The first glimmerings of Eden began ages ago, when I read an article about Snowball Earth. Intrigued, I found that there was evidence that the Earth was once one big snowball of frozen ice with glaciers in the south of Africa. Amazing! Later, there was a BBC Horizon programme about it. Then I found a book called Snowball Earth in a second-hand bookshop. If, that wonderful word, if the whole world was somehow plunged into a modern ice age, would there be survivors? How would they survive? Where would this happen?
All this stuck in my mind. An outline of a story where a young man was banished and had to get somewhere on a horse helped the story take shape.
Coincidentally, it was about this time that The Eden Project started in Cornwall. My wife and I visited in 1999 to watch it being constructed and I became a member for a while. We visited again before it opened in 2001 and several times after, when the plants were installed. On one visit, I introduced myself to someone, explaining I was writing a story that included Eden. She very kindly sent me some plans of Eden and they were most helpful.
I put Snowball Earth and the banished young man together, added Eden as his destination, and I had my story.
I was going to call it, ‘Where Eden Saw Play’. A reference to the Bible and to the line, Eden saw play, from the beautiful poem, Morning has Broken, by Eleanor Farjeon. But I was concerned about borrowing it and it was too long to fit easily on the cover. Unfortunately, Amazon has about twenty books with the title, Return to Eden. Also, there are lots of Colin Taylors. I could still change the title and I could add some middle initials to my name. Would Colin C W Taylor or Colin C C Taylor make a difference? Who knows? I think I’ll stick with plain Colin Taylor for the moment.
So, there you have it. The genesis of Return to Eden. I wish you happy reading.