Many of the elements from the story were taken from the author's own life. In an interview he talked about how, in the town he grew up in, “We had a monument...[and]an old graveyard...to a pit disaster”[12] just like in the novel. He also based the game death on "children’s games I played."[12] In addition he "based the book on his own childhood in a northeast England mining community."[13]
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