Books
Like many journalists, I reached a stage in my career when I wanted to write a book. Given that by then I was quite proficient in writing about work and career issues, it might have been more sensible to follow that path. But what I really wanted to do was write books for children.
Maybe it was my love of reading as a child when Enid Blyton, Richmal Crompton and Arthur Ransome were all the rage or maybe (if I'm honest) it was because at that time, in the pre Harry Potter era, they were generally shorter than adult books.
The first book I wrote was called Cracking Up. It was about a teenager who had a nervous breakdown and was definitely not influenced by Enid Blyton! Although the opening chapter won first prize in a national competition and one well-known literary agent rang me up (Yes, those were the days!) to tell me she was reading it on the bus and couldn't put it down, I still didn't manage to get it published.
Over the next few years, I wrote ten other books for children across different age ranges, including two collections of poems. I came really close on several occasions with both agents and publishers but despite all the effort I put in to both writing and trying to sell the books, I didn't manage to get anything over the line.
Then, in 2012, I made an amazing discovery. While clearing out my mother's wardrobe after she had passed away, I found a box of old letters. They had been written to my maternal grandmother by a close friend of hers called Ethel North who had been lady's maid and companion to Lady Winifred Burghclere, the elder sister of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.
It was the 5th Earl of Carnarvon who, along with Egyptologist Howard Carter, had discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. There was also a really strong link between Ethel's letters and the extremely popular television drama series Downton Abbey as you can see from this article based on an interview I gave about the letters to The Mail On Sunday newspaper.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5027699/Below-stairs-gossip-amorous-princes-revealed.html
So almost overnight, all thoughts of writing books for children vanished and I now had just one writing mission. I wanted to get the letters, which made fascinating reading, published as a non-fiction book.
You can find out how that went by clicking here:
