Why a Booktrail?
Destination: County Londonderry Departure time: 1959 – The novel is based on a true story, an article that the author has written for the Derry Journal in 2011.
The First Time I Said Goodbye
What you need to know before your trail
So touched was the author by the story she wrote for the Derry Journal, that she decided to write a novel to expand upon the feelings of love and how one moment can change everything
Would you hold on tighter if you knew you were saying goodbye forever?
It’s 1959 and Stella Hegarty works is a factory but finds herself falling in love with a US marine based in Derry. Things move fast and they are soon planning their lives together in America when tragedy strikes and they find that the might have said their first and last goodbye
Fast forward to 2010 and Annabel Jackson, reeling from the loss of her beloved father, agrees to accompany her mother Stella back to Ireland to meet her family for the first time.
They arrive in Derry – and start to realise the importance of goodbye and the true meaning of leaving things behind.
Locations
Reset- Ireland (Republic of)
- A: Derry - Austins Depart store
- B: Derry - The city walls
- C: Derry - Peace Bridge
Travel Guide
1950s Derry
1950s Derry is a lovely place to be and very evocative both of time, music and what people wore. The fact that this is based on a true story is particularly poignant and adds a new twist to what is already a heartwarming story.
Stella falls in love with her American hero stationed in Derry and then moves to the states later on but following a tragedy. A journey and a decision that so many women must have done before and since this moment and is relevant today as ever. a love story across the miles and the decisions faced by women in the 1950s are beautifully evoked –
” A moment can change the course of your life forever. All the plans – dreams and hopes you thought you had can suddenly disappear. Life can take a new direction. Things change.
Tracing her journey to America and then her decision, her need to return to her home country of Ireland are poignant. The dual time line adds to the need to trace back a story and say your own personal good bye. Imagine returning home to a place you’d never really known?
Her daughter says –
“I had never been to Ireland before…Ireland was somewhere my mother talked of wistfully – regaling tales of Irish dancing, dew-dappled morning a, the craic and the singing. I grew up on a diet of Maeve Binchy novels.”…
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The First Time I Said Goodbye
Destination: Derry, New York Author/Guide: Claire Allan Departure Time: 1959, 2000s
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