Mary Webb

Hello, my name is Mary and I’m a seventy something grandmother and the most important thing in my life is my family, nothing else comes close.

I grew up with Enid Blyton.

Not literally of course. But she was the almost constant companion of my leisure hours when I was a child and to a large extent she may be said to be responsible for my love of reading.

From her stories of fairies and magic lands I graduated to ‘The Secret Seven,’ The ‘Adventure’ series and then discovered the unalloyed joy that was ‘The Famous Five.’ This intrepid quintet did all the things I could only dream of! They camped out on their own; they got involved with a circus; they spent a holiday in a horse-drawn gypsy caravan. They came up against villains of all description; had wonderful adventures; saved the day and came off unscathed.

And where ever they went and whatever scrapes they got into there was always a sixth member of the group – me – vicariously partaking of their courage, their excitement, their fear and their companionship.

As an imaginative only child, longing for a dog of my own and with very protective parents the world of ‘The Famous Five,’ was heaven on earth and I devoured these stories greedily – reading and re-reading them.

Naturally, when I had children of my own I introduced them to Enid Blyton and they too fell under her spell. And to my joy, my grandchildren love her books just as much (especially the ‘Five’ books.) Surely a testimony to her timeless appeal.

Although I have written plays, short stories, compiled murder mystery week-ends and have my own Agatha Christie website (www.all-about-agatha-christie.com), I have always wanted to write children’s adventure stories. And although I have nothing against the irreverent, somewhat earthy style of many modern children’s books – my grandchildren love these too - what I was aiming for was the style and feel of an Enid Blyton.

So with deep respect and gratitude to a prolific and immensely talented writer, I brought into being my own little army of junior crime fighters, ‘The Sunshine Sleuths;’ seven children longing for adventure and finding it beneath the cloudless blue skies of southern Spain.