have written, and had published, a book each year ever since I was fifteen and that now makes over sixty (so work out how old I am).

I wrote my first book as soon as I could write well enough, aged nine. It was called 'Grey Star', the Story of a Race-Horse. I sent it off to a publisher and it came back (of course).  I wrote about ten more and sent each one off to a publisher. They were all rejected but I got very nice letters back with the rejections. Then, when I was fifteen, my first one was accepted. I was offered £75 by Mr Archie Black of A and C.Black, my red letter day. The letter came through the post. I opened it and burst into tears, my mother had hysterics and my father, who was shaving upstairs, stopped singing and shouted down to know what all the fuss was about.

I lived in Surbiton, a suburb of London and went to school in Wimbledon. I longed to live in the country and own a pony. I was obsessed with horses and have been all my life but I don’t know why as I come from a family of engineers.

I had an imaginary stable of over 2000 horses, their descriptions, skills, characters, etc. all noted in a large exercise book and I rode a different one every day, going down to the station to go to school at a collected trot and putting in a buck or two if the weather was sharp.

Because I couldn’t have the real thing, I wrote out my fantasies in books, all about race-horses or girls who owned ponies and did all the things I longed to do but couldn’t.   more >>