashion was away in Sri Lanka with his wife, Jenny, as I completed the first chapters of my yet-to-be published book.

 

All of these had a hand in leading me back to the welcome sunlight that still shines so brightly and strongly through the Tunnel of Love.  

 

My mother concluded her description of how my father had captured her heart on a railway platform with these words: “He was always able to bring me to life. I used to say during the war: ‘When you go away, I go into cold storage and when you come back the flame is alight.’ One day I shall be with him again.”

 

Her final written words to me were:”You and Hugh know the rest of the story.”

 

And now, my reader, so do you.