I love the beginning of the year. Full of optimism and new energy, I charge through January trying to make things happen!
I wrote this article recently for a warm and wonderful Facebook group of English speaking Mums who live in France. She started her career as a child actress — she was one of the schoolchildren in the classic Ealing Comedy — The Lavender Hill Mob , and worked in the West End Theatre and on TV and radio throughout her school years. It was a fairy tale case of love at first sight!
He was in his first year at Oxford University, but having sold his first play while still a student, he left Oxford, they got married and I came along when she was just They were happily married for more than 50 years and I was lucky enough to grow up with my three younger sisters in the most loving, interesting, warm and supportive family. As a playwright, Dad worked from home, so he was always present throughout my childhood with his wisdom and boundless generosity.
My mum started writing in her forties and the first book she wrote, Walnuts , was inspired by our family life and the ups and downs of her friends and neighbours. However, she was juggling family life with her professional life and coupled with the vast expense in those pre-digital days of copying and sending out manuscripts to agents and editors, it proved too daunting to seek out a publisher, so she ended up putting it in the loft.
About twelve years later she had a vivid and extraordinary dream… about a Victorian family, living on a remote Cornish island. The dream became the prologue to Keyne Island , and the desire to write this tale of intrigue, love, money and deceit was so overwhelming that it demanded to be written!
