Learning to type and drive transformed my life. As a child I was an avid reader and a promising student, but for all sorts of reasons I left school at fifteen with just three O’ levels. For ‘bright but unaccomplished’ girls in the 1980s, one of the few options available was secretarial college, and so I enrolled, learning to type at great speed, and becoming employable. When I then passed my driving test at eighteen, it seemed the world opened up to me, not only for work, but also for experiences beyond my home town.
Isabel Ashdown
A fascination with people is at the heart of all my stories. In Beautiful Liars we meet Casey, a strange and solitary woman who moves into a new home and vicariously inhabits the life of the previous owner – by answering a letter in her name. The idea began with the thought of ‘walking in someone else’s shoes’ and before I knew it, Casey was a fully-formed character in my mind, begging to be written.
Every year my sister and I share a writing and walking retreat. We live in separate parts of the country, and now our children are a little older, we’re able to fly our nests for a few blissful days each spring, to work, walk and talk, and rekindle our sisterly bonds. She’s children’s author and illustrator Rebecca Ashdown.
I’m a boxset binger. Mad Men, The Bridge, Breaking Bad, The Sinner – there’s so much gripping drama out there! I read a lot, but I also love nothing more than a good boxset to lose myself in.
I wrote rude gags to pay for university in my mid-thirties. When I gave up my career to study, our kids were still small, and we really had to pull our belts in. To help pay my way through uni, I took a number of part-time jobs, including writing comic captions for a well-known greetings card company.
My favourite shoes are my walking boots. With my dogs, Charlie and Leonard, I walk most days in the Sussex countryside where we live. As writing is so often a solitary and sedentary job, walking is good for the health of my mind, and essential for the health of my back.
I’m looking forward to turning 50. I’ve loved my forties, and when I turn 50 in a couple of years’ time, I intend to embrace it fully, as every wise woman should!
My personal motto in life is ‘Don’t make excuses’. Try to do the best you can; try to change the things you don’t like; try to lead the life you want to live. And be kind.
As a child, I almost drowned in a family boating accident. These days, I’m still a coastal girl at heart, but I prefer to view the sea from the shore.
My carpenter husband Colin is a keen brewer. He recently developed a beer to celebrate my latest book, and named it Writer’s Retreat.
Beautiful Liars by Isabel Ashdown is out now (Orion, £8.99)