'A tale of human connection': Wakefield author draws on volunteering experience with asylum seekers for new novel

Wakefield writer Sarah Connell’s book Where Are You Now? is a work of contemporary fiction, but one that also explores the impact of real-world global migration on local communities.

Sarah, 74, wanted to put forward a tale of compassion. “I haven’t written the book with a political agenda but I am very aware of the different narratives going on...I am very concerned about people being spoken of and treated as if they are intrinsically bad or have done something intrinsically bad - none of us can really imagine the situations people have been through.”

Sarah draws on her experience of volunteering with asylum seekers in Yorkshire for the novel, basing the tale in the true story of an individual she knew through Wakefield District City of Sanctuary. The charity is part of a grassroots movement to build a culture of hospitality for people seeking sanctuary within the UK, promoting and encouraging the inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers in the city that Sarah calls home.

She started volunteering around seven years ago. “I wanted to contribute,” she says, simply. “There was the Calais camp [at the time] on the French coast. "We were hearing a lot about it in the news and it makes you feel helpless to know these things are happening...I wanted to be on the side of those who are not being judgemental and hostile, the side of those who welcome.”

“At the heart of my story is the importance of human connection in a hostile world,” she adds. “I think this new novel covers many of the issues we face currently...It’s inspired by my direct experience of how asylum seekers get caught in our hostile system and how their lives go to waste as a result.

"The global migration of people fleeing war, repression and poverty unfolds every day in the media, but the impact on ‘ordinary lives’ is an untold story.”

The novel is written from the perspective of Walter, a man approaching the age of 70, who spends much of his time on his allotment.

“When somebody is discovered sleeping rough on the allotment, everybody else is very hostile and angry and thinks it is very suspicious and that something must be done about it,” Sarah explains. “He does something different and decides to leave something out for this person, some food.

"The food is taken so Walter decides to see whether he can spot who this person is. He finds somebody living outside the system, a refused asylum seeker who is sleeping rough because they can’t work or claim benefits…

"All the signals from the people around him are that he shouldn’t befriend this man (Osama) and he should report him, but he doesn’t and a friendship develops between the two of them.”

Sarah’s interest in encounters with others inspires her work. She writes about what she finds to be meaningful, drawing upon her own experiences.

Her fourth book is already in the making and is inspired by time volunteering abroad with her husband. Set in Ghana, it follows a character from Wakefield who goes to Africa to join an aid charity.

Though her first book wasn’t published until she reached the age of 70, Sarah has shelves piled high with notebooks and scraps of paper from a lifetime of writings and abandoned drafts.

As a child, she wanted to be a writer, though when an author visited her local library, she was too shy and unconfident to admit it was her dream to follow in their footsteps.

Sarah later moved to Yorkshire from south of London to study English literature in York. “[The subject] was enough to put you off forever if you want to be a writer,” she says, “because if you can’t write like one of the greats, you think why do it? It’s taken me a very long time to get over that.”

Her career instead saw her teach English and returning students at Wakefield College before working with the Open College Network. She became director of the organisation in the Yorkshire and Humber region in her fifties, setting aside time on Sunday mornings to write creatively.

"I was working in the kind of job where you have to handle paper and documents and think. It used to make my brain ache quite a lot of the time.

"During that part of my life, I started writing seriously. I’d always written on scraps of paper, half-baked ideas but I actually wrote a full length novel during that period because it was such a release from work.”

When she retired at 60, Sarah began to take writing “more seriously”. Retirement has given her the time and space to focus on her novels and her confidence has slowly grown.

Her debut, Whenever, was launched to coincide with her 70th birthday party and follows a woman who wakes up to find out that her husband has left her in the night.

Random Three, published a year later, follows a young mother struggling to bring up her little boy alone. Where Are You Now?, published by The Book Guild, is her third novel and launched last month.

“I would like people to feel an emotional connection to the story, to understand that it is based in situations that are actually happening,” Sarah reflects.

“It’s social fiction, it’s about the world and ordinary life we live at the moment. I’m interested in that and how we all get by."

- Sarah Connell will talk about Where Are You Now? at Waterstones in Wakefield on May 31 as part of the city’s Artwalk. She will also be at Hold Fast bookshop in Leeds on May 21.