David Hodgson

You may think publishing a first novel at any age is triumph of hope over expectation, and when the author is nearly eighty it could be said to verge on lunacy. However, I can tell you at that age you are very aware that you clearly do not have a lot of time left, so you'd better get on with it. I made documentary films for a living and much of what people told me said a great deal about the human condition. Unfortunately, the ephemeral nature of television means that it soon vanishes into a vault somewhere, rarely if ever to be seen again and is lost. So I thought I should write down something, not directly in a 'my life as a film maker' type of biography, but in the form of a novel. One subject I covered that really got to me was blindness, and 'Can I Touch Your Face?' is based on a series I made for Thames Television on the subject. In making it I came across not only impressive courage, determination and heart ache, but also prejudice and ignorance, indeed the whole gamut of human behaviour. Of course the characters are fictional, but what happens could be true. I hope the structure and the way it is written with the two main characters alternately telling their story make it a human and compelling novel.