1. Norah’s Suitcase

Chapter 1: Norah’s Suitcase, focuses on the arrival in my life of Norah’s suitcase-archive of diaries, letters and wartime memorabilia. It opens in October 2009, with my last visit to Norah, moves through my mum and I picking up Norah’s diaries at her bungalow on the day of her death the following month, sees my mum reading and reporting on the diaries in the following weeks, and ends at Christmas 2009, where we take a longer look at the wartime diaries and sailor’s letters and introduce the mystery that will be at the heart of the book. This chapter is written in the form of life writing and introduces Norah and her strained relationships within our family before I discuss the historical context and the problems posed by Norah’s diaries, in chapter 2.