JILL LANCHBERY
A Bucket of Ashes
Although born in Nazeing, Essex, Jill considers herself to be a citizen of the world. As a small child, shortly after the end of the Second World War, she emigrated to South Africa along with her parents and brother and sister.
This set the pattern for a peripatetic lifestyle which has taken her to Central Africa, Nigeria, and Indonesia; Northern Ireland, Staffordshire, Kent and Sussex.
Jill was the stereotypical scribbling child, fascinated from a young age by 'words on paper' she excelled at reading and writing.
An early marriage, four children and a husband whose job took the family all over the world meant that her formal education was curtailed.
However she considers that what she may have missed out on in terms of 'pieces of paper' was compensated for by the abundance of experience she gained along the way.
She was a grandmother - and what she describes as a 'late developer' - when she attended the University of Sussex, where she studied creative writing and English literature.
Jill later went on to qualify as an EFL teacher specialising in Business English and she has taught both in the United Kingdom and in Spain.
It was a family trauma - the death of her second daughter Alison in 1988 in tragic circumstances - that made her re-evaluate her life and was the catalyst for her writing.
Since then she has had articles and short stories published in periodicals and anthologies and been placed in several international short story competitions.
She was for many years an active member of Hastings Writers Group and is featured in their new anthology Diamonds.
She now lives with her husband, Peter and two dogs, on the Costa Blanca in Spain and has no plans to leave!