Born in 1931 in Tooting, I was eight when the war began, so my school career was – shall we say – varied. I was evacuated twice, the first time to Felpham which is near Bognor Regis and the second to Harpenden in Hertfordshire, so consequently went to ten different schools. I ended up at Streatham Secondary School, an LCC grammar run on the Dalton system, which offered a few lessons as sparking points and then required pupils to be responsible for their own learning, either in study rooms with their teachers on hand to help and advise, or on their own in the library or the school hall. It suited me to a T. Then to King’s College London, where I read English and enjoyed myself a lot, but wasn’t particularly distinguished, having other things on my mind by then
I am proud
of the fact that I was in Tooting for
the first four months
of the blitz, and only left it to be evacuated again when our road was
bombed and our house was uninhabitable. I spent the middle part of the
war in Harpenden. (I seem to specialise in places considered comic) and
returned to live in London again at the end of the war at the time of
the V2’s, this time without my family.
When I was just sixteen I met the love of my life, who arrived on my doorstep in Air Force blue one February evening in the coldest winter on record.
Despite heavy opposition from my parents, we married three years later during my first year at King’s and spent the next 53 years 11 months and 6 days living more and more happily together.
We had three much loved children and five much loved grandchildren and once I’d embarked on my career as a novelist, researched all the books together, which was great fun. We finished work on ‘Gates of Paradise’ six weeks before he died. So this publication is special to me.
I have enjoyed two careers in my life – as a teacher from 1952 to 1985 (with ten years off to bring up my family, which some might consider a third career) and as a published writer from 1980 to date. I am also, although it sounds immodest to say it, an easy and charismatic public speaker, having been stage-trained as a child, and am consequently unfazed by any audience no matter how big or how small or what questions they might throw at me.
Schools
in which I have taught
Clapham
County (grammar) 1952-3
Sunnyhill JM & I. – at various times between 60 and 63
Streatham County Secondary (grammar) 1963 – 8
Ensham (1966-8)
Catford (comprehensive) 1968-72
Sydenham (comprehensive) 1972 –75 – head of department.
Felpham Comprehensive 1975-85 – head of department
Sunnyhill JM & I. – at various times between 60 and 63
Streatham County Secondary (grammar) 1963 – 8
Ensham (1966-8)
Catford (comprehensive) 1968-72
Sydenham (comprehensive) 1972 –75 – head of department.
Felpham Comprehensive 1975-85 – head of department
In the two schools where I was head of the English department, I deliberately covered the full range of age and ability, believing that as I was paid the largest salary I should carry the heaviest responsibility. My work was filmed by KCL Education Department for use in their PGCE course and I have given talks at various colleges and schools on a variety of educational subjects, from teaching poetry to ‘tackling’ sex education. I have never subscribed to the Gradgrind theory of education which is current now, but always believed that the job of a teacher is to enable her students to learn.
Writing
career.
As a novelist I’ve had a long and rewarding career, having been a well-paid popular writer from the publication of my first book. I am categorised as a romantic novelist, but as it is a genre that sells and pays well I don’t complain – much - although my work and I are very far from romantic. I would describe myself as a hybrid, since my style tends towards the literary end of the spectrum while my appeal is popular.
I have written family sagas and short stories, poetry (some of it published) war novels, historical novels and modern novels, shifting tack at regular intervals because I have a low boredom threshold when it comes to my own work, which I edit ruthlessly. I write a novel a year, as well as occasional pieces for newspapers.
In short, I am a prolific writer and a voracious reader. I have nearly half a million library borrowings every year and reached the PLR £6000 ceiling six or seven years ago. My total paperback sales passed the million mark with ‘An Avalanche of Daisies’. And yes, I know a million isn’t wonderful compared to the sales of the ‘big’ writers but I was chuffed.
Twenty years in the business has given me a close experience of the changes that have shaken the industry since the demise of RPM and the arrival of the conglomerates. I have seen the role of the commissioning editor decline as the power of managers and sales team increased and have watched the use of ‘bungs’ grow to alarming proportions. I have a fair idea about the type of books the large companies are looking for at the moment. So I now get asked to give talks to would-be writers on the new style of publishing.
‘Gates
of Paradise’
This is
the story of William Blake’s three year
stay in Felpham, of his
trial and of the profound effect his opinions had on a pair of young
lovers. It’s one I’ve wanted to write for a very
long time, partly
because Blake has been a hero of mine since I was seventeen, partly
because I admire and share his philosophy, and partly because I too
have lived in Felpham at a time when an enemy invasion was just a
little too likely.Blake came to the village in search of work and very low grade work it was, engraving illustrations and copying portraits for the local celebrated poet, William Hayley, whose verse was – I kid you not – excruciating. While he was there the village was inundated with troopers who practised military manoeuvres on the beach and were billeted wherever there was stabling for their horses.
One of them, a sour individual called Scolfield, had a blazing row with our Mr Blake, who found him in his garden and ordered him out. The next day Private Scolfield rode in to Chichester and swore a deposition accusing Blake of uttering seditious words, a crime punishable by five years hard labour or transportation to Australia, either of which could have been the death of him.
Blake and his wife were terrified that he would be found guilty and so he could have been if it hadn’t been for his neighbours, who were obviously fond of him, for they trooped into Chichester and gave evidence, one after the other, that they hadn’t heard any such seditious words being uttered. I’m pretty sure they were perjuring themselves and, if they were, it was a brave act, because the trial judge was the Duke of Richmond, who was rumoured to be entirely opposed to William Blake and, which was worse, owned half the land in Sussex, so being landlord to several of them could have had them out of their tied cottages in a matter of hours.
Those were the days!