Maggie Campbell

Margaret Campbell grew up in Manchester at a time when the city was still on its knees, post-war. She can just about remember the end of rationing! After decades of working as a seamstress in factories, once her children had grown up, Margaret retrained to be a midwife – a career she adored. She now lives in a cottage that overlooks the rolling Pennines where she writes, grows rare dahlias and keeps chickens.

(She is actually also the pseudonym of best-selling, award-winning crime-writer, Marnie Riches, but Marnie assures us that Maggie was her paternal grandmother's name and that Maggie Campbell's life story and experiences are a good amalgam of both grandmothers and also her own mother, who read sagas compulsively for her entire adult life.)