I Discovered That Men Were Just Like

An English Journalist Called Michael Viney Told Me When I Was 25, That I Would Write Well If I Cared A Lot What I Was Writing About. That Worked. I Went Home That Day And Wrote About Parents Not Understanding Their Children As Well As We Teachers Did, And It Was Published The Very Next Week.

All I Ever Wanted To Do Is To Write Stories That People Will Enjoy And Feel At Home With.

I Believed That Old People Never Laughed. I Thought They Sighed A Lot And Groaned. They Walked With Sticks, And They Didn't Like Children On Bicycles Or Roller Skates Or With Big Dogs.

I Thought It Must Be Desperate To Be Old. To Wake Up In The Morning And Remember That You Were Ancient - And So Behave That Way. I Thought Old People Were Full Of Aches And Pains And Horrible Illnesses.

We're Nothing If We're Not Loved. When You Meet Somebody Who Is More Important To You Than Yourself, That Has To Be The Most Important Thing In Life, Really. And I Think We Are All Striving For It In Different Ways. I Also Believe Very, Very Strongly That Everybody Is The Hero/heroine Of His/her Own Life. I Try To Make My Characters Kind Of Ordinary, Somebody That Anybody Could Be. Because We've All Had Loves, Perhaps Love And Loss, People Can Relate To My Characters