ABOUT MYSELF
OK, let's get one thing out of the way straight off - the one thing everyone wants to hear about. I was once embraced by 007!
It was a long time ago, admittedly, and he wasn't 007 then, but I am the teacher who gave Daniel Craig his first acting experience. I won't say I guided his first steps. It was more a question of standing back in amazement and watching it all happen,because Daniel never need much instruction. It was all there from the start, the charisma, the command of the stage, the instinctive grasp of character, but I like to think my encouragement helped him along the way. After he left school I didn't hear of him for years, but then his name started cropping up in theatre reviews and on TV. The big break through came with 'Our Friends in the North' and after that there was no holding him back. I last saw him when he was appearing with Michael Gambon at the Royal Court Theatre in London, in a play by Caryl Churchill called 'A Number'. It was a two-hander requiring immense concentration from both actors and Danny was brilliant, as usual. What was truly amazing was that he wasa filming Sylvia during the day, starting at ungodly hours every motning, and still at the top of his game in stage in the evening. I went back stage afterwards and he greeted me with a big hug. I asked him to sign my copy of the play and he wrote, 'Thank you for setting me on my way. With much love, Daniel.'
I haven't seen him for years now, of course. He's far too grand and busy, and judging from recent interviews he seems to want to forget all about his schooldays. But I still treasure that message.
So how did I come to be teaching at Hilbre High School, where I met Danny?
As I mentioned earlier, in my notes on the inspiration for 'Follies', I grew up hopelessly stage struck and insisted on going to drama school, instead of going to university as everyone tried to persuade me to do. My parents did win on one point, however. They insisted that I went somewhere where I would gain a recognised teaching qualification as well. So I went to the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, Kent,where i soon developed whay I call 'the centipede syndrome'. You know that story? Someone asked a centipeded which leg he moved first and the result was frozen immobility while he tried to work out the answer. I became so obsessed with the technicalities of stage craft that I lost whatever natural ability I had in the first place. I didn't help that the college philosophy was based on the idea that to survive in the profession you had to be able to take any amount of criticism. By the end of my three years I was too scared to even set foot on a stage and it took me decades to get over it.
So I became a teacher. I started in a posh girls boarding school, moved to a Secondary Modern and then went as Head of Drama to Vauxhall Manor School, a comprehensive in Lambeth, south London. By this time I was married to David and when motherhood beckoned I retired to the country and prepared to dedicate myself to bringing up children. Within months, much as I adored, and still adore, both my sons, I was climbing the walls with boredom. Being cooped up all day with an inarticulate infant was not for me!
By this time I started a novel. I had always wanted to write and had made my first, acutely naive and embarrassing attempt while still at college. Now, I was inspired by the novels of Mary Renault to research the history of Bronze Age Greece and I was fascinated by the fact that that whole brilliant civilization was destroyed over a period of years around 1200 b.c. So I started to write a fictional account of the events that might have led up to that catastrophe. While working in London I had written some scripts for BBC schools radio and through that i had been given an introduction to an agent. He liked the book and I felt sure my career as a writer was about to take off. Sadly, although several publisher's editors said they had enjoyed it personally, they all felt that there was not market for it at that time.
So, it was back to the nappies and the tea parties with other mums.
Desperate for some occupation that required me to use my brain, and my training, I applied to my local youth service. Could I start a drama club for young people? They were delighted, and so I came to found the Epsom Youth Theatre. I ran it for ten years and they were some of the happiest in my life. I lost count of how many teenagers passed through the doors over the period but they were the liveliest, most talented bunch you could wish to meet and for many of them the club became not just a hobby but a complete social network, in which I was allowed to join. For ten years in my thirties I was accepted as an honorary teenager - a most rejuvenating experience!
One boy who starred in several of our productions was a young man called Christopher Luscombe, who went on to become a professional actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company among others and is now a very successful theatre director. So Daniel Craig is not my only success story. Much later, when I had moved with my family to the Wirral and was teaching at Hilbre High there was another boy who showed remarkable talent. Curiously, he was only one year behind Daniel and he, too, went on the make a successful career as an actor. His name is Adam Levy. But for all those whose professional success I may have given a kick start to, there have been dozens of others who have simply found pleasure, or companionship, or a rare taste of success by being involved in plays. It is the thought that I have in some way touched those lives that gives me real pleasure.
Meanwhile, what about the writing? Back in the seventies and early eighties, while I was still bringing up a family, I had some small success with three thrillers published by Robert Hale - 'Centrifuge', 'AWoman Called Omega' and 'The Fidelio Affair'. But they were pot-boilers and soon disappeared off the shelves - though they are still available in large print. Disenchanted, I stopped writing for several years. Encouragement came when I won a short story competition run by the Historical Novel Society (www.historicalnovelsociety.org). The prize was two weeks on the Greek island of Kythira on a writing course tutored by Helen Carey and Louis de Berniere. Since the prize was for a historical story and the setting was Greece I resurrected my Bronze Age epic and took it along. Louis loved it and encouraged me to make another effort to get it published. After several attempts I found a new agent, Vivien Green of the Sheil Land Agency, who still represents me. She loved the book too and I thought history could not repeat itself - but it did! Back came the typescript with nice letters saying how much the reader had personally enjoyed it but regretting that this period was very much out of fashion at the moment. In the end, I decided to go down the Print On Demand route, which was then in its early stages. The book was produced by Rabbit Books, the publishing arm of the Writers' Co-operative. Sadly, this organisation has disappeared so there is no way of obtaining further copies.
At this point I decided to explore the idea for the Follies series, which had been at the back of my mind for some time. I also decided to get some professional advice, so I sent the script of the first book to literary consultant Hilary Johnson. (www. hilaryjohnson,co.uk). She sent back a detailed and constructive criticism, which was extremely helpful. I also signed up for the MA in writing at Liverpool John Moores University (www.ljmu.ac.uk), which was the real turning point in my writing career. For the first time I was able to show work to a grouo of people, not only the tutors but the other students, who would give me informed and unbiased criticism. Within six months of graduating I had finished 'We'll Meet Again' and Vivien Green sold it to Hodder and Stoughton, with one proviso. They wanted a second book to go with it. 'Never Say Goodbye' followed a year later. And then, at last, I was able to sell the four volumes of the Follies series, the last of which will be out next year. Now all I have to do is think of something new!
Hobbies: I am a keen gardener and I love the outdoors. David and I enjoy walking, especially in the hills. Over the years we have followed the length of the Offa's Dyke path, the Cotswold Way, the Ridgeway, the Cleveland Way, and many shorter treks in North Wales. I also go horse-riding. I have ridden most of my life, though I have never owned a horse of my own, but I find my weekly hour gives me a really good workout. I read, of course, and I love the theatre, including opera and ballet. I also belong to two local bridge clubs, which provide a workout for the brain to go with the weekly ride.
I have two grown up sons and two delightful grandchildren, a girl, Amy, and a boy, Adam.