How did I write my first novel, “And They Danced Under The Bridge”? I was staying with a friend, John, in his home in Italy. He is an established author and casually challenged me to write a book, within 12 months. I accepted his challenge and, via a steep learning curve, succeeded! 

Inspiring Avignon

Avignon is a marvellous, walled, medieval town – and perfectly preserved. I admire the writing of Albert Camus and his novel, La Peste, which describes a mystery illness that seizes an Algerian town and the resistance of the ordinary people. Research says that a plague – lesser-known than the Great Plague of the 17^th century – overwhelmed Avignon and its environs in 1348, at a time when the Papacy resided there in the Pope’s Palace for a hundred years. The thick, sandstone walls, built to defend the place also imprisoned its townsfolk. My idea was forming.

Developing the idea

I imagined a young man, Marius, who saw his destiny in organising the folk to fight the scourge. Who will help him? Who opposes him? What do the clergy do? Therein started my story.

The Saint-Bénézet bridge – famous in the children’s song – across the river Rhône was, then, an important, complete connection but it was narrow, only wide enough for a cart to pass and, certainly, not wide enough for people to dance ‘tous en rond’, all in a circle. No, they danced below the bridge on the sandbanks under its arches, I decided and imagined the good and great flaunting their fine costumes in their carriages but the poor citizens making do with dark, dank spaces underneath – 14th-century class discrimination.