After graduating, I worked for a year for a specialist antique dealer in London and was then able to go freelance, writing articles about Art and Design for newspapers and magazines, as well as four books about 19th and 20th-century design.

After a year or so as an editor of a monthly antiques magazine, I changed direction slightly, returning as a freelance writer to contribute book reviews and a wide range of feature articles to national newspapers and women’s magazines such as New Woman and Cosmopolitan. I also published a romantic novel. I then took another path and for the past 15 years have written television drama. They have been mainly screenplays for series such as The Bill, Casualty, Wycliffe, Midsomer Murders, Rosemary & Thyme and Silent Witness. I also wrote the screenplay for Genghis Khan, a docu-drama for BBC1, and also pilots for several series that (as is the way of television) were never made.

I married, divorced, and have a daughter who graduated last year. When I saw Miss Cotterell, who had been my Head Mistress, at a school reunion, she said she always thought that I would do something interesting. I have my English teacher, Lorraine Waters, to thank for first giving me the confidence to think of myself as a writer.