Quite the tale: Wilson’s novel deleted by friend’s dogs
Author recalls computer mishap with pets – and thanks technician who recovered manuscript ‘It’s easier for me to write about Victorians because there is no technology in Victorian books’
DAME JACQUELINE WILSON has revealed she almost lost the manuscript of her most recent book after a friend’s dog pressed the “delete all” button on her computer screen.
In an advance on “the dog ate my homework”, Wilson faced telling her publisher that she would not be handing in her 300-page novel.
She recalled the experience during an appearance at the Oxford Literary Festival, telling the audience that it had left her very wary of technology.
The book was
The Magic Faraway Tree: A Christmas Adventure,
a reworking of the Enid Blyton tales, which was published in October.
The dedication in the front of the book – “To Gary Freemantle, the best technical wizard in the world, with many thanks” – is for the IT expert who managed to retrieve the manuscript.
“I’m not scared of most things but I am scared of my computer. I don’t like it and it doesn’t like me,” Wilson said.
“The most terrible thing happened. We were looking after other people’s dogs and I was being mad enough to try to type on a computer where they could get at me. This seems unbelievable but it happened: one dog pressed a button that said on it ‘delete’ and the other pressed ‘delete all’. My actual, almost-finished manuscript disappeared entirely.”
The dogs in question were a pug and a Jack Russell.
Wilson and her partner, Trish Beswick, tried desperately to retrieve the document but had no luck.
“Each time we tried to retrieve it, we were making it harder and harder,” she recalled. “At long last, I was told about this guy. He said he would come up and have a look at it.
“He did appear and looked quite disconcerting. His hair was down to his shoulders. He didn’t really look as if he knew what he was doing.
“Well, God bless Gary – within half an hour he had got it back for me.”
She added: “He is so lovely, so modest, such a genius. So I put his full name in the book as a dedication.”
The author is an ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, from where she adopted a poodle/patterdale terrier mix named Jackson.
Her latest novel, written without mishap, is The Girl Who Wasn’t There. It is a contemporary story about two sisters whose lives change after their father buys a folly tower and moves the family into it on a whim. One of Britain’s most prolific authors, Wilson has written 118 books, including the best-selling Tracy Beaker series and many set in the Victorian era.
Asked whether she preferred to set her books in modern or period times, the 78-year-old said: “I do like writing about modern things but it’s easier for me to write about Victorians because there is no technology in Victorian books so I can’t get it wrong.
“I am on no social media platform whatsoever. And also I think I know mostly what girls think and what they like to do up to a certain age but then when they become teenagers it all starts to change.
“I want to be cool but I don’t want people to think, ‘Poor, sad old thing, she doesn’t get it.’
“So sometimes it’s easy to write Victorians, and I do love the Victorian age.”