Hi All,  

I was a teacher for many years until an incident damaged my spine and despite treatment and operations there was no improvement.  Doctors said they had done all they could I faced life in a wheelchair and eventually I was invalided out of the profession in 1991 and that nearly broke my heart because I loved teaching.

However, we have to get over these things and we moved from our home in Birmingham to the coastal town of Llandudno in North Wales in 1993 and now I had all the time in the world and very little to fill it and so I began to write in earnest ,  I had been dabbling with writing as far back as I could remember but I never in a million years would I have believed that I could actually earn my living from it and it was the accident that enabled to write first for the type of children I taught and then the origin of nursery rhymes and then short stories for adults.  None of these were submitted anywhere, but I was learning my craft, developing my own voice, it was a sort of apprenticeship.  I submitted the second full length novel I wrote to Headline Publishing and they accepted it and offered me a two book contract.  They paid me an advance, I got an agent and though I was extremely nervous at entering this minefield called the writing world an exceptionally naive. I dared to believe I was on my way.

My first book  was called 'A Little Learning' and altogether they took four books from me, 'Love me Tender' , 'A Strong Hand to Hold' and 'Pack up Your Troubles'. After the fourth book, Headline didn't want to renew my contract and I changed agents as well.  That same year  and I was asked to join Harper Collins lists and so I began writing books for them and subsequently the four I wrote for Headline went out of print and the rights were given back to me.  

In early August 2006 totally inexplicably, i regained feeling and then movement in my legs and began to learn to walk again. I had then been in a wheelchair for sixteen years and the story that I was mobile again took the media in the UK by storm. I was on TV a few times and many radio shows,even one live from Australia, in all the national newspapers and many magazines.  I refused to see any doctors or go to any hospital so why It happened is still a mystery.  I don't care I just take joy in the fact that I can walk again especially every morning when I walk five miles across the beaches and hills near my home with my lovely little collie, Megan.

Two years ago as 'If You Were The Only Girl' was hitting the shelves, which was the twelfth book I had written for Harper Collins they expressed interest in my back list and bought the rights from me and the first of these four books  'A Strong Hand to Hold was out on July 3rd, following hard on the heels of my new book 'A Girl Can Dream'.  The rest of the back list are also going to be re - issued too, in due course interspersed with the new book every year that I am contracted to write.

And what do I think of my new life?  I love it and can think of nothing I could do that I's enjoy more.