Tom Stoppard

I remember being in the air raid shelters.

Everybody in my generation remembers the smell of sandbags.

But in India, I'm afraid that protected by the innocence of childhood, I never felt unhappy or worried or nervous.

I mean, obviously, I must have done sometimes, but in a general way, I look on India as being a lost domain of childhood happiness.

Yeah, when I was asked to write that screenplay, they didn't know that my own childhood wasn't that different from young Jim's.

Was he called Jim?

Yes.

But he was in Shanghai, but...

But when I visited the location and saw the little boy's bedroom, it gave me a really spooky feeling because the designers, who must have researched it very thoroughly, they gave him books and things stuck on the walls, which triggered off memories of my own.

I mean, they were my books, and over his bed was a thing called Flags of All Nations, a sort of...

map, a chart of different flags.

And I remembered suddenly having this absolutely the same chart, flags of all nations in my bedroom.

So it was a real time trip.

But as for writing the story, well, listen, I didn't get put in a prisoner of war camp and I wasn't chased around by Japanese soldiers, no.