A First Novel at 71!
Annette Purdey Pugh (nee Mercier) - English, 1971, County - tells how she left Lancaster with a dream of being a writer and, even if your life takes you in a different direction for a while, that it's never too late to attain your goal.
"As I was finishing my final year at Lancaster, and still with no idea what my future career might be, I can remember reading a leaflet I’d picked up somewhere, about a new postgraduate course in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. I’d always dreamed of being a writer, but eventually, with much regret, I decided that to apply would simply be to put off the evil day when I would need to join the ‘real world’. I often wonder where I would be if I had decided differently – though, looking back at some of the celebrated authors who started out there, very possibly I would not have got in!
I now know that, within a few years, I could have applied to do a similar course at Lancaster. By then, however, I had started work (as a medical librarian) and married a farmer, with whom I would go on to have three children. Life on the farm was busy, not least when we started our own retail milk business, and I was also employed for some years as an optical assistant. However, I continued to write sporadically – short stories and poetry – and finally did do a course in Creative Writing with the Open University. It was great to be a student again, and I enjoyed the course immensely.
Retirement from work away from the farm at last gave me the opportunity I needed to concentrate on my writing, and I was thrilled when my first novel was recently accepted for publication. It’s called A Murder at Rosings and takes some of the characters from Pride and Prejudice into a mystery story when the body of Mr Collins is discovered stabbed to death in the grounds of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s mansion. I’ve been a Jane Austen fan since my early teens, and, once the idea for the novel came to me, it was great fun to write. It will be published by Honno in June 2021, and is available in paperback, e-book and audiobook formats.
I think my story proves that it’s never too late. You can still chase those dreams you had when you were young – maybe sitting in the sunshine on the steps in Alexandra Square – and you might just catch them!"
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