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| Margaret Dickinson - strong female characters |
"THANK you Grimsby!"
Back in 2015, that was the message from novelist Margaret Dickinson after revealing that, of her 20 or so titles in print, the locally-based Welcome Home - about the wartime joys and sorrows shared by two fishermen's wives - had so far been her most commercially successful.
"Its sales are just ahead of The Clippie Girls which is set in Sheffield," she told a meeting of Grimsby, Cleethorpes & District Civic Society.
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| Welcome Home - set in Grimsby |
"A lot of credit is due to people in Grimsby, not just those who have bought a copy but also to the many people who helped me with my research - they couldn't have been more friendly and helpful."
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| The novelist signing copies of her books at a Grimsby Town Hall event in 2015 |
This week, the novelist is back in the Grimsby area to publicise her latest novel - The Spitfire Sisters.
On Thursday, she will be signing copies first at Waterstones in Freshney Place, Grimsby, between 10.30am and noon, then at Boyes in Cleethorpes between 2pm and 3pm.
Originally from Gainsborough, Margaret has long lived in Skegness, having moved there when she was seven.
Aged 10, she was living at Chapel St Leonards during the devastating North Sea floods of 1953. "I'm still waiting for the therapy,"she quips.
Her first novel was published in hardback when she was 25, but then writing had to take a back seat for seven years because of family commitments, not least bringing up two daughters and helping her husband Dennis to establish a successful furniture retail business.
However, it was always certain that she would return to writing after she went out one day to buy a washing machine and came back with . . . a typewriter!
Asked which was the favourite of her titles, she replies: "It's always the one I am working on at the moment."
However, Plough the Furrow - published in 1994 - was, in a way, the most satisfying because, by being accepted and published by Panmacmillan, it fulfilled her ambition to become a paperback novelist with a presence in High Street stores.
Put simply, her formula is to build her stories around a strong female central character who lives in a specific town or city during the war or some other period of yesteryear.
The action may be triggered by an incident which she had heard or read about - and this prompts what Margaret described as the "what if . . .?" process.
She said the narrative needed to be propelled by a sense of conflict, both internal and external, to keep the reader turning the pages.
She aims to write 2,000 words a day and is slightly miffed with herself if she has not completed 10,000 between Monday and Friday because it means she has to work over the weekend to catch up.
Is there any input from her husband who is now retired? "No, the last thing I would want is for him to be peering over my shoulder, telling me what or what not to put!.
"In fact, he doesn't read the books, but he couldn't be more supportive, especially when I'm on promotional tours."
At her regular signing sessions, there are often amusing moments.
"Once a lovely gentleman gave me a bunch of yellow roses,"she recalled. "He told me it was in gratitude because the only time he was left in peace and quiet by his wife was when she was reading one of my books!"
On another occasion, a woman asked Margaret to sign a book with the words, "To Bernard", her husband, because he "loves to hear you singing".
It transpired later that the customer had absent-mindedly confused her with the Louth-based singer, Barbara Dickson!
The author revealed that she is perfectly happy with the onset of e-publishing such as Kindle "You can't be a dinosaur,"she says. "You have to keep up with changing trends or you risk being left behind."
Nor is she, in any way, "precious" about her writing. If her editor at Panmacmillan detects imperfections, she doesn't quibble about corrections or amendments being made to the manuscript. "It's important to be as professional as possible,"she insists.
The author makes a point of not reading sagas by other novelists for fear of absorbing influences which might affect her own creativity. When not researching, she likes to read crime fiction by the likes of P.D James and Ian Rankin.
Over the past three decades, Margaret could scarcely have been more successful, but it has not all been plain sailing - there have also been setbacks.
She says that, in her loft, there are seven manuscripts, all rejected by publishers and unlikely to see the light of day.
"When you think that each one took a year to write, that's quite a lot of unproductive effort," she ends.
The Spitfire Sisters
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| The latest novel from Margaret |
It is the 1930s and the Maitland family have spent the years following the Great War struggling to come to terms with its catastrophic aftermath, and their hopes now lie with the next generation.
Their Lincolnshire village of Doddington suffered terrible loss and it has taken great courage for the bereaved families to rebuild their lives without their loved ones.
When war is declared again, it is Daisy Maitland and her peers who must now take up the fight for freedom.
Feisty and a daredevil like her beloved Aunt Pips, who spent World War One on the front line serving with a flying ambulance corps, Daisy had persuaded a family friend to teach her to fly as a young woman.
Now her country is at war, she is determined to put her skills to good use, enlisting in the Air Transport Auxiliary.
There she forges new friendships - but she never forgets her childhood friend and cousin, Luke, who has joined the RAF as a fighter pilot.
As war rages in the skies and on the ground, Daisy, her friends and her family - at home and across the Channel - will find their bravery and strength tested to the very limits in their determination to save their country.
And they have learned one of the most valuable lessons of all: true love will find a way.
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