For the Tunesmith Trilogy, most of Percy Stewart's research is first-hand.  To prepare the ground for Feeding the vultures, this year he spent three months with a notebook in France and Spain.

'Like so many other writers, musicians and photographers, I've had to spend much of the last thirty years stuck in front of a computer screen.  For editing the Tunesmith books, this is the only practical way for me to work, but for the research, I get out on foot or on a bicycle, to breathe fresh air and meet fellow human beings.  Sometimes I go out on a motorbike, and the journey becomes part of the stories.

'For large sections of each book I rely on a combination of short-term and long-term memory, writing experiences up directly at the end of the day, interweaving these with memories of life in decades gone by.  This way the writing is spontaneous and organic, like the best things which happen in real life.'

'For Feeding the vultures I was far from my desk, on the move every day.  The obvious plan was to keep a notebook, scribbling things down as they happen so that first impressions are captured fresh on the page.

'Sometimes on Jacques' long walk from the shore of the Atlantic I was stopping every few minutes, with so much visual detail opening up every few yards on remote mountain paths.

'In Feeding the Vultures, you might be surprised by Jacques' slow progress, but this was because for every five minutes walking, I might have to spend another five writing his observations down.  For the first few days I used the camera on my iPad, but the rucksack was already far too heavy for a sixty-seven year-old writer, so in the end I simply had to trust it to international post so that I could continue walking for three weeks, with little more more than a few minimal notes, a few postcards and my own memory.

'Towards the Central Pyrenees, to make enough progress, I had to rely purely on memory, because it was impossible to cover dangerous stretches of high-altitude path with a notebook in my hand.  When crossing a raging mountain torrent, you need both hands free!

'Thankfully I am currently writing fiction, not a travel-guide, so Jacques' forty-three year-old vision of his surroundings can be selective.'

'In the Pyrenees, it is sheer joy to be able to cross an international border as naturally as I walk over the Union Chain Bridge from Scotland to my local pub in Northumberland. 

'Of course, there's the obvious difference that once you leave the Atlantic shore, plenty of border-crossings can be above seven thousand feet!  When I was there in June, many of these were closed with snow and doing some of my favourite high-altitude walks was out of the question.'

'Every meeting with a stranger can be a surprise: first words might be in Spanish, but sometimes I detect an accent which could be transatlantic.

'Then it is a question of whether to pretend to be French, or Spanish.  I seem to be able to pass for either, with English, Dutch or German-speakers, and sometimes in Lourdes I get away with playing the part of an Italian alter-ego.

'It is a lot of fun, most of the time.  Having lived in the Pyrenees and northern Italy for four years in the seventies and eighties, I must have picked up credible local accents.'

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