Interview with author Ben Westerham
Welcome Readers toanother installment of our author interview series. Today we have the pleasureof chatting with Ben, author of two mystery series.
JMR-Welcome to theBooks Delight, Ben. Tell our readers where you live, what you do for fun andwhat does the perfect day look like?
BH- I live in a villageof about 1,500 people in the English Midlands about 100 miles north of London.My wife and I moved here 26 years ago and have raised our two boys in thevillage. It’s a lovely part of the country, where we have some wonderful friends,access to lots of beautiful countryside and just enough partying opportunitiesto stop us from falling into an endless slumber.
Since last Autumn I’vebeen a full-time author, so I now have almost complete control over my days andI’ve wasted no time making the most of this. A typical day, Monday to Friday,sees me take a short walk first thing, breakfast then get down to writing forup to three hours. I would prefer to write in the evenings, being a night owl,but that doesn’t fit with family life. After lunch I get on with the marketingand business side of being an author. I love the balance this approach brings,exercising both the left and right sides of the brain.
Because I love what Ido so much it took a lot of effort, at first, to stop myself from working intothe evenings and at weekends, but I now routinely keep those times free for thefamily and the silly number of hobbies and interests that I have, includinggardening and family history research.
JMR-What’s yourfavorite historical time period? Why?
BH- That’s a tough one,not least of all because I’m a history graduate and I love all periods andplaces in history. I suppose, at a push, I’d opt for the nineteenth-century. Ilike periods of great change and this was certainly that. Sticking to just lifehere in the UK, there was major change across all aspects of life, economic,political, social and cultural. I read hordes of history books and yet stilloften find myself surprised at how little I, in fact, know about the nature ofthese changes, be it their drivers, their impacts or even the part they playedin developing the life we lead today.
JMR-Who is yourfavorite historical figure? Why? If you could ask them one question, what wouldit be?
BH- I’m going to cheathere because I really don’t have a single favourite figure from history. I canremember early last year being asked which three characters from history Iwould invite to dinner and why. My answer was Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Disraeli andWinston Churchill. I doubt conversation and opinions would be hard to come byand it would have the added benefit that all three were writers, as well asother things.
As for a question, Iwould like to ask each of them what makes them happy.
(By the way, do any ofyour readers know what the connection is between Oscar Wilde and BenjaminDisraeli)?
JMR- How did you cometo be a writer of historical fiction?
BH- Tech. This mightsound ironic, given that I worked in the I.T. industry for over three decades,but, as an author, I hate feeling hemmed in by the presence of technology inmodern life. Whenever I do write stories set in the here and now (which are, todate, always short stories) I feel the constant need to have the charactersreaching for their phones or looking something up on the internet or dodgingCCTV cameras. It’s a blessed nuisance. Don’t get me wrong, I love tech. I’minto blockchains, NFTs and A.I. and I read sci-fi and articles on space travel,but keep it away from my writing, if you please.
I realised this as soonas I set out to write the first book in my David Good private investigatorseries. I wanted the focus to be on the people and keeping tech out of thepicture helped with this. I opted, in this case, for the 1980s and Londonbecause it is a period and place I know from experience.
I loved writing thosebooks and the experience gave me the confidence to then move on to a period alittle before my time, setting my Banbury Cross mystery series in the early1960s. Again, it’s the relative simplicity of life and absence of modern-day techthat has helped me to keep the focus on the people. I chose to set these booksin the small market town of Banbury in Oxfordshire, which is about nine milesfrom where we live, and it has been great fun, as well as very informative,researching life in and around the town back then.
JMR- We are allaffected by the highs and lows in our lives. How has your lived life informedyour writing?
JG- I like to think Ihave enough life experience under the belt now to have shaken off the arrogancethat is a part of being young and to have developed a far wider tolerance ofpeople and things, beliefs and actions that are not in tune with my own. Thisgives me a much wider outlook.
In truth, my writing isin part an escape. I tend, with my novels at least, to steer away from a greatdeal of darkness. There are exceptions, certainly in my David Good books, andsaying I largely avoid the darker parts of life when I write stories in whichpeople are invariably bumped off might seem a bit confusing, but I limit whatyou see.
My sense of humour alsotends to show through in my writing. That’s sometimes just the way I am but itcan also be a good counter-point to something darker.
Certainly, my writingwould not be what it is without the experiences, good and bad, that I haveencountered as part of life’s journey.
JMR- Did you visitanyone of the places in your book? Where did you feel closest to yourcharacters?
BH- The settings for mystories are a mixture of real-life and creations from my imagination. Thecities and towns are real, but villages and individual properties are sometimesreal and sometimes made-up.
The character I feelclosest to is David Good. Partly that’s because I wrote those stories in thefirst person but also because he inhabits a time and place in London which Iexperienced myself. Let’s just say there are one or two pubs and parties I frequentedthat acted as models for equivalents in these books.
JMR- Ben, tell us aboutyour book, The Meyer Hoffman Affair.
BH- Two of my all-timefavourite books are The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan and The Riddle of theSands by Erskine Childers. The latter would make my ‘three books for a desertisland’ list.
I long harboured adesire to write a story in the style of these two early-nineteenth-centuryespionage books but held off because I simply couldn’t see there being anyoneinterested in reading them. But eventually I decided to indulge myself andwrite The House of Spies purely for my own pleasure, without any expectation ofpeople paying money to read it.
I absolutely lovedwriting that book, which sees my hero, trainee solicitor Alexander Templeman,take on a dastardly agent of an overseas power. I went all in, doing my best toreproduce not only the sort of story and setting you get in a Buchan but alsothe language. It was a sheer joy to write. Then I put it up for sale and wastaken aback to see people start buying it.
Well, I was hardlylikely to pass up an excuse to write another one, so that’s precisely what Idid. In The Meyer-Hoffman Affair, Templeman has now been signed up by therecently launched British Secret Service and is sent off, with a moreexperienced agent, to escort to London a German scientist with crucial skillsin the development of new weapons. Needless to say, all does not go accordingto plan, after all, the Germans are hardly going to give the man up without afight.
Hopefully, I have againcaptured the flavour of these old-style espionage stories. I also indulgedmyself further by setting the second-half of the story in the tiny, ancientport of Rye, which sits on the south coast of England overlooking the English Channeland still has its cobbled streets and red-brick buildings from centuries goneby. It’s an utterly beautiful place and one I know well. I only hope I’ve donethe town justice. The book is out at the end of January 2024.
JMR-What projects doyou have in the pipeline?
BH- The biggest problemwriter me has is that he comes up with way too many ideas for things he’d liketo do. I just love to create. Mostly that’s with words, but I’m starting toturn my mind towards some multi-media projects I’d like to give a go. Nothingis firmed up yet but I will definitely get at least one of these off the groundthis year.
I think theopportunities authors have with blockchains and NFTs are astonishing,especially for those who want to do multi-media work. Add A.I. into the mix andwe really are entering a period of utter joyous delight for creatives. I feelso incredibly lucky.
I’m trying to find timeto grow my audio output because readers are now asking for it more and moreoften and I always aim to please. It does seem to still be a growth area.
Aside from that, therewill be another book in my Banbury Cross mystery series this year, severalshort stories and, possibly, another Alexander Templeman book, just in time forChristmas shopping.
JMR- Tell our readershow to find you on social media and the web.
BH- They can find me onX @benwesterham, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BenWesterham/and in Web3.0 land on Hive @benwesterham.
JMR- What question wereyou hoping I’d ask but didn’t?
BH- Easy, who is yourfavourite author? A terrible question to ask anyone! Anyway, my answer changesso frequently it is almost meaningless. At the moment I am reading Death inHallowed Places by PD James and, since it is very good indeed, today she is myfavourite author.
JMR- Thank you, Ben,for stopping by. Your books look really great! Readers, I’ve included a link toBen’s book below. Please be sure to check it out.
