About me that is.
Sketchy, I suppose unless you know me personally. Even then I don't give much away. I've only recently learned to boast and sell myself!
My mother always told me,1) don't tell anyone about yourself, 2) don't trust anyone, 3) be polite and open doors for people,4) be a good kind person, 5) don't go with strangers. 6) do not have sex until you are married. 7) Dress smartly, look respectable.
1) I blog, sorry Mum, wherever you are now.
(she died at the age of 46 from anorexia).
I tell people what I do, can do, have done, will do.
With regard to my writing - I have written since I was fourteen, my first short story was published in the teen mag Jackie. In my twenties I took a Writing for Pleasure and Profit course. I wrote articles/short stories for Woman, BBC's Ariel Magazine, and poems and recipes for inclusion in various mags and papers. I attended the BBC's Script to Screen Writing Course, and the BBC Creative Writing Course. After that I was published on-line for the first time on the BBC's brand new BBC Website contributing an article on their "Sense of Place" page. I have always written, diaries, day books, to do lists. Currently, I have just finished writing '1955' a detective novel set in Scotland Yard. Out on Amazon soon.This is in addition to my other nine books already on my author page. My Hilary Long Compilation of Mysteries will be out in paperback after being proof read - so not long now.
In the 1980s I won a BAFTA for my camerawork at the BBC. I am still a pretty good photographer.
I can make authentic looking 17th Century clothes, I can make most sorts of clothes, I'm working on a Jane Austen dress at the moment.
I'm a great cook, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st Century - as long as it's not fish - I'm very allergic - I can do most things - and later this year hope to have a 17th Century Cookbook out.
I also paint and draw, having had a painting given a "second pass" at the BP Portrait awards in 2015, which made me very proud.
2) Don't trust anyone. I really should have listened to my Mum over this one. An actress friend I had known for years suddenly turned into a vicious stalker. The police got involved because she spread rumours about me that could have lost me my job, and my husband his job. She caused a rift between me and my son by telling him I only wanted to go to his wedding to stop it. That rift still exists. She followed me into my hobby The Sealed Knot and
destroyed my reputation there. I still don't know what she said about me, but friends I had known for years crossed the road to avoid me. It has taken me five years to recover. The woman police officer called it "mind rape." That's certainly what it felt like. I still don't know why anyone believed her rubbish.
3)Yes, I do Mum. I am polite when required, and never let a swing door shut on anyone.
4) Be a good kind person. Anyone who is a friend knows I will help where I can. Hospital visits, in the past lending money when I had it, (stopped that now as no-one has ever paid me back!) Having get togethers and parties in lovely places to have fun with my friends, raising money for charity, I've raised thousands over the years. Volunteering my time to answer phones for Children in Need, and baking cakes to sell for Movember (a man's prostate charity). Supporting the Salvation Army and the Blue Cross and the Cat's Protection League. I can and do help, and try to be a good kind person.
5) Don't go with strangers. This has saved my life on more than one occasion! I was walking home from work when a man pulled up in an expensive car and shouted at me
"Get in the car!" I kept walking, he followed me in the car, "Didn't you hear what I said?
"Get in the car." Me: Plenty of swearing at him, then walking towards a beat copper coming towards me - phew that was lucky! The man sped off.
6)Do not have sex until you are married. Mum was a Catholic, sex was a sin to her. Even sex after marriage, I think! So I was inexperienced, and had to buy the best seller 1970s book The Joy of Sex. I was worried that my new husband didn't have a bushy beard like the illustrations! Still I sorted it out - as you do.
7)Dress smartly, look respectable. I can do this sometimes, but I prefer to have a big choice.
When I was fourteen to sixteen, I was a Mod and a Rocker, depending who I was going out with at the time. Then I became a hippy, I loved the flowing dresses and the flared jeans with flowers painted on them, the long hair. Loved it all. When I was a camerawoman, lived in jeans and bowling shirts in the summer and jeans and jumpers in the winter, crawling over floors and hiking up pups,redheads and blondes (lights) on the rigging didn't exactly require smart clothes. Now I wear what I like, be it; Goth, Hippy, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th,20/21st century.
If you read all that you'll know me a bit better now. I keep busy. I'm not a stand still type of person - so now I'm off for Easter. Have a lovely Holiday everyone. Speak later.xx
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