Feedback on our new book

Just as I had expected publishing our book has stirred some people up! I have quite a lot of positive feedback but also some "surprised and disappointed" comments from some of the more fringe people identified in the book who feel that their contribution to the "Eve and Ella story" has been under-played.

I think everybody agrees that the case studies were the best part of the book. All four people, although very different, are inspirational characters and I am pleased that the ghost writer and I have made this section of the project work so well.

Several people felt that Ella and I should have written more about our time in the Children's Home and that I need to include more about my various foster placements. What went right, what went wrong and how transitions between placements were carried out. This can be done in any second edition.

More of a problem are the requests for expanded coverage of my (Eve's) time at university and Ella's parallel time living solo. This was a mega difficult time for both of us and there are some concerns about revealing some secrets that we would prefer didn't make it into the public domain.

Some minor mysteries that were described in the book have now been solved. Wendy C is still alive and living in the Telford area. Somehow I managed to write her new email address down incorrectly so she didn't realise that I had been trying to get in touch.

Of course some of the mysteries we wrote about remain exactly that - mysteries. The Big Boss Lady (BBL) did, as we had predicted, move to New Zealand. I remain just as puzzled as I always have been about exactly what she saw as the attraction of that back-water. Curiously her husband has not moved with her and he is still running the laboratory where Ella and I used to work.

Lara G was granted the "right of reply" to what ended up appearing in the book. She never took up the offer and there is no evidence that the contact address I have for her is being monitored.

Assorted people have also tried to get a statement from Honey about the demise of the on-line forum she ran for several years. None of them have succeeded in getting any reply from her so the decision has been made to let "sleeping dogs" lie.

The biggest regret we have about this project is that we were unable to persuade 38DD to write enough material for a case study. I have called her a combination of a saint and a star and my view hasn't changed!