About Angela Kennedy Smith

Lena’s daughter Angela manages her mother’s estate, in addition to being a novelist in her own right. A few words from Angela on what inspired her to finish and posthumously publish her mother’s story The Pig in the Parlour follow.

The Inspiration

When my mother used to share her stories with me, the newly-published story entitled the Pig in the Parlour was one. I used to enjoy listening to the Irish humour, especially Oikey the Pig, but the story never seemed to get finished. It would go back in the drawer and Mum would continue with something else, as she was often under contract to write another book. After my mother sadly passed away I eventually came across pages of the story in her old chest of drawers, where she used to keep some of her manuscripts.  Gradually I searched and pieced  more and more material together.i started to wonder how she would have finished this story, as she often talked about the endings to me, as she often did with all her books, I was so fortunate to have shared her creative mind.  It was not until I had “time to stand and stare”, as my mother would say, that  I thought about the ending and ideas came to me, like when I re-read her story and found her character of “Daneen” was speaking  “Hindustani”, and had been in the Irish Guards in India”.  Around this time I recalled  a relative who died out in India during the war,  he was young and brave. A photograph of him was in my mothers Album.. Also there was the history of our family in Ireland that she used to talk to me about,  So the ideas were coming to me.  At one time,  my mother was  sent out to Ireland by her publishers.  It was to promote her latest book release and the publishers also arranged a party at a hotel and invited members of the Kennedy family, and it was wonderful for Mum to meet again her long lost cousins and mum was full of talk and inspiration for her story. It was this trip back to her roots that got her writing PIG IN THE PARLOUR, inspired by the atmosphere of Ireland and its characters stands out from the pages and on finding that photo of a young man sitting proudly on his horse with an Indian headdress – it looked like he was guarding a palace – that the completion of the story fell into place.

Stories of Spain by Angela (writing as Ursula Kennedy Smith)

Angela has published two stories so far, Queen of the Harbour and The Costa Calamities. Find out more about these titles by clicking the covers below.