Author Biography

In her own words..

I was a child during World War II, and took the first step on a long road when I wrote my first book at the age of about six. I wish I could say this literary work showed promise of the well-known writer I still hope to become, but no such luck! Profusely illustrated and – mercifully – unfinished, it was extremely boring! I like to think I grew out of boring people, but I never grew out of scribbling.

It follows that I then grew up in the un-permissive fifties, when career options for women were largely confined to Secretary, Nurse, Teacher, Physiotherapist – oh, and marriage of course, top of the list for us girls (hard to imagine now). I opted for the first, light-heartedly thinking the skills required would be useful in my preferred career as a writer, but I very soon found I had to put my training to serious use in order to get myself a life! As a career, it was almost as boring as Youngest Tigger, above, and I branched out at the earliest opportunity.

I have since worked in hotel restaurants both in the dining room and later, when my first husband and I had a hotel of our own, as chef (I have always had a passion for cooking, it came in very useful!), as a sailing instructor, an unexplained interval as a bookkeeper (I am virtually innumerate – the firm survived!), in a craft workshop and as a cookery demonstrator - a remarkably unstructured career - while continuing to write whenever there was a spare moment.

I have been, I now see, fortunate to have two children's books published (a long time ago), and three novels - plus the one too awful to mention.  (It lives at the back of a dark shelf - the best place for it - and the moral of that is, never try to get a romantic novel published if you wrote it at twenty-two - you just might succeed!  And no, I'm giving no details.  I'm sure the publisher meant well).   It's entirely my own fault that I dropped out. The continuing tale of the Nankervis Family, my present series (set mainly in Cornwall, but absolutely no tin mines, except possibly on the horizon!) is self-published. It is, I like to think, a way to drop back in - even if by the back door.

 Apart from writing, my interests include boats, painting - including scenery for local pantomimes - and digital photography .  I live in Cornwall with my husband, and a cat called Kitty-kitty: my three children are all out in the world and doing their own thing, one here in Cornwall, one in Dorset, but my daughter and grandson are in Brittany these days.