About Me

I am Wiltshire born and bred and I have lived on Salisbury Plain for over 40 years. I was born in June 1945 and educated at Trowbridge Girls High School. I have no brothers or sisters. I am married with three grown-up daughters. The fourth died of congenital heart disease in 2005.

It took me some time to find my niche in life; I wasn't a born writer or historian, although I always collected things and recorded events. I trained to be a primary school teacher in the mid sixties but I soon discovered that teaching wasn't for me. Moving into a very old house in Chitterne sparked my curiosity about its origins and I was off.

The first website was created by our youngest daughter in 1999 to display the history of our house. As I became engrossed in the history of the village and added more and more of it to fill in the background the house history became buried. I needed another website.

Just at this time I was approached by the Village Hall Management Committee for help. They needed a website to publicise the new Village Hall. I suggested a site for the whole village with pages about the hall and this was agreed. My daughter and I collaborated again; the village website went live in 2001 and my village history was added to it later.

Writing history happened gradually starting with the text for the websites; I contributed articles to the parish magazine; edited and produced a version of an old history of the village for charity; wrote a series of short histories of the Salisbury Plain for Sustain The Plain.

I had heard a whisper that a new history of the village was needed and immediately dismissed the idea as beyond my scope. Then our daughter died leaving a vast hole in my life. Cue the history book.

Webmastering and dealing with history queries are a source of inspiration. My other job is keeping my husband's accounts up-to-date, but I have yet to be inspired by Excel.

Hearing from people via the websites is great fun, if I can help them with their research its even better, if I can bring two distantly related people together for the first time, its the best feeling.