My father, Peter Terson, was a playwright and my abiding memory of him is sat in his studio typing away on his faithful Olvetti resisting the lure of all technology. By some tragic turn, he died the day after my husband; Later when I was sat in his studio surrounded by a lifetime of work, I was surprised by the sheer volume of work held in this small space. He had illustrated diaries over 3 decades detailing the mundane, his frustrations and aspirations. There were tomes of work stacked in piles which I started to look through and in one of his drawers, I found 2 manuscripts; one was a story which he had illustrated detailing my adventures as a girl with a band of intrepid mice. It is entitled the Mousebed. Although I felt emotional reading this wonderful tale where I sailed through the night in my parents’ mahogany bed with a crew of brave mice, it also inspired me.
The second manuscript was his unfinished memoir which in later years, as Parkinsons held it’s fearful grip, had frustrated him immensely. Over the following week, I sat each night reading this battered script with all it’s typing errors and resolved to edit it and see if we could find a publisher. As I read his words, my memories, unleashed by his memoir came to surface and I felt I could tell a story, that of my father’s life intertwined with my own and so ‘The Journey’ is borne, destination currently unknown.