As a child I was fascinated by stories of the North. I mean the Far North, the place of reindeer and polar bears, of icy wildernesses and the eerie Northern lights. This was the realm of ice witches like the Snow Queen, a role I relished playing on our school stage. The North of Ireland was my birthplace. But at the age of six I became a migrant so journeys figure too. When my family moved to the North of England, I exchanged the fox–haunt of Fermanagh lanes for the cobbled backstreets of Bolton in Lancashire.
My sister tells me I was always making up stories for them to be in. I had two brothers and two sisters – so a cast of thousands really. And playground games turned into plays my teachers let me stage for the whole school. My Bolton primary school, St. Osmund's, was a wonderful place, alive with music and art. The headmaster, a fiddle player himself, once suggested I should grow up to be a writer. Which is where I am now, dividing my time between the 'day-job' of teaching and the professional day–dreaming of the writer's trade.
Those imaginary journeys can take you to extraordinary places. In 2007, with help from Leicester University's Radio & Space Plasma Physics Group, I was able to visit Arctic Norway. There I met a Saami reindeer herder, fed the reindeer and visited an auroral research base in the mountains. And finally, on a freezing star–flung night, I got the see the Northern Lights for myself.
With the help of friends from the Leicester Writers' Club, a community of writers I belong to, I later created a show using lights, costume, music and images to evoke the magic of the North. Once again, I was a storyteller enjoying the buzz of a live audience. And I continue to relish the interplay of page and stage as I explore new directions.
Meanwhile every morning in my study, the 'white expanse' beckons...