I was born in the smallest city in Englnd - Wells in Somerset. My family moved from there when I was very young and the only lasting memory I have is of swans pulling a rope to ring a bell for their food.

 

I grew up in arguably the most beautiful city in England - Cambridge, where I spent many happy hours at the Perse School before leaving for college in London to train as a teacher.

 

My first teaching appointment was in North Yorkshire. I arrived at Victoria Road School in Middlesbrough a quietly spoken, privately educated girl from the south to be faced with a class of over forty five-year-olds speaking a mixture of dialects including Yorkshire, Geordie and Glaswegian. What a baptism of fire! They couldn't understand me any more than I could understand them! Eventually we sorted out the language barrier and I grew to love those lively, funny and sometimes sad little people. I'm sure they taught me more about life than I taught them about the vagaries of the English language. I could write for hours about the happenings at Vicky Road, but that's for another time. Maybe I'll put it in a novel!

 

After eleven happy years and the birth of our first child we relocated to Oxfordshire, where two more children and an assortment of dogs, cats, guinea pigs and hamsters were added to our family.

 

While the children were little I freelanced as an indexer and writer of scientific abstracts but returned to teaching when our youngest started school. I had the pleasure of teaching delightful ten-year-olds - what a lovely age that is! I still see some of those girls and hear about many more. They are now grown up and some have families of their own. What great adults they have grown into.

 

At last, when my children had flown the nest, I had time to spread my wings! My creative side was clamouring for an airing so teaching was shelved in favour of: qualifying as an interior designer, learning to play the piano, painting in oils and holding exhibitions of my work in Oxford and London, buying antiques and collectables at auctions and selling at antique fairs, and last, but by no means least, writing stories that swiftly developed into novels.

 

And writing is what I do now full time, (apart from looking after a husband, sometimes three little grandsons, a very old black labrador, a very young rescue cross-breed terrier, and a Battersea cat).

 

All of my forays into the creative world were great fun but the one thing that has stood the test of time is writing, and in particular the crafting of romantic novels. As the saying goes ... "all the world loves a lover" ... and this goes for love stories too - they are universally enjoyed.