Pentapus (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781412092722)

I lived in a home where the television didn't work if the sun was shining and with a father who had a story for every occasion. I was a dreamer, surrounded by books, words and stories. My Mum always used to say, 'So many dreams, they only need catching!'

My love for words carried me through school and on into teacher training and a degree in English at Cambridge University. From there I became a primary school teacher and spent six rewarding (and exhausting!) years, teaching eight year olds.

My own real life fairy tale began when I met and married my Fijian husband. I gave up teaching, left my childhood home and family and moved to Tasmania in Australia. We spent five very happy years there and were blessed with our first son, Tim.

On the eve of the new millennium, we moved back to my husband's homeland and started to build a new life for ourselves.

Life in Fiji has brought me something new and indefinable. Without many of the conveniences and pressures of life in the western world, I have had to look within and use my own resources to their best advantage. Although I am the busy mother of three young boys, I have found the space to think and my love affair with words has returned a hundred-fold.

I may have stayed a frustrated dreamer, if it hadn't been for two people ... my mum and Jim Hodges, a Trafford author himself. When my mum died recently, I realised that I owed it to her to finally try to catch one of my dreams. Jim encouraged me and showed me how easy it could be with Trafford.

So, mental butterfly net in hand, I set about catching 'Pentapus' and putting it down on paper for my boys.

If I needed any further motivation, I found it in Tim's growing talent for drawing. I hope that 'Pentapus' may be the beginning of a dream for him.

'Pentapus' is our gift to my mother and Tim's brothers, Jioji and Harry. If it brings pleasure to anyone else, that will be an added bonus.