My strongest memory of the 1976 heatwave is of the curious earthquake-like cracks that scarred our back garden. My family had moved back from Germany to a small village in Sussex that summer and my brother and I were amazed to find huge fissures across the lawn where the clay soil had dried and shrunk. I would lie on my stomach and look into the earth, wondering how much deeper and wider the cracks would get and what treasure might be revealed.
A Little Bird Told Me is partly set in 1976 because that summer was so remarkable and memorable for me.
Marianne Holmes 