My life

I was born in Leicester towards the end of the Second World War.  My father was away in India, and I didn’t meet him till I was nearly two.  When he came home he went back to working in a bank and we moved every two or three years to different towns in the north of England. 

 

I went to five different schools,
then to Newcastle University, 
where I read 
a lot of books in German, 
a few books in French and 
Goldilocks and the Three Bears in Norwegian.

After university I lived in Germany for a while, then I came back to England, got married and had two children, who are now grown up.

 

Today I live in an old farmhouse
with several large outhouses
where my husband makes sculptures

 

(This is a sculpture, not my husband)

 

and I sometimes make paintings:

          
 

My stories

 

I used to tell myself stories when I was
still too young to write them down. 

                 At school my teacher embarrassed me by reading my stories to the class. 

I started writing children’s books when my own children were small, but it was another thirty years before they were published (the books, not my children).