Driven to Murder - Debbie Young's Writing Life

This article originally appeared on Boldwood Books’ blog to mark the publication of my latest novel, Driven to Murder.

In a bizarre incident of life imitating art, as a starting point for the ninth Sophie Sayers Cozy Mystery, I struck upon the idea of the village bus service being cancelled – only to discover shortly afterwards that the bus route passing through my home village of Hawkesbury Upton was also about to be axed.

Although my books are full of comedy, they also subtly gently draw attention to genuine rural issues, such as loneliness and isolation, for added realism.

Public transport is a lifeline to rural communities, especially for the many people who don’t drive or have access to a car. Taxis won’t come out to you as you’re too far from town, and as to take-away services, you might as well be on the Moon!

Only when you lose your public transport do you realise how much you need it.

Children can’t travel to school, teenagers lose their independence, adults can’t get to work, families can’t go shopping or on leisure outings, and no-one can get to medical appointments or banks.

photo of timetable of Hawkesbury bus — Hawkesbury Upton has very few buses – and now these few are under threat. (Sadly, The Fox Inn, one of two village pubs, has now closed its doors forever.)

Losing the bus shrinks your world to your own back yard and cuts you off from vital services that everybody should be able to access – and for which you still have to pay your taxes! *climbs down from soapbox*

photo of London bus in Wimbledon High Street — By contrast, in city streets, there are abundant buses at all hours – often many in a single street at the same time. City-centric politicians don’t realise how poorly rural communities are served by public transport.

In Driven to Murder, when Leif Oakham, suave owner of local bus company Highwayman, plans to axe the bus that connects Wendlebury Barrow with the nearest town, the villagers engineer a lively and creative campaign to save the bus. All goes according to plan until one of their number is murdered mid-campaign, in broad daylight, on the number 27!

Ever the amateur sleuth, Sophie pledges to track down the killer before another tragedy can occur – and to save the village bus service along the way.

There’s just one problem: she doesn’t have a driving licence.

A disastrous first lesson with Hector in his precious Land Rover makes her secretly seek an instructor further afield, with hair-raising results.

My husband, who favours action movies, has always told me I ought to add car chases to my books – but I don’t think he meant through single-track country lanes…

Of course, this being Wendlebury Barrow, there’s a happy ending all round, and plenty of surprises along the way.

I just hope we are as successful in winning a reprieve for the Hawkesbury Upton bus.

Back to Reality

passengers boarding the Hawkesbury bus at Yate — In the queue to board the bus from Yate to Hawkesbury Upton last week.

If you’d like to support the campaign to save the Hawkesbury Upton bus, join here’s a link to its Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/685419006919379

But the simplest and most effective thing to do is to travel by bus!

Although I’m lucky enough to be able to drive and have my own car, there will come a time when I’m too frail or poor to so. I want to make sure the bus is still there for when I need it. Don’t you?

In the meantime, I’ve pledged to make a weekly journey on our village bus service for the duration of the campaign.

If everyone who lived along its route made just one trip a month, our bus service would be saved.

It doesn’t matter how long or short the journey – each trip will boost passenger numbers, the key to the route’s survival.

Of course, these thoughts don’t apply only to my local bus service – wherever you live, whether urban or rural, the message about public transport is the same: USE IT OR LOSE IT!