Here's Judy's story...
You can find more about Judy and her books here.
I ran away the day the headmistress laughed and told me I
was “Flying a bit high” when I asked if it would be OK to apply to Oxford
university. Humiliated, I stormed out of
school at midday, raced home to change out and went up to the corner where the road
heads for the M4 to start hitching a lift to visit my friend David at Magdalen
college, Oxford for tea and sympathy.
We all hitch-hiked in the days before central locking meant
no escape from the axe murderer. Drivers
were kind to a girl alone and I had a rule about lorries – not to get in. Today
though, cars stopped but none were going more than a couple of miles. So when the truck pulled up I thought, oh
just this once - it’ll be fine.
The driver was cheerful and friendly. He gave me a telling off and said that he
wouldn’t want a daughter of his risking her life by hitching so he’d take me
all the way to Magdalen bridge, just to be sure I was safe.
Except – suddenly he was turning off the M4 at Slough This
was NOT the way to Oxford.
He drove into a bleak industrial estate, parked outside the
massive Mars confectionary warehouse and climbed out. I considered making a run
for it but I found he’d locked the doors. I was going to be found naked and
strangled in a ditch. My poor mum.
Then he was back telling me to hop out and get in the car
parked alongside. He’d finished his shift, was heading for home and he handed
me a big box, saying, ‘Here, a souvenir.’ It was full of Mars bars, Milky Ways and
Galaxy bars. I thanked him and the journey continued but I’d be lying if I said
I relaxed.
David and I munched
our way through the box’s contents and he offered me his bed for the
night. I thought about it but… back then
he risked being sent down for having a girl in his room. And it was freezing
and the loo was down two flights of stairs and across a dark, wind-blown
quadrangle. I started thinking a more modern university would have
comfort-advantages… So I said thanks but
no. And for once, I went home by train.
My 18th novel,‘In The Summertime’ will to be
published in hardback by Bantam in early July.
The paperback will follow in June 2014.
It’s a return to the characters from my first book, Just For the Summer
and has Miranda, twenty years on from when she was a teenager at her family’s
holiday home in Chapel Creek in Cornwall, revisiting the village with her
mother Clare and children Silva and Bo, to scatter the ashes of her step-father
Jack on the estuary he’d loved. She
doesn’t expect to find there are still so many connections from the past in the
place and is particularly surprised to find one in particular – someone she’s
thought about many times over the years.
Coming July 4th Judy's nest book....and it's set in Cornwall!
It's twenty years since Miranda, then sixteen, holidayed in Cornwall and her life changed forever. Now she's back again - with her mother Clare and the ashes of her stepfather Jack, whose wish was to be scattered on the sea overlooked by their one-time holiday home.
The picturesque cove seems just the same as ever, but the people are different - more smart incomers,fewer locals, more luxury yachts in the harbour. But Miranda and Clare both find some strangely familiar faces, and revisit the emotions they both thought had disappeared.
You can find more about Judy and her books here.
