about my work

After a first career as a nurse and health visitor, and a second as a mother to several children, I graduated with a First Class Honours degree from the Open University.

As a social historian of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, I am especially interested in the lives of 'ordinary' people – what they wrote and read, the art they produced, and how they lived. In order to write my books, I 'walk in the footsteps' of those people and I travel extensively to search in archives, to talk with those who have memories and knowledge to share, and to wander the towns and countrysides that were familiar to those people.

My books are a result of these discoveries and I hope that for the reader they give an insight into the lifestyles, the struggles, and the values of people who lived not long ago.

I write both from my home in the vibrant city of Brighton and also from a peaceful room at the top of a round oast house in the glorious Sussex countryside.