Margaret Leroy

She grew up in the New Forest. She went to Oxford to study music, at St. Hilda's College. In her twenties she tried all sorts of things - music therapy, play-leading with children with disabilities, work in a toy shop, teaching. She also got married - and divorced. Finally she found work she really enjoyed, as a social worker: She qualified at Leicester University, and worked in psychiatry and then in child protection. It's a reviled profession but she found it fascinating: though, intriguingly, in her writing social workers are more likely to be villains than heroes. Around this time she met Mick, who is now her husband and she started writing again. She became a full-time writer after her daughter was born.