Photo Album

I’ve collected together some of my favourite photos from my past. Check out the most recent photos on my Blog Page.

Me as a baby:

I am an only child so don’t have any brothers or sisters…which meant I spent a lot of time with my wonderful parents. I love this photo as I’m holding a model of an elephant! If only I’d known that over forty years later I would be writing a book series where a model of a Jumbo Rush Elephant plays quite an important part!

Me as a baby

One Christmas Morning

This is another favourite photo, although of course like the first one it’s in black and white and so not the best quality. (That’s because I was a child so long ago!)

I remember this Christmas so clearly. My two favourite presents were a ‘princess dressing-up outfit ’ and a typewriter. I was so excited.

So here I am…having my very first go at writing a proper novel… dressed as a princess of course!

One Christmas morning

My Very First School Photo

I love my big blue bow…!

Before the photo the teacher brushed the hair of everyone in the class. She used a comb dipped in disinfectant. I still remember the smell. She was a lovely teacher though…and I was very lucky as I loved going to school.

I took school very seriously and tried very hard…although I did get told off for talking quite a bit!

My very first school photo

Two Photos of Me On the Isle of Skye

One of my favourite places in the world.

We went there in 1976 and it was one of the hottest summers on record. Skye is so far north it doesn’t get dark until very late at night.

It was a perfect holiday and I remember Sue and Barrie, who we’d gone to visit, gave me a copy of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’to read on the long car journey back home to Sussex. Totally fantastic.

These photos show me with Bryony, Sue and Barrie’s daughter. She’s older than me and so she’s the biggest one in the photo. We spent all day building a hay stack.

We were very tired afterwards but I think it looks pretty impressive! In the second photo we are crossing the river at the bottom of the croft. I’m hanging on quite tight to Bryony’s hand. I love the Isle of Skye. Remote islands are some of my favourite places!

Two photos of me on the Isle of Skye

Me as a Writer

So here I am in my garden shed, which my Mum and Dad turned into a place for me to write when I was about eleven! (I’ve since learnt that lots of writers work in sheds in the bottom of the garden!) You can see I am being very organised. I have notes of my story ideas on the walls and radio to listen to as I work. My desk is actually a toy oven that my granddad made for me when I was a bit younger…but he was fine about me converting it into a writer’s desk.

Notice the small brush hanging up. That was to deal with any spiders in the shed..and they were quite a lot I can tell you!

Me as a Writer

Pages from the very first story I sent to a publisher

I was reading ‘The Hobbit’ at the time so my story was all about an invented world. It was fourteen chapters long and took me weeks to finish. But I was very proud of it.

It got rejected by the publisher but I got a very nice letter from the editor telling me not to give up with my writing…so I didn’t!

Pages from the very first story I sent to a publisher