In the genes?
Musical memory plays a huge part in Percy Stewart's Tunesmith Trilogy.
'Back in the late sixties I was already playing in a string quartet and two orchestras, then in the early seventies I had a minor lead role in a stage musical. I come from a long line of working musicians, so public performance was simply a natural way of life during my childhood and teens: I had never known anything else.
'And yet the pressure from teachers and family forced me to take another direction, until it was too late to achieve what I knew was possible.
'Having such a wealth of first-hand musical memories going back over sixty years gives me a good foundation for the books. Yes, I do check a few references on the internet, but this only because the books which I would need are hard to find in the Scottish Borders. If I were still living in a capital city, I would simply walk along to a library first thing in the morning, and probably buy my breakfast at a bakery on the way there. As a student, I had little idea how privileged we were!'
'In Anthony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare wrote of music being the food of love. Shakespearean themes have a habit of turning up in my books, especially when I'm feeling peckish!
'These components all come together in the ideas for Jacques the hungry musician, and his unknown father the tunesmith, the heart of Tunesmith, tinsmith.'