About Me

Where do you live?
In Monmouthshire. I was born in the county and have always loved its gentle, rolling hills. To see the steep wooded slopes of the Wye Valley is to know I am home.

Have you always lived there?

No, I trained to be a teacher in Southampton, taught in London, Newport and applied to VSO to teach overseas. I was offered 3 places and one was on an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea. That sounds fabulous, I thought so I picked that one! Six weeks later I was off! A group of us flew to Sydney, up the coast of Australia, over the Great Barrier Reef and after the others went to their projects, I found myself on a tropical island with glorious beaches and waving palm trees. Heaven! I do like adventures!

What did you do there?

I taught English at Kabaleo Teacher Training College which was in the middle of a copra plantation.. The students were from all over PNG. They had been learning English since they were 5 so they were fluent and loved public speaking, and drama .One year they won the debating trophy for East New Britain. Result! The play we chose for Independence Day was A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream - PNG style. Bottom was turned into a crocodile and carried into the hall on a bamboo litter decorated with bougainvillaea and frangipani flowers woven together with vines from the bush.Exotic Shakespeare! They were wonderful students and , fortunately, more practical than me! . While there I studied for an Open University degree in Humanities and Education: the teaching of reading, so I taught them what I was learning too. Classroom corners were festooned with key words written on bark dangling from twigs, like spiders’ webs. They were so creative and loved teaching.

During one holiday I travelled along the coast of the island in an old mission boat, For another break I went to Australia and visited some Indonesia islands. After another year at the college I arrived back in the UK - in a snow storm!

Did you go back to teach overseas?
Yes, but first I decided to go to Lancaster to study for a MA in Linguistics for English Language Teaching. I discovered later they had accepted me as I had applied from a remote Pacific island! I’m not sure to this day what they expected!

Having been offered a lecturing post in Western Kenya, at Kaimosi Teachers’ College, I was excited to go overseas again. And that’s when I fell completely in love with Africa! Play the music of Out of Africa and I’m gone!

The college was between Lake Victoria and Eldoret, where the marathon runners train. Stunning views from the escarpment look down on lush green valleys and the shimmering blue lake. The students were terrific and driving out at dawn to little primary schools through the Kakamega Forest was total heaven!

The Middle East was my next contract where I lectured at Kuwait University. And again my students were lovely and eager to improve their English. Bleak House was their favourite novel and it’s mine too! I learnt elementary Arabic but now I definitely need to brush up! It was a fascinating time and visiting many of the ancient sites in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey was magic.

When did you begin writing?
From birth! My mother always said I was born with a pen in my hand!

How many books have you written?

Lots! After Lancaster I was asked to write a primary English Language course for 8 -12 years olds. It was called Sam on Radio 321 and I worked with 2 other authors. That’s usual in educational publishing.

After that, different publishers, Longman and Oxford University Press, asked me to write several ELT stories, to help pupils and students improve their English .That was fun thinking up what they might be interested in! Adventure, sci fi, travel? Many textbooks followed, for Europe, the Arab World, for Africa. What was totally cool was that I could choose texts from authors and poets from all over the world - so I did! I believe it’s important to read as widely as possible , to learn about different cultures, customs and beliefs.

How did you get the idea to write The Bronze Mirror?

I stopped at the museum in Woodstock one afternoon. I’d been lecturing at Oxford University on various overseas courses and I was on my way home. There I read a notice - the museum was raising money . It wanted to acquire an ancient bronze mirror. Something went ‘ping’ in my mind and I thought about it often. This mirror felt magical.

With the idea simmering away I returned to Monmouthshire and visited all the places I loved: Tintern Abbey, Trellech. Bigsweir. I bought a copy of Down the Dig by local archaeologist Stephen Clarke and was fascinated by his account of finding of pottery kilns in Monmouth. Gradually the plot began to form; the characters appeared. And after writing about the first adventure of these time travellers in The Bronze Mirror I wondered - where will they go next? I so want to know - don't you?

What are your interests?

Reading . Spending time in a library or bookshop is a total joy. So many places to visit in imagination. So much to learn - about - everything! I love walking in the countryside, in Wales, the Borderlands and Cornwall. Once I walked all over an island just off Mull, Iona, and ended up in a slimy bog where cows had been - shall we say - grazing! Now I visit as many castles in Wales as possible. Only a couple of hundred to go! Otherwise , music, watching athletics, tennis and - of course - rugby!

I meet up with authors and illustrators in Monmouthshire often and, thanks to Zoom, we can link up all over the British Isles to talk about writing and our books and many other things too. It’s a great way to make new friends with similar interests and sometimes completely different, Perfect!