Howard Layton, Author

Sunday, March 21st, 1993, three travelers are waiting on the platform at Debrecen railroad station in Hungary. Howard Layton is listening to his brother-in-law, András who is lecturing Howard's daughter Paulette.

"The trip to Cluj Nabakov will take several hours and you must use it to quiz your father about his family history. Learn all you can, while you can. One day you will be glad you did that."

As Howard listened to this lecture he realized he would enjoy telling his daughter the story of his life. In fact, he mused, why not write about it? Putting his action-filled history on paper would provide him with an outlet for artistic creativity and would serve as an effective substitute for all those wonderful times he had enjoyed as a professional actor in England.

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became about the prospect. He would write a trilogy. He would start with the story of how, at the end of WWII his wife Nárcissza and her family had been chased out of Hungary by the advancing Russians. He would write about how he had met Nárcissza and how they had married, raised six children and built a high-tech manufacturing company together.

Next would come the story of his own life and his years in the Royal Air Force serving in the deserts of North Africa in World War Two, and the interwoven agony of pining for the wonderful girl he had won and lost during those years. Finally, he would write about growing up in a broken home in the between-wars years and going off to work at age fourteen to help support himself and his mother and younger brother.

"The Thirteen Club" and "Love and Sand" eventually came into being as the result of those musings, and "Short Pants" is already in the research phase.