AN author talked about the horrors of the Holocaust as she launched her new book in Rayners Lane on Saturday.

Barbara Towell's début novel A Little Piece for Mother, tells the story of a family of Jewish immigrants who start a new life in London following the Second World War.

Towell, of Beechcroft Avenue, Rayners Lane, spoke to residents about the book at her local library, in Imperial Drive, and they traded a few of their own war stories at the same time.

She said: “It went brilliantly. I was really pleased with it. It was really nice talking to people about their experiences in the war.

“They wanted to tell me different things that happened to their relatives.”

The book tells the story of the Kalinski family, who are still struggling with the scars of Nazi persecution when they learn their new neighbours in London are from Germany.

Towell says she drew inspiration from her own family past, her father and uncle fled persecution for being Jewish in Czechoslovakia, but she insists everything in the novel is fiction.

She told the Harrow Times how her own family's efforts to put the past behind them meant she did not realise her father was Jewish for many years.

She said: “I didn't know until I was almost an adult. I had the feeling I didn't really belong here and didn't really belong anywhere.

“The story itself is made up, but I heavily researched it.”