Born on a Sheaf of Straw
by
Brian Edkins
A young girl’s desperate wartime journey
Based on the true story of Josefa, a young Lithuanian girl who embarked on what many thought an impossible journey – a trek across war-ravaged Europe with her baby in a pram to try to find her beloved Pierre. Caught up in the fighting between the retreating Germans and the Red Army, it was a journey many did not survive.
Josefa lived with her mother on a small farm in a village named Simkaiciai – too small to be found on most maps - in the wooded part of South West Lithuania, North of the Nemunas River. Life was hard as they worked the land to put food on the table, but this harsh existence did not prepare her for the trauma of the Second World War. As she grew into womanhood she witnessed the horror and deprivation that warfare can inflict on mankind. But her life was transformed when a French soldier – a prisoner of war – came into her life. Their love produced a baby, but the fortunes of war cruelly forced them apart.
Was she right to trust her instinct – that Pierre had managed to survive and had returned to Paris? Could she succeed in reaching Paris against all the odds, and if she did would he be there for her?
Brian Edkins was born and educated in Leyton, East London. He joined the Meteorological Office in 1956 but left for National Service in the RAF during 1957/8 and saw active service in Cyprus. In 1959 he returned to the Met Office and remained there until his retirement in 1998, having worked as an observer, software engineer and systems analyst. Married with one son and one daughter, his hobbies are chess, painting, writing, dancing and walking.
He was greatly assisted in the gathering of information for this novel by his wife Christine, who interpreted Josefa’s Lithuanian flavoured French into English.
ISBN: 978-1-906302-05-4
PRICE: £9.95 (plus P & P £3.00 UK, £4.00 EU, £6.50 RoW)
Blenheim Press Ltd
Codicote Innovation Centre, St Albans Road, Codicote,
Herts SG4 8WH
