I wrote my first novel at the age of 7. It was very exciting, but not very long. I seem to remember it involved a pirate.

I became a solicitor, and then after politics (the first foray, anyway) my husband and I moved to Exmoor to go self-sufficiency farming. 

For a time, I wrote for children, regularly commissioned by the BBC Playdays Magazine, which was great training, with a 500 word budget, + or – 2 words, and a beginning, a middle and an end, not necessarily in that order. A moral was a good addition.

I’m a lifelong environmental campaigner, and since being one of the four founders, in 1972, of PEOPLE, the political party which became the Ecology Party before it turned Green. I was its first National Secretary, and drafted its first manifesto in 1974.

I moved on through more politics, and came out the other side, to philosophy, via quantum physics.

I became disheartened at the tales of editorial battles with publishers, the difficulty of finding a literary agent, and how long everything took. At my advanced age, I couldn’t afford to spend more years on process, I needed to see results. The wave of independently published books, backed by the willingness of Indie authors to share their expertise, persuaded me to learn to speak Amazon. 

I published ”Just a minute!” said the penguin. “We need to talk.” in September 2024, as an ebook, paperback and hardback. It’s a conversation with a penguin about climate change, and a commentary on how humans should be acting if we are to survive the crisis.

Elaine’s Angel is an Indie-published novel in three formats. It explores what happens when an angelic vision appears in a remote English village in the current world of instant communication.

Acme 2000 follows the events after Joyce wins a world-processor and finds it won’t write her novel, but is into alchemy. Also Indie published.

Turning Green is a memoir, an account of the early days of Green politics, over half a century ago. As the only surviving founder prepared to tackle the subject, I recall the world of the time, and the events of those early days before computers, before mobiles, with no Internet or social media. The questions of the academics and journalists are answered, and I review where the issues are now, in the world of climate change and Peak Oil. My own exploration of the world of woo-woo offers ideas about how Gaia can yet be saved from humans.

I have dithered about whether I can do justice to the marketing of Turning Green, which is a very relevant book for 2026. I am not prepared to suffer an intensive edit, so I would anticipate arguments with any literary agent I approach, and the publishers they may try to interest. It would all take too long, anyway. So I am back where I started, heading for self-publishing, and crossing fingers that the gods will smile as I try to organise a sales campaign. 

It will be out soon.