I was born in Birmingham in 1947, two years after my father returned from fighting in World War 2. Buildings in Birmingham (England) had suffered badly from the bombing. Tokens from ration books did not necessarily ensure a supply of the food to which they referred. My mother had lost a baby daughter during an air raid. Born prematurely, the baby had died after only a few hours of life.
In 1952, my family moved to north Cheshire where my father had secured a post as head teacher for a state secondary school. I was educated at the local primary school, in class sizes that could exceed 40 pupils. During my secondary education I developed a keen interest in agriculture, and began to make trips to the central library in Manchester to access research papers about the causes and treatment of mastitis in dairy cattle.
In my late teenage years I also began to perceive the links between childhood experience and strengths and difficulties in adult life.
I studied agriculture at Reading University, and then moved to Edinburgh where I worked in agricultural research.
I married in 1973. My husband and I have three children. We also now have a granddaughter.
In the early 1980s I met Dr Winfred Rushforth, who many years earlier had opened the first clinic in Edinburgh for women under emotional stress. I found it fascinating to learn about the history of women in medicine, and to be involved in one of Dr Rushforth’s study groups.
I spent five years involved in an NHS study about cot death (SIDS – sudden infant death syndrome), during which I visited many families who had decided to have another baby after their loss, and who had agreed to help the NHS to understand the stresses that they had to endure.
For more than thirty years, I have been helping individuals, couples and families to understand and process their inner stresses and dilemmas in order to be able to relate in ways that help them to connect more closely.
I am the author of many books, and the editor of others. My books are novels, novellas and also non-fiction. There is a variety of subject matter, within which the reader can absorb understanding and insight into deeper communication between people.
My lifelong pleasures include botany, music, walking in the countryside, swimming in the sea, and growing vegetables.