I started writing as a child in World War Two, and have barely stopped since. Much of it has been as a travel writer for major UK newspapers and magazines. More recently I have returned to my first love of writing fiction and have self-published five novels, an anthology of short stories, and a true adventure (The Big Muddy - a canoe journey down the Mississippi). A recurrent theme has been the effect of war on the children and grandchildren of participants (as in my trilogy 'Another Kind of Loving', 'Beyond the Broken Gate, and 'Long Shadows; and subsequently 'The Other Side of Silence'). Reconciliation is also a recurrent theme as is my belief that it is better to be part of the cure than part of the problem. My most recent book, 'Courage to Change' deals with addiction and is my first aimed at the Young Adult market. Reviews of several of my books can be found on www.thebookbag.co.uk as well as on Amazon.Most of the detail of my novels is based on life experience. For example, the fostering of an East European child contributed to 'Another Kind of Loving' (about the break-up of former Yugoslavia); I have spent a great deal of time in Finland (the setting for much of 'The Other Side of Silence') and for the same title drew on my late husband's experience as pilot in Bomber Command and a prisoner of war in World War 2.I was married to retired lecturer and photographer George Spenceley who died at the age of 91 early in 2013, have three stepsons and live in a village in north Oxfordshire.