Hazel talks with Ryan about The Cottingley Secret

Our local author Hazel Gaynor has been on the Ryan Tubridy Show on Radio 1 today, talking about fairies and the background to her new book, ‘The Cottingley Secret’, which is being published in these islands later this week, writes Brian Byrne.

The book is Hazel’s fictionalised version of a story which was based in her native Yorkshire and which she grew up knowing. Two girls, cousins, took photographs of ‘fairies’ in their back garden, which the elder of the pair had made from cutouts. In the 1920s, the pictures were written about by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and what started as a prank became a nationwide sensation until the photos were officially disproved in 1983.

Hazel spoke of the ‘so many crazy circumstances’ which occurred during her research and writing of this book, the most important of these being finding her Christine Lynch, the daughter of one of the girls involved in the original story, who lives in Belfast, and who had a memoir written by her mother, Frances, about the event.

I’ve just finished reading the book, and will be reviewing it shortly, so I’ll say no more now. There’s a Kilcullen launch scheduled from Friday 15 September, in Woodbine Books. Everybody is welcome.