WHEN I WAS A CHILD I WANTED TO BE AN ACTRESS.
I was always writing little sketches to perform with my friends. (Whether they wanted to or not)
Sandy Taylor
In the sixties, myself and a friend entered a talent contest which was held in the Dome in Brighton.
We won the contest and were invited to go on London television.
As it happened the T V show clashed with a family holiday to Ireland, so I wasn't allowed do it.
I was heartbroken and cried for weeks. I often wonder if my life would have taken a different path if I had been allowed to go on that show.
The upside of this story is that during the holiday, aged thirteen, I fell in love for the first time. So I guess every cloud has a silver lining.
BEING A TEENAGER IN THE SIXTIES.
1960s What a wonderful time to be a teenager. Brighton beach, the pier and the Beatles.
Most of us worked in factories or Woolworths, so we didn't have much money. I don't ever remember going to a pub.
We would all meet in the local cafe, putting money in the juke box, playing on the football table and drinking frothy coffee
that was more froth than coffee. Those were wonderful innocent times that I will always remember. And so when I started writing novels
I set my stories in Brighton during the amazing 1960s.
LEAVING BRIGHTON.
I thought that I would stay in Brighton forever but life had other plans for me. I was working in factories and getting no where fast. I worked in one factory for three years and at the end of
the three years I still didn't know what they made!!
One day a girl I was working with who had just broken up with her boyfriend showed me an advertisement for staff wanted in the Butlins camps.
We applied and were allocated a job at Butlins in Minehead. I week before we were due to go she made it up with her boyfriend and so I went alone.
I fell in love with the West country and a whole new life opened up for me. Opportunities came my way that I don't think would have happened if I had remained in Brighton.
BECOMING A SINGER.
I became a singer, first with a cabaret act called THREE'S A CROWD and then with a dance band. We travelled all over the country
singing in various clubs. The band leader would drive us to gigs in a beaten up old van that was always breaking down, usually at three o clock in the morning
in the pouring rain. When I remember those times they make me smile.
DISCOVERING THAT I COULD WRITE.
I was always good at essays at school but had never really thought seriously about writing. It started with a funny monologue, while recuperating from major surgery
I called it GALL STONES. I performed it at the local village hall and became a kind of overnight star !!! I then went on to writing comedy sketches. I progressed to writing a one act play called CHALK AND CHEESE that won best original play in a festival. It went on to be aired on H T V. Fame indeed. I have since had nine plays published, three children's musicals, an adult musical a Pantomime and two books of sketches and monologues. It seemed that I could write.
THE DRAMA GROUP.
My love of acting stayed with me. When my daughter Kate was seven she wanted to audition for a part in the musical Carousel, that was being put on by the village drama group. She got the part of the smallest Snow child.
I would go to all the rehearsals with her and found myself wishing that I could be up there on that stage strutting my stuff. In fact I ended up making the tea and washing up for the next three years.
I waited for my chance and when a review came around a wrote a monologue about washing up in the kitchen but wanting to be a star. It was a hit. I was in !!.
What amazing times I have had, fulfilling that childhood dream of acting. Rainy Sunday afternoons rehearsing in the hall with a bunch of wonderful talented people who became lifelong friends.
I LOVE IRELAND.
My family are from a little town on the banks of the river Blackwater in the South of Ireland. When I was seven years old, my mum, my sister and me stayed with my Aunty Agnus, in a one up one down cottage.
There were eight kids living there who were all farmed out to various relatives, in order that we could have a bed. (We all shared the same bed ) The cottage had no electricity, no water and no toilet, which I didn't think was the least bit strange. One day a girl my own age knocked on the door and asked if she could play with "The little English girl." For the next two weeks we ran the fields and hills together. The girl's name Annette and we are friends to this day. It broke my heart to leave, in fact I think I left a little piece of my heart behind me in that special place.
STAND UP COMEDY.
I have done a lot of stand up comedy over the years, performing my own stuff. There is nothing better that hearing a room full of people falling about laughing.
I had no nerves when I was performing but the weeks leading up to it would have me worrying myself silly. It's all very well saying you need a bit of nerves to be able to perform well
but in the end I didn't think it was worth all the anxiety. I can still be persuaded to do it for charity but I'm now happier in my little office writing my books.
I HATE FLYING.
Which means I don't go abroad much. The trouble is that I think the plane is going to crash, so I spend the whole journey thinking that I am going to die. When we land safely I think it's a fluke.
But I do make the exception when it comes to going to Ireland, after all if I have to die I can think of no better place than in the middle of the Irish sea.
MY NOVELS
And so I became a writer of novels, something I told myself I would do when I retired. Hard work and a lot of luck brought me to the welcoming doors of Bookouture.
If someone had told me that I could write two novels in one year I would have laughed at them but it seems in fact that is what I am about to do. Two books published and one on the way.
So this is my story. From working in a factory, to discovering the West country, becoming a singer and doing stand up comedy and of course becoming a novelist.
All I can say to finish is, that if I can do it anyone can. To pinch a quote from Henry David Thoreau. "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live
the life he has imagined, he will meet with success, unexpected, in common hours.
