About

Born a very long time ago in Bristol and raised in Weston-super-Mare.

Went – or perhaps was taken pretty firmly – to dancing classes, and it kind of took a hold.

Acted a bit

Catching Polio proved a bit of a blow while at the Rambert School, but recovered enough to do a lot more dancing here and there, and finally in Paris.

Returned to teach drama and dance in state schools, then took the chance to become Head of Dance (students) and Theatre Training (schoolchildren)at Arts Ed., London. 23 years of dealing with sore feet, anorexia, broken hearts and soaring ambitions – wonderful!

Enjoyed teaching actors’ movement in the Drama Department and writing Theatre in Education plays for the students.

Founded Dancers Anonymous – probably the first small company to provide students with the opportunity to test out professional life in the theatre. Over the fifteen years of its existence, what disasters there were, but what fun we had and how much we all learnt!

In between, managed to gain the Gold Medal of the Poetry Society in the speaking of Verse. Just might be prouder of this than anything – it was so difficult and took several shots to attain it. Lesson – don’t give up!

Chaperoned children singing at the English National Opera including (in better times than now) taking eight of them to Russia – what an adventure that was!

During this time the first of the four children’s books were written. Hodder, the publishers, took me on, and Step Into the Dark took its first step out into the world. The other books followed in quick succession and – very exciting – Feast of Fools was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for mystery writers in America.

You can find out more about them and how to get to read them on the ‘Coming Soon’ page.

Young Cultural Creators’ great scheme for creative writing workshops came next. Working with schools in museums and galleries all over the south and west of England sparked off a passion for helping to give young people the urge to write.

This really took off at the Wallace Collection. Students of all ages come to enjoy the paintings and other art works in the amazing collection and then enjoy writing their thoughts and ideas and sharing them in an informal and positive way.  Over twenty years, a great team of facilitators has been built up and is now also at the Royal Collection, working at the Queen’s Gallery and the Royal Palaces, doing exciting and innovative creative writing sessions with schools.