1 I was born and brought up in England but I had an Irish father and a Welsh mother. One of my abiding memories of childhood is of Saturday mornings when my father would sing sentimental Irish songs in the scullery as he changed into an old jacket to go and dig the garden and my mother laughingly telling him to hurry up, in Welsh. Perhaps this mixture of Celtic yearning and practicality has influenced my writing.
Mist
2 I wanted to be a journalist when I left school but my headmistress thought that was not a suitable profession for a 'young lady' and insisted instead on one of her three stock job options, secretary, teacher or nurse. I was steered towards nursing and, hopeless at arguing, did as I was told.
3 My husband asked me out twice on the same day. The first time I was in theatre greens and masked up, assisting him with an operation. The second was two hours later when I was in my ordinary uniform checking cupboards in the theatre corridor and he didn't recognise me. Despite this early show of flirtiness, we've been married for a long time.
4 I shared a flat in London with the actor Donald Sutherland. Not just the two of us, I hasten to add, and I was already going out with future husband, but it was one of those large multi occupant apartments in Battersea, with, I think, six of us. It was before he became famous and he would drive me to work when I was on night duty and sit with us in the operating suite, drinking tea while we waited for emergencies to arrive.
5 I didn't write for years, four children got in the way, although I did make up stories for them. None of them have gone into the family business, medicine, but have gone their own way. We have one who is a science teacher and who sings in a punk band, one who writes fantasy novels, one who is an archaeologist and my 'baby' who is an auditor and a magistrate.
6 Two things started me writing again. I was given a couple of diaries written by an old man who'd lived in the farm house we'd bought and something in them sparked my imagination. Not his story exactly but more of 'what if this had happened,' etc. At the same time my mother, who lived with us, was suffering from mild dementia and would cry if I left the house, so I was trapped. Writing saved me.
7 I don't like the theatre. I love TV and movies but once in the theatre I find myself looking around at the audience. Often I find those strangers far more interesting than what I see on stage. I'm rather ashamed of this confession.
8 I don't plan my novels. An idea will come to me, then the setting and then the names of the main characters. After the first paragraph, the characters take over. The final story is often as surprising to me as it might be to the reader.
9 My favourite author is Daphne du Maurier. Every novel of hers is different. However I do love thrillers and detective stories, indeed, my taste is wide, so Lee Child, Raymond Chandler, Molly Keene, Donna Tartt nestle side by side in my bookcases and now on my Kindle along with Jane Austen, the Bronte's and Thomas Hardy.
10 I see myself as a sensible, well grounded person (though my husband and children would double over with laughter at that suggestion) but I have phobias. While not minding snakes, rats or mice, I'm a bit hysterical about spiders. I hate flying and my fear of heights is getting worse. Why do the heroes and heroines of film insist on fighting on the roofs of buildings? That is cushion in front of the face time for me.
Tagged in Mary Fitzgerald