I was born in Derbyshire and, even as a small child, read voraciously, happily losing myself for hours in Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five books. Other than English, I excelled at sport, sprinting in particular, and in my early teens set club records that will probably never be broken – because then we ran in yards, and now everything is in metres! For many years until ill-health forced my retirement, I ran a Guide (Girl Scout) Unit, and enjoyed devising games for the girls and taking them away on holidays, both locally and as far afield as Scotland and the Isle of Wight.

I made many friends within the Movement, and still stay in touch with fellow Guiders all over the country, some of whom have now become readers and fans of my books.

Looking for a new source of income when my husband was made redundant in his mid-fifties, I turned to writing. In the beginning I wrote the sort of children's adventures I'd been so fond of myself when young, and then turned my hand to old-fashioned whodunits, which I'd enjoyed since my twenties. I'm happy to say that both have proved popular, because I have a lot more stories yet to tell.

My Likes

Chocolate – I like chocolate like I like breathing! I prefer milk chocolate and adore Belgian chocolate, though Swiss is good, too.

Wine – As you might have gathered, I'm quite partial to a glass of wine. I prefer red but will drink it in whatever colour it comes; a glass of chilled white on a summer's day is as acceptable as red is on a cold winter's night or with rare roast beef.

Flowers – I love flowers, and gardens, of all descriptions. Sadly, ill-health means I can do little more than potter in my once beautiful garden now, but I'm hoping to scrape together enough to pay for a gardener to restore it to its former glory, soon. I grow roses, hardy geraniums, and lilies - just like this one!.

Music – I hit my teens about the time the Beatles recorded She Loves You, and I still love a lot of sixties music. I'm not