1. Although I’ve spent most of my life in the entertainment industry, initially as a dancer, then singer, followed by small acting roles before finding my niche as a television presenter, I’d always wanted to write novels. I was an avid reader of Enid Blyton books from around the age of seven. It encouraged me to pen a couple of plays for my classmates at primary school and a short story which my teacher entered into a Nottinghamshire-wide competition when I was ten years old. I was awarded second place for my age group and rewarded with book tokens to buy yet more books to satisfy my hunger for reading. It only took another forty-nine years to get my first novel into print!

2. My first professional job at the tender age of ten was as the cover-girl on the Bero cookery book. I was selected along with six other girls from my dancing school to have test shots done by a local photographer. No-one was more surprised than me when I was subsequently chosen and with the fifteen pounds I earned, I opened a bank account. I still bank with the same bank (albeit they have since changed their name) which is either loyalty or avoiding the upheaval of change – I’ll leave you to decide. And I still occasionally use the Bero cookbook… it has a fabulous recipe for coconut tartlets.

3. I had my first driving lesson the day after my seventeenth birthday and passed my test three months later, not on the UK mainland but in Guernsey where I was performing in my first summer season as a dancer. I’d overslept on the morning of my test and had hurriedly dressed in T shirt, shorts and flip-flops… I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be allowed these days - driving in flip flops, I mean. I’ve owned many cars over the past forty-six years and the majority of them, like my current car, have been soft tops – I love driving with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.

4. I’ve written my novels both as Julia Roberts and JG Roberts, depending on genre, but when I first started in the entertainment industry, I used my middle name as my surname – my mum’s idea, I think. So, the first time my name appeared in The Radio Times, a magazine that listed BBC television programmes, it was as Julia Gaye playing ‘Girl on the Beach’ in the 1980 Christmas special of Citizen Smith, an iconic British comedy series. Two things: I wish I still had that body, and maybe I should have kept using that name to avoid confusion with the Hollywood actress.

5. I like animals more than I like most people and have been vegetarian for over thirty-five years. We had dogs as family pets when I was growing up, but in adulthood we’ve always had cats, two of whom have lived beyond the age of twenty-two… about one hundred and five in cat years! Since our most recent cat, Poppy died, we’ve been thinking about getting a dog. I quite like the idea of a Dalmatian but apparently, they are quite naughty, so the jury is out on that.

6. I lived with my husband for over forty years before we finally tied the knot eighteen months ago. We were married on a beach in Mauritius with our son as best man and our daughter as bridesmaid, with only immediate family and a couple of friends in attendance. After a morning lazing on the beach, we had lunch together before separating to get ready for the ceremony at 4pm. What a perfect day, with no distant relatives arguing over the seating plan at dinner – I would highly recommend it.

7. My latest book, My Mother’s Secret, is a change of genre from crime thriller to emotional family drama. When I’m writing dialogue in any of my books, I always say the words in my head to make sure they are believable for the particular character and I sometimes read my day’s work out loud to my husband for extra reassurance that I’ve got it right. It hasn’t been so easy to do with this latest book as I’ve sometimes been too choked-up with emotion to get to the end of the sentence… maybe it’s because I know what’s about to happen. It makes me feel quite wicked putting my characters through some of the things they have to endure. On the other hand, it’s extremely gratifying ‘killing off’ characters who may or may not be based on real people when writing my crime thrillers.

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