My parents were both Irish Catholics, my father from Fermanagh and my mother from Donegal.  I had one brother four years older than me and my name then was Anne-Marie Flanagan.

I was brought up with a sound knowledge of Irish history and enjoyment of it’s rich culture in songs, music and dance.  Not long after we were moved under slum clearance in December 1956 to Pype Hayes near Erdington, I began to learn Irish dancing.

I went to the Abbey Primary School and passed from there to a grammar school called Hodge Hill.  I stayed there till I was sixteen and took ‘O’ levels, but though I longed to teach, I had to leave school as my parents could no longer afford to keep me on.

I married ridiculously young and had my first two children quickly.  Nikki born is 1967 and Simon in 1968.

When Simon was five I began my teacher training and three years later I qualified as a fully fledged teacher.  I taught happily despite having two further children, Beth born in 1981 and Tamsin 1985 until an accident in 1990 and damaged part of my spine and forced me to use a wheelchair.

However, the realisation that I could no longer teach was almost as big a blow as the loss of my mobility.

During this period the family moved to North Wales.  Being a Brummie, I’d spent many happy holidays on this beautiful coastline, but never thought we’d be able to actually live here.  However, I needed adaptions to wherever I would live and we found a large house here in Llandudno, suitable for my needs and those of my family and we moved in July 1993 when my young daughters were eleven and eight years old.

And then I found for the first time in my life, I had oceans of time with nothing to fill it.  I’d always wanted to write and so I began, starting with short stories and then children’s books.  My first adult novel I submitted to the Romantic Novelist’s Association critique service and they advised me to send it to Headline, which I did in 1996.

Headline accepted it and “A Little Learning”, was born and published in 1997.  “Love Me Tender”, followed a year later and then in 1998 “A Strong Hand to Hold”, was published and then lastly “Pack Up Your Troubles”, in May 2000.

Then in the early summer of this year, I changed publishers and I am now being published by Harper Collins.  My first book with then called “Walking Back to Happiness”, will be out in hardback in October 2002, the paperback to follow in January 2003.

Each book is written from just before, during or just after the last war and is placed in Birmingham where I grew up.