Growing up was never part of the plan. One day I'll get fit and do up the house, but in the meantime there's a planet to explore & books to be read.

My passion is ...

the planet, and the written word. If I can't be travelling, I want to be reading or writing.

I know too much about ...

not being myself.

My parents always told me ...

"Just do your best". Over the years I've taken that to mean no-one can expect any more than my best, & I don't have the right to deliver any less.

My childhood ambition ...

To be Modesty Blaise...failing that I wanted to be a spy. Sadly I picked the wrong foreign languages & the wrong University.

My favorite memory ...

Listening to a sexy tenor sax, while watching the late afternoon sun kiss the sea with silver flashes and drinking ice cold Bud, at the end of a long country walk. Norfolk circa 2001.

Why I write ...

...because I must.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Reading Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, watching Heroes season 2 & Doctor Who...hoping to listen to Brucie live in Manchester

My first job ...

Weekend work in a newsagent when I was at school. First proper job was as secretary in the firm I still work for, 22 years on...moved on a bit since then (I hope).

My best moment ...

...sunrise over Machupucchare; the colour fading out of the Vinales valley in Cuba at sunset; the first time 'he' said I love you; every time I've felt the peace of a sacred space; waking from a bad dream to find I'm alive and healthy and the world still awaits...

My inspiration ...

the beauty and power of the planet...and her ability to remind us 'we are not in charge here'. Knowing that I am a fundamental part of the system and yet an insignificantly small one is uplifting and grounding.

Arts & Humanities > British Literature Book reviews: Gentlemen & Players, by Joanne Harris

3 of 4

We start with a Pawn. A Pawn who has discovered - if they've learned anything in the last fifteen years - that murder is no big deal. It's just a boundary, like all those others which you're not allowed to cross because of the NO TRESPASSERS sign just beyond them. We start with a child who, because they did not know by whose order they were not to trespass, decided to put it to the test.

The child is "the Porter's kid". The Porter of St Oswald's Grammar School for Boys. But of course...a porter is just a porter...and a porter's kid doesn't go to the posh school, no matter the conn...

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