Rosalind Winter

I was born in Shillong, Assam, in 1948, and brought up in Warwickshire. In 1969 I received a Bachelor's degree with First Class Honours in English Language and Literature from Bedford College, University of London, followed in 1971 by a Master's degree with Distinction in Early English at Queen Mary College. I taught taught Early English for a year at University College, Cork, before being awarded my PhD in 1974 for a thesis on Beowulf.

A diverse career included working for the British Council, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Aston University, and the National Trust. I also served for ten years as an officer in 67 (The Queen’s Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry Signal Squadron) (Volunteers). The final highly enjoyable fifteen years of my working life were spent managing the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Medical Committee and the South-West Regional Association of Local Medical Committees.

I took early retirement in 2006 for family reasons, and began writing my Rooks Ridge series of comic novels. The first book in the series, Ready, Steady, Dig! was published in 2008, followed by a sequel, Gnome or Mr Nice Guy, in 2010, and I am currently working on a third, provisionally entitled The Curse of the Corvos. A book of short stories for children, The Mice of St Goran, was published in 2011 in aid of the St Goran Bell Fund. In 2015 I edited my Mother’s memoirs, Plucking the Moon from the Bottom of the Sea: The Life and Times of Audrey Winter. I have also edited and published two novels set in the English Civil War by my friend, the late Lesley J Nickell, Butterfly: Painted Lady (2013), and Butterfly: Mourning Cloak (2016).

My latest novel, Heorot, is a serious prequel to the Rooks Ridge series of comic novels.

I now live in Stratford-upon-Avon, where I am a member of the Parish Team of All Saints Church, Luddington, and Deputy Chair of Stratford in Bloom.