I have always enjoyed exploring the issues of conflict - conflicting emotions, conflicting ideas, conflicting situations so when it came to writing “Hari’s Pigeon” it was the issue of racial conflict which confronted me.
I can’t remember what caused me to choose a pigeon as one of the protagonists, but having done so I had to find a pigeon and study its habits. A local owner of racing pigeons lent me Trixie. She took up residence in the bedroom of one of my daughter’s who was working away from home and I spent many hours and days, just like Hari, watching her and noting down everything she got up to. Oddly enough, after she went home, the very next day I rescued a pigeon from a cat and kept it for several weeks in a rabbit hutch in the garden until it was fit enough to fly off.
I had to learn something about the Sikh religion and, through the friendship of another of my daughters, had what I had written checked for accuracy.
I was encouraged to republish 'Hari's Pigeon' after being contacted by Eleanor Nesbitt, Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick and authority on Sikhism who was interested in publishing extracts of the novel in her book 'Sikh: Two Centuries of Western Women's Art and Writing'.
I know pigeons are considered as pests by many people, and ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, but I find them to be very intelligent creatures worthy of respect.
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