You may well ask who or what the ‘Middlers’ are. It sounds like one of those boring, middle-class families from a generic soap opera, but they are in fact those sad-looking humans one passes in the supermarket, or in the traffic. They sit opposite or right beside you in the subway or on a bus, hardly noticed by anyone under the age of forty.

The Middlers are those approximately one billion people on the planet who are over fifty, but under the age when one's end is so near, that there only remain regrets of things not done. The fact though, is that they are not really sad at all, but have merely given up the battle against gravity. Try smiling non-stop for fifty years! From that time onwards, one tries to avoid mirrors unless absolutely necessary.

When one peels away the mask of wrinkles covered by greying, balding or artificially coloured hair, then what is left is a six-year old brain which hasn’t changed at all. Inside they’re still as happy, depressed, impulsive, prejudiced, gullible, prissy, ambitious, fun-loving, nasty, gay or silly as they were five decades ago. The only difference is that now they only appear sedate, sour or grumpy to non-Middlers.

So now we come to the authors of the book: ‘Hear the voice of the Bard! We are two sisters - members of the Middlers - who embarked on the journey to produce a multi-layered story four years ago. Little did we know how difficult or how thrilling it would be.

In this blog, we shall be documenting this journey over a period of time: the adventures during our trips to the historical sites, used as a background of our story; the ups and downs of collaborating on such a huge project and the highs and lows of the writing process – all told from the perspective of two middle-classed Middlers.

Tags: The Middlers