Family histories

Every individual life is worth recording, whether it's just for the family or for a wider readership.

For ten years I tutored writers for the Open College of the Arts, specialising in autobiography. For the past five years I have been non-fiction reader for The Literary Consultancy (www.literaryconsultancy.co.uk).

I also work with private clients on autobiographical or family history projects. I am always interested to talk with anyone who is exploring their past. I am available for professional advice, guidance, ghost-writing or a basic editing service.

I am currently working on two biographies: for west country entrepreneur and rally-driver Freddie Giles, and for ex-Warwickshire batsman Wasim Khan, the first British-born Asian to play county cricket

These two collections of love-letters have been among the most rewarding projects I have worked on. Both tell the story of an Edwardian courtship conducted from the trenches of WWI. For Destiny I was handed a suitcase full of papers and told to get on with it. "It" consisted of transcribing and editing 700 letters, then visiting the Public Records Office to seek out the Battalion diaries. These revealed where Jack Oughtred and the East Yorks regiment were as he wrote to his sweetheart during the years 1915-18.

Jack Oughtred burned his lover's replies. With "Thank God I'm Not A Boy!", however, I had Cecil Slack's letters from the trenches, and Dora Willatt's replies. They make fascinating reading and are - in the opinion of Leo Cooper - "almost unique".

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