For as long as I can remember I have always loved the written and spoken word. One of my earliest memories is, on a Sunday morning, with my two sisters, climbing into my parents’ bed, cuddling up warm and secure as Dad invented stories of daring do. Of course, me and my two sisters were always the heroes of these stories, which made them so much more exciting. Mums’ duty was to read us stories at bed time. She was a voracious reader so I couldn’t wait to emulate her and as soon as I could read, I knew I had found my escape, my go to place full of mystery, magic and drama and so its been ever since. I will always bless Enid Blyton for introducing me to Mr. Pinkwhistle and the Magic Faraway tree, to the adventures at Mallory Towers and my all-time favourite, The Famous Five. Oh! How I wanted to be George, have a dog called Timmy and go on adventures with marmalade sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer!

My mother was a wonderful letter writer and I wish I had kept the weekly letters she wrote to me when I was in boarding school in Kuala Lumpur. She was back home in Penang and she regaled me with her day to day life there. They would have been wonderful source material for my stories today.

I have always made-up poems, stories and plays for my sisters and I encouraged, they said bullied, them into performing in them for friends and family. As I reached adulthood, I trained to be a nurse, married had a family and did further training including a degree. My output was spasmodic as day-to-day life filled my time and what I had written was lost in an acrimonious divorce.

On retirement we came to Leeds to support our girls and their families and so now I was able to indulge my passion to write. Phil my husband saw an advert for a Writing workshop at the Leeds library and urged me to go. I procrastinated, I wasn’t good enough, everyone there would be better than me but he enrolled me just the same. I had a wonderful day and realised that although I would never be a Dickens or an Alan Bennett I had my own style of communicating, I loved it and it which was good enough for me. I met a lady there and she introduced me to Heydays. Heydays is a day’s activities and workshops for the over 55’s run at the Playhouse in Leeds. Heydays was a jumping off point as it led to being invited to join the ‘Citizen Journalists’ at Shine magazine. Since then, with a lot of support from Tom, our editor, I have interviewed some remarkable people and even enjoyed the laborious job of writing them up. I gained confidence and realised what was missing all of which has enriched and broadened my life

My creative journey didn’t stop there. Since then my life has blossomed as I have been involved in local radio broadcasting from Chapel FM via the Care to Air broadcast and the Writing on Air festival. I have written for and performed in dance and theatre with The Performance Ensemble at the Chapel and the Leeds Playhouse. I run two monthly Writing for Pleasure sessions for other enthusiasts like me where we share our work on a given topic. So many doors have opened for me and my journey is not over yet.

Leeds is a fantastic place to grow old in with lots of free opportunities for older people to be inspired and mentally and physically stimulated so dip your toe people, the first step is always the hardest, but you will be amazed at what is waiting for you.