I am thrilled to have interviewed author Andrew Tweeddale, who shared with us details of his writing life, his book ‘A Remembrance of Death‘, which was released on 1st December 2024, and answered a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Andrew has been a chef, a lawyer and is now a writer. He spends most of his time writing fiction although he also writes books on Arbitration Law and Engineering Contracts. Andrew started writing his first novel, Of All Faiths & None, in 2004 as an anti-war story; however, it was not until 2021 when he gave up his legal career that he went back to the novel and published it. It is a character led book telling the story of two families in the run up to the first world war.

His new novel, A Remembrance of Death, continues the story of Celia Lutyens and Basil Drewe until 1955, and although it is the second book in the Castle Drogo Series can be read as a stand-alone book.

The inspiration for the book came from Castle Drogo, which was the last great castle to be built in England on an escarpment in Dartmoor, in the county of Devon. It was commissioned in 1910 and took twenty years to complete because of World War 1. Both my first novel and A Remembrance of Death are based around the castle, the architect and the family that commissioned the castle.

I wrote a short summary of the story which was one or two pages. I also prepared some character profiles. However, because I write historical fiction I am constrained by historical facts. In my new novel A Remembrance of Death I write about the State of Emergency in
1950s Kenya, (which was called the Mau Mau uprising). I visited the National Archives in London and went through government correspondence relevant to the treatment of prisoners in Kenya. Fortunately, most things are now de-classified.

I then thought how my characters would act being thrown into the middle of one of the bloodiest uprisings in British history. However, once I start writing, the process is very fluid, and the story often takes me on its own journey.

My initial title was Memento Mori but as the story developed, I thought it needed to change and about 60% of the way through I revised it to A Remembrance of Death. Both main protagonists of the novel are affected by the death of people they loved and by the wars that they must live through, and this shapes their journeys.

Many of the names I use are of real people. The fictitious characters of the book, Celia Lutyens and Christian Drewe are however part of families that existed. Edwin Lutyens was the architect who designed Castle Drogo and Sir Julius Drewe was the rich tea-baron who commissioned it. Therefore, I had their surnames and just had to choose first names that I thought were appropriate and which I liked.

Mainly from archive footage on the web but also from textbooks, journals, articles, and letters, as well as documents from England’s National Archives. After you have been to the National Archives it is a tradition to post a picture of one of the swans outside.

The genre chose me. A visit to Castle Drogo in Devon gave me the setting for my story and so my first novel started in 1910 when it was commissioned. The novel therefore fell into the category of historical fiction. My new novel started in 1917 when my first novel finished.

A Remembrance of Death took two and a half years from its start to publication date.

Love – Unrequited – forgiveness.

The marketing. Half my life is taken up with X, Instagram, Facebook and the Blog on my website www.ofallfaiths.com

A Remembrance of Death is a story where hope and forgiveness win against betrayal and despair. It was shortlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize and received a high commendation. I hope it will take its readers on an immersive journey through some of the darkest moments of modern history.

I don’t have a pet or any other kind of writing buddy.

Nothing happens until I’ve had two cups of coffee and then I write until mid-day when I start cooking lunch for my wife.

I write in my basement of my house with a picture by Salvador Dali in front of me, which I inherited when I bought the property.

I would take the part of Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor General of Kenya in the 1950s. I usually wear shorts and a tee-shirt, so dressing up in a plumed hat and braided jacket would be fun.

The wise old owl would ask: “Doesn’t history teach us that we must learn from our past mistakes?”

It is a theme within my books that history teaches us lessons and that again and again we ignore those lessons and make the same mistakes. Eighty-five years ago, Britain loaded ships to Canada and Australia with refugees from Germany, Italy and Austria, who were fleeing persecution. It was acknowledged to be one of the most shameful things in Britain’s history, but some politicians still think that keeping refugees in appalling conditions and shipping them to another country is a good idea.

A big thank you to Andrew Tweeddale for sharing his writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.