Country Flavour
My first work was published in 1999. I then spent twenty years roving Yorkshire and North East England, writing magazine features with a country flavour. I met hundreds of people, all of them fascinating, and outstanding in their fields. I profiled farmers and food producers, artists and craft makers, naturalists and conservationists, historians and archaeologists.
Traditions
I’ve also written about seasonal traditions, deeply engrained in the agriculture that underpins all our lives. Throughout history, people marked changing seasons with with festivals and ceremonies.
Such festivals include Mayday/Beltane, Halloween, Plough Sunday, Candlemas, Bonfire Night, and so on. I’ve covered them all, but the perennial favourite is Christmas, and I’ve written about midwinter celebrations in every era.
Published works
I’m now retired from regular feature writing, but have highlighted some of the sectors, and titles, where my work appeared on my published works page.
Reviews
During my years of journalism, I became fascinated by Yorkshire’s past, and began imagining how it might have been in ‘olden days’. While history and archaeology gives us factual insight into the past, I believe that historical fiction opens a window on how people might have felt. Therefore, I was delighted to become a reviewer for the Historical Novels Society.