On Thursday 3rd September 2026, I had the great pleasure of speaking at the Active Living Section luncheon at The British Club Bangkok. The Club has been at the heart of the British community in Bangkok since 1903. Standing in that room to tell the story of Barnbow, a story that has been part of my family for more than a century, meant a great deal to me.
My sincere thanks go to Terry Adams, who runs the Active Living Section, and to Greg Beatty for inviting me to speak. Thanks also to Terry for the wonderful photographs of the afternoon that accompany this article.
A family secret
I began where the story began for me: with my great-grandmother, Sarah Ann Jennings. For most of my life, I only knew her in fragments. A name. A brief mention. That she died during the war. It wasn’t something my family ever fully spoke about.
Sarah Ann was one of thirty-five women killed in an explosion at the Barnbow munitions factory near Leeds on 5 December 1916. Piecing her life back together from records and snippets is what eventually led me to write A Penny a Shell.
The women of Barnbow
From there, we stepped into the world of the women who worked at Barnbow. When it was built, it was the largest munitions factory in Europe, and at its height around 93% of its workforce were women and girls. They came from domestic service, from shops, and from homes where they had never worked for a wage before. Some lied about their age to get in.
We talked about why they went: patriotism, support for the men at the front, and money their families badly needed. We also talked about what it cost them. The work was relentless and dangerous. Speed meant money, and mistakes meant death. Exposure to TNT made women ill, and in some cases it killed them.
Room 42
The heart of the talk was the night of 5 December 1916, when an explosion tore through Room 42. I tried to focus on the people rather than the statistics: the women who were there, the families they left behind, and the colleagues who carried the memory for the rest of their lives.
Then came the silence. Wartime censorship meant no newspaper reported the explosion. Death notices spoke only of “sudden death.” For decades, families like mine were left with fragments. That silence is exactly what A Penny a Shell sets out to break.
An engaged audience
What struck me most about the afternoon was how engaged everyone was. The room was attentive throughout. For many people there, Barnbow was a completely new story, and you could feel them taking it in.
The questions and discussion afterwards were a highlight for me. People wanted to know more about the women, about the research, about my great-grandmother, and about how history and fiction come together in the book. Those conversations carried on well beyond the formal Q&A, and I enjoyed every one of them.
Thank you
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who bought a copy of A Penny a Shell and asked me to sign it. I was genuinely flattered, and it is very much appreciated. Knowing that the story of the Barnbow women is now travelling home with readers in Bangkok means a great deal. And of course Caroline for doing an amazing job in selling my books for me and taking the money.
Thank you again to Terry Adams, Greg Beatty, the Active Living Section, and everyone at The British Club Bangkok for such a warm welcome. I had a wonderful afternoon talking about something I am deeply passionate about. I hope the women of Barnbow stay with you, as they have always stayed with me.
Photographs courtesy of Terry Adams.
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