I spent the last ten of my working years as a teaching assistant, helping children who were less academically able. After a particularly gruelling session extracting a single paragraph out of a lad who rejected every suggestion I made about how his story could go, and the teacher and I agreed that ‘blood and stone’ had much to do with it, I decided I’d only stay sane if I did some writing of my own. So, if you need to blame anyone, you can blame that lad (who has to remain nameless for his own safety, although he’s no longer a boy) and a few others who also made me feel like I was trying to squeeze stones.

There followed a period of poetry, (but I decided I wasn’t sufficiently heartbroken and full of agony to be really effective) flash fiction and short stories before I finally went for the biggie, to actually write a book. ‘Write what you know’ seemed to be the advice, so I reached into the dim and dusty corners of my mind to many years ago when I used to work in a children’s home. The result was my only ‘normal’ book, The Sixpenny Tiger. I say ‘normal’, because after that I allowed my imagination to run riot, inspired mostly by ruined castles and mansions, even a village under the sea, and an old wattle-and-daub farmhouse I once lived in, which of course are often full of ghouls and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. The results are what you see here in my collection of books.

I thought I was on safe ground with my ghosts, but crime crept in and before I knew it I was writing about that too, inspired by who knows? I’m sure I don’t. They’re not exactly ‘thrillers’ or ‘cosy’ but I like them and so do my readers.

My dad always said I have Cadbury’s running through my veins and it’s probably true, although I had an affair with Bournville Plain for a few years in my twenties. I sometimes have brief flirtations with Fry’s Chocolate Creams and, around Christmas, Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. Ooh, and my favourites are violet and rose creams, quite hard to get, but at least one of my children or my husband Tony, comes up with a box for me at Christmas! But I always seem to return to Dairy Milk, and I owe it to the fact that I tend to combine eating chocolate along with the sedentary activity of sitting at my computer writing, for the size of my bum. Still, you don’t want to know about that really, do you?

When I’m not writing, I’m messing about with bits of paper and glue, making cards, crocheting and knitting twiddle-muffs and lap blankets for people with dementia, love being visited by our children and grandchildren and enjoying our beautiful garden. Occasionally, I tinkle the ivories of my piano. When we go away, I’m always on the lookout for another ruin or interesting place to inspire me with another story, although I already have several in mind, if I live long enough to write them!