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Rifleman William Snow

11th Battalion, Rifle Brigade 1894 - 1916
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William Snow has been a major inspiration in my life for quite a few years and

for a number of reasons. To begin with, he is my great Uncle. Secondly, he
was a soldier during the Great War. He succumbed to injuries following
the Battle of Delville Wood on 1st September 1916. Those military
historians will know this particular battle saw the first action of the
South African military during the war. Thirdly, he has provided the
inspiration for my novel, ‘The Spirit of Christmas 1940’. Our final
outing takes us to the book that will try to immortalise William in it’s
pages for eternity. So, let’s finish our trilogy with the book itself,

The Spirit of Christmas 1940.
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To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
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t’s all been a bit of a dream when I look back on the way old victorian style London train station which we called
the book has come about. If I can be honest, The Spirit of Church Street. The soldier has an overwhelming urge to
IChristmas 1940 actually started life as a musical. I’ve always comfort those on the station that wait hopelessly for their loved
had a bit of a thing for musical theatre and the storyline struck ones returning from the battles of World War Two.
me a few years ago as a kind of Phantom of the Opera type
affair. But it was more important for me to develop a strong So without getting too involved in story analysis at this point,
plot and tell a great story rather than use the setting to promote we can see that there would be romantic involvement between
songs. This was my sticking point for such a long time. the three but also an emotive setting for those very difficult
days, not only for the returning troops and their families but
The turning point is when I decided to just concentrate on it as also for the local community as the story is actually set during
a story and not a production. From the very start there would the Blitz. The fact that the story writing required so much
always be three main characters. A young lady who sells flowers sensitivity was never far from my mind. Respect had to be
from a cart, a cockney newspaper vendor and the soldier. The given to everybody and every scene even though it is a fictitious
soldier turns out to be a lost spirit who appears on our stage, an story. This was so important when dealing with William Snow.
Although he is portrayed as a spirit in our storyline, I felt it
important to use his real story from the Great War as a base to
Kidderminster GWR Station develop the fictitious side.
aka Church Street
Despite all of this, I had to keep in mind that I was writing
a story. Everything in the station setting was made up, the
characters, the cafe, the pub, the whole lot but again it was based
on a very real station, Kidderminster Great Western Railway
Station. Although based in the West Midlands, the station leant
itself to everything that was a typical London station during
WW2. I spent an awful lot of time soaking up the creativity of
Kidderminster GWR just so when I wrote the story I had a very
clear picture in my mind of how things would actually look. I
owe a great deal of gratitude to the staff and management of
Kidderminster GWR for allowing me to use the station as my
inspiration. Thanks folks!

The other factor I had to take into account is, it’s also set at
Christmas time (As if I didn’t have enough to think about). Not
that I wanted to re-write the Dickens classic but it did seem sort

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