Growing Up
I grew up in North Lincolnshire, with my teacher parents and two older brothers. The best things about my family were:
My mum was a French teacher, who worked incredibly hard for her pupils and ran, amongst other things, three trips to France each year, including a 5-day trip to Paris. Despite not attending the same school, I managed to muscle my way onto it almost every year. From the age of 7 to the age of 19, I had a yearly visit to Paris – magical!
Thanks to both parents being teachers, we had very long summer holidays, and we spent these camping around Europe. Each summer we'd pack up our Lada and heading off on a very well-planned trip. As the youngest, I was always forced to sit in the middle seat of our car, in between my two older brothers. As it was mainly just the three of us children over five weeks, we were forced to play together and get along. The summer I eventually started beating my brothers at table tennis was a great summer indeed! (They were distinctly displeased.)
My granny also lived with us and was a huge influence on my life. She was a formidable and fascinating woman and I wish I’d asked her more about her early life when I had the chance. She lived in the front room of our house and we all had jobs to help look after her. I spent evening after evening sitting with her in her room. We often watched Poirot or Columbo together, which perhaps explains my love of mysteries. Importantly, she always had a supply of blackcurrant pastilles, Yorkies and Ribena.
Becoming a Writer
Growing up, I loved art and visiting galleries, and my mum was amazing at making sure we visited lots of places (not to mention the trips to Paris, of course). My interest in art and history was what I initially pursued as a career, first studying history and art history at university and then working in museum education for ten years. I was lucky enough to become Head of Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London – a lesser-known national museum which is the most fabulous, atmospheric and quirky, mirrored jewellery box of a museum and a place everyone should try to discover.
As well as loving art and history, I also enjoyed writing. Sadly, it NEVER dawned on me that I could actually become a writer. My interest in starting to write creatively came about as a new mum. Being immersed in children’s books reminded me of how much I loved reading children’s books and showed me the sheer quality of children’s literature being created nowadays. I signed up to a writing course (Writing for Children at City Lit with Lou Kuenzler) and the rest, as they say, is history!
As well as being good at things, I have been and am also phenomenally bad at things too:
When I was little, I was a TERRIBLY fussy eater. I hated all vegetables except for sweetcorn. This dislike of food influenced my debut story: Chocolate Milk, X-Ray Specs and Me!
I am notoriously cowardly so will never be found doing any of the following things: rock-climbing, tree-climbing, going on scary rides at theme parks, watching horror of any kind, ice-skating, skiing or knowingly being on any slippery surface for any length of time
I cannot sell stuff to save my life. I once spent a summer trying to sell frozen food door-to-door in Kent. It did not go well and I got the sack. I have never failed at anything so spectacularly but I did learn a lot about myself.
Having lived in London for 16 years, I now live in Lincolnshire with my husband and two children, where I’m also discovering I’m fairly bad at gardening!
My Favourite Books
From my childhood…
Emily of New Moon (LM Montgomery)
Malory Towers (Enid Blyton)
Trebizon (Anne Digby)
Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer)
More recently…
Anything by Alex T Smith
The Diary of Pig series (Emer Stamp)
The Dragonsitter series (Josh Lacey)
The Knight Sir Louis series (The Brothers McLeod)
The Mr Gum series (Andy Stanton)
Ajay and the Mumbai Sun (Varsha Shah)
The Last Bear (Hannah Gold)
When the Sky Falls (Phil Earle)
