My handwriting is beyond appalling. I had extra handwriting lessons at school, until the teachers gave it up as a hopeless cause. If I write longhand and come back to it later, there is almost no possibility of me working out what I was trying to say.
Anne Corlett by Peter Travers
One of our favourite family games is called ‘Name That Baby.’ Our three sons were so similar as babies that it’s almost impossible to tell them apart in photos, without using complex sleuthing methods. We fairly often pull up a batch of photos on the laptop and challenge another family member to correctly identify which baby is which. So far, the hit rate is probably less than 50%.
I can do front and back somersaults but I choose not to. I spend half my life at the local gymnastics centre as my kids train there. I decided to resurrect my ancient gymnastics skills – and I use the word ‘skills’ with caution. Things were going pretty well until I performed a spectacular swan dive onto the trampoline and gave myself whiplash. This was a few months after I sustained what I’m now fairly sure was a broken nose trying to demonstrate my somersaulting skills on a bouncy castle after several glasses of prosecco.
I spent 16 years working as a criminal lawyer, first in London and later in Bristol. I gave it up in 2017 to write full-time, but wouldn’t rule out a return to the law at some point in the future when my children are older.
My several times great-grandmother was the daughter of a northern baronet. She eloped with a commoner and was disinherited. While there was a certain satisfaction in writing ‘William the Conqueror’ on my family tree, I was probably most excited to discover that John of Gaunt’s mistress – and later wife – Katherine Swynford was my direct ancestor.
I have a long-standing obsession with the Odyssey. It probably goes back to listening to Odysseus, the Greatest Hero of them All on Jackanory. I always wondered what sort of reception Odysseus would really have had when he rocked up in Ithaca after being gone for twenty years. My first (unpublished) novel was about his son, Telemachus, and I also won third place in the Bristol Short Story Prize with an account of his wife’s take on things.
My current book was inspired by a rather odd Saturday night in London when a strange man led me off to a locked room, hugged me and told me a fairy story, before taking me down to a dark basement and showing me a dead horse. It was an unusual evening.
*Disclaimer – this was at an immersive theatre performance.
I can’t follow recipes. I always think I can see how it could be improved, and I’m fairly often wrong. I assume it’s people a bit like me who write those bizarre comments on online recipes.
I’m resistant to anaesthetic. This makes me very unpopular with dentists who have to keep coming out of appointments to check whether the 653 injections they just gave me are showing any signs of working.
My favourite book is The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle. The cartoon film adaptation was the first video I ever hired when a video shop opened in our village, and I have a first edition of the book.
