It is one of my daughters, Diana, to whom I owe the most thanks. A copywriter by profession, and a skilled wordsmith, who throughout has helped and encouraged me to develop my writing. In 2015 she signed a two-book deal with MacMillan’s. Her first book, Alberto’s Lost Birthday, was set in Spain and translated into German, French and Italian. Her second, Pippo & Clara, released in early 2021 has so far been translated into Italian and Portuguese. These can be found on her website dianarosie.co.uk

In my research of Shanghai I learnt so much about this city, the people who lived there, and the events that occurred, from Stella Dong’s – Shanghai – The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, which has given me the opportunity to add both facts and colour to a fascinating city in exciting times.

Stella’s was the book that gave me the most insight into Shanghai, but other books assisted, and I would particularly like to mention –  Empire Made Me by Robert Bickers, Windows on Shanghai by Sophia Knight, Policing Shanghai and The Shanghai Badlands by Frederic Wakeman Jr., Triad Societies in Hong Kong by W. P. Morgan, and of course the master storyteller, JG Ballard, who wrote Empire of the Sun.

The Gwulo site remains a firm favourite for photos. Thanks to  Autocrit software which helps my editing and now also another product, Grammarly, which is excellent. Thanks to cover designer Bradley Wind, and also to Nicki and Paul at cannedSunlight who knocked my website into shape. Then in late 2022, TLC Book Design picked up my three novels and began to lead me into publishing them professionally rather than just as amateur e-books, which I issued ten years ago.

Also many thanks to a store of wonderful photos of Shanghai, by Virtual Shanghai.

Lastly to my fiercest critic, my wife, Jo.