Writer draws on African experiences (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Writer draws on African experiences

Wootton Bassett novelist Vera Elderkin is celebrating the launch of her second novel.

Last year the Gazette reported how Mrs Elderkin, 63, of the Rosary, had her first novel published after years of trying.

Since then she has won favour with the publishers and her second novel, called Hetty and the Earl, is also now on the shelves.

Mrs Elderkin, who is married to Roy, 63, has based both her novels on experiences from her home country of Zimbabwe which she left in 1984. Her latest novel is based in the 1950s in what was then southern Rhodesia.

Young men, mainly the sons of the aristocracy who had misbehaved, were sent to the colonies by their families with the intention of "making men of them." Jack is one of these aristocratic sons who is sent to Rhodesia to work by his father.

Jack meets a naive farmer's daughter named Hetty. He likes what he sees and takes her to his home in England where his father, the Earl, rapes her. She is too afraid to tell what has happened.

She becomes pregnant with the Earl's child, but Jack is unaware of this and marries Hetty. Jack, though he is married, cannot contain his womanising with dire results.

Mrs Elderkin said: "The novel is written as fiction but parts are based on my husband's experiences in the British South Africa Police and I am a farmer's daughter so I've been able to use my knowledge of different farming methods."

A copy of her first novel, The Last Rhodesian Soldiers, is in the town's library and she hopes her second novel will also be included in their collection.

Mrs Elderkin, who has two sons and a daughter also living in Wootton Bassett, has nearly completed her third novel.