Devotion

Great Aunt Rose hid her husband in a secret room under the stairs during the War. She outwitted the Nazis with the Dutch Resistance, lost many friends, but saved her husband's life. After liberation, he repaid this devotion by having an affair with her best friend Mimi while Rose was in England recovering from the car crash that crippled her. He had been driving the sports car. Divorced, childless, but young and still beautiful she came home. Studio photos of her at the time show a handspan waist, elegant Dior dresses and a luminous blonde beauty as lovely as any black and white movie star. Her open house was always full of friends, warmth and laughter. Rose was not only beautiful, but the kindest person I have ever met. She was the first person to ring and congratulate me when I had my first stories published. I remember sitting on the kitchen doorstep on a sunny London evening listening as she told me the story of Jack and Mimi, and how Rose had always wanted to write, but hadn't. It was thanks to an inheritance from her that I had help with the children last summer, (the nanny who painted the kids and dog blue). Thanks to her, 'Love & Loss' was written.

Does everyone really have a novel in them? Rose's life story is as moving as any wartime blockbuster, but I've often wondered why she didn't write it down. What makes a writer write? It is after all a solitary business. For me, at least, writing is something as natural as breathing - I am the bespectacled kid who wrote plays for her dolls, love letters for friends to send their boyfriends, and volumes of diaries (burnt in a spur of the moment romantic gesture the night before I got married. May regret that one when I reach the purple kaftan stage). I adore books ... as we have travelled I have willingly offloaded clothes, furniture, all possessions, but the books have come with us. I love everything about the physical process of writing - paper, pens, can spend hours in stationery stores. I have to write - it's that simple. Call it love, obsession, call it devotion.