Writers are eavesdroppers and petty thieves. We’re at it all the time, stealing ideas and snippets from something seen, something heard, storing up accounts of strangers’ experiences, surreptitiously noting down details of a compelling conversation, an intriguing remark. Of course it’s always useful to have a cover for our surveillance habit, a convenient location where we can pretend to be reading the newspaper, casually checking our Facebook or Twitter accounts…
Jude Hayland
So, as a confession, the first thing to know about me is my daily café habit. I’m the woman in the corner by the window, slowly drinking my cappuccino while keeping both ears discreetly open for anything intriguing.
I’m a Capricorn, a solstice child, born on the shortest day of the year. No doubt it’s this mid-winter birthday that has always driven me in the opposite direction, seeking sun at all costs…
…And that led me to discover Crete, the island of my heart where I now spend as much time as possible at a family-owned house in a village in the beautiful North West region. Crete influenced one of the main settings of my new novel although there it features under the fictitious name of Kronos. It’s a wonderful place to retreat to, to write and to think, looking out towards the White Mountains in one direction and the Mediterranean Sea in the other…
…And to try and learn Greek. I am studying hard. And seriously struggling. But I am determined to master more than polite greetings and the ability to order wine at the local taverna.
I’m a Londoner by birth and still think of the city as home although I’ve lived in Winchester since my son, George, was born some twenty-two years ago. London also features as one of the settings in my new novel – in fact, the city always seems to insist on edging its way into my writing somehow.
I’m an obsessive reader – always with a couple of books on the go. My bedside table is constantly laden with two or three novels, a book of poetry – and usually some clothes catalogues for light relief.
I love to cook – cakes in particular – so add a couple of glossy cookery books to that heaving bedside table.
Ballet is my great passion – I took lessons from the age of 3 and even now relish doing plies and pirouettes at my twice-weekly adult class. Watching the experts at Covent Garden is even better…
I love waking up to a day where nothing is planned. A wonderful vacuum of time with the freedom to fill it, alone - that’s my idea of a perfect, if very rare, treat.
The surname under which I write– HAYLAND – was my paternal great grandmother’s maiden name. I have her diary written as a young girl that talks of her wish to become a writer. She didn’t, of course. It was marriage and numerous children for her and a life marked by the tragedy of losing three of her four sons in WW1. I think of her often.
