About Bernardine

So, everyone asks……how did I start writing? What was it that set me on the road? It's difficult to say, but I'm sure it was because I spent huge chunks of my formative years abroad because my father worked first in Singapore and then in Nigeria. The constant travelling back and forth, changing schools and therefore changing friends, contributed. There were always friends that I really liked, that I wanted to stay in touch with and, in those days before long distance cheap phone calls and speedy e.mails, that only left the good old skill of letter writing.

This was always, as far back as I can remember, combined with a great love of reading. I started with Beatrix Potter and Enid Blyton 'progressing over many years to my current favourites Harlan Coben and Kathy Reichs via the likes of Harold Robbins, Jean Plaidy, Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer, to mention but a few. I avidly read anything and everything that I could lay my hands on. In fact I still do and I firmly believe that reading is vital to becoming a writer.

Apart from the odd attempt at fiction that never even got finished let alone sent anywhere, that's how it stayed until, following three miscarriages and a lack of available information on the subject I thought, 'I know, I'll write the book'! (Naïve or what???) Anyway I set to it and spent months and months gathering all the information only to realise that, despite mountains of notes, cuttings and letters, I hadn't got a clue how to set it all out in a workable format.

When I saw an advert in 1989 for an Ad-Ed writing class off I went for the sole purpose of learning how to put a book together. However, as always, I got side-tracked en route! A published magazine feature and the accompanying cheque set me on a completely different road. General features and interviews progressed to travel features and, eventually, to THE NOVEL.

The years of writing features served me well and my first book, EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH was quickly accepted by first an agent and then a publisher. It was a long and winding road with many a detour on the way but it was interesting.

From school girl letter writer to published author via, cabin crew, teaching and social work.

The non-fiction tome never made it out of the mountain of filing boxes but I keep them all as a souvenir!