I spent most of my childhood overseas, in Europe and the Far East, because my father was in the Army. Every two or three years we moved somewhere new. This meant I kept changing schools, but I didn’t mind because if I didn’t like that particular school, I knew I would soon be leaving!

I was a dreamy, shy child, who had a vivid interior world. I began writing when I was six, in smudged pencil. I’d been given a Dachshund puppy for my birthday, so I wrote ‘How to Train Dogs’ - all of five, misspelled pages! But later I wrote ‘novels’ which took up whole exercise books. These were mostly adventure stories, which I read out to my long-suffering younger brother. They had illustrations, maps, book jackets with blurbs, and a ‘Letter from the Author’ for my imaginary readers. I also wrote plays for my puppet theatre, which I used to put on with my latest best friend and long-suffering brother, and a ‘children’s magazine’.

My happiest time as a child was the four-year period we spent in Singapore, where I belonged to the wonderful Raffles Library, an impressive building with high ceilings, where vast fans spun silently above you. The children’s department was crammed with books ranging from the Victorian and Edwardian period (ancient and dusty) to contemporary fiction (smelling of exotic food). I didn’t care when they had been written. I read them avidly, as many as I could. In those days the island of Singapore still had some jungle, and when you drove up country through Malaya – where we would go for holidays – you had to lock your car doors in case you were ambushed by brigands.

But then at thirteen, in the middle of a freezing winter, I went to boarding school in England. I was very unhappy, and when my well-meaning parents took me away and sent me to another one instead, I didn’t like that either! I had no time or spirit to write any more. I longed to be grown up, and because when I was younger I’d used to send off for publishers’ catalogues (I liked getting mail!), I wanted to go into publishing.

Eventually, that is what I did. I worked for fifteen years in publishing and, when my husband went to work in New York, I worked for several years in a children’s bookshop in Manhattan. Back in England I became a publisher’s reader, and, with my two sons growing up, began to write again. I took an M.A. in Writing for Children, and after that, taught courses for adults in creative writing and children’s literature - which I still do occasionally, as well as visiting schools to talk about my books.

I live with my husband and younger son and a yellow Labrador called Alfie, in Barnes, South West London, near the River Thames and not far from Richmond Park, where I walk the dog and mull over plots.

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