In which Ruth writes a novel

I don’t know how many books I’ve read in my life, but I can tell you, it’s probably in the tens of thousands. Maybe more. At primary school, it quickly became clear to everyone that I would always be a stranger to the intricacies of maths, the last to be chosen for the netball team and not exactly the life and soul of the party either. I was a shy, unsure child, prone to gazing out of the window and missing the vital instructions issued by the teacher. One thing, though, was totally up my street. I remember sitting at home aged around four while my mother read me a story. It was a large print version of Little Red Riding Hood and I can still remember laughing uncontrollably at the picture of the wolf in retreat (why do children find bottoms so funny?) and then being surprised as the black squiggles on the page re-arranged themselves into words I recognised. There was no stopping me after that.

Sitting in Mrs Hubbard’s class at primary school with a huge number of other short people (we were the baby boomer year), I wrestled with sums and getting all the new rules of school right (no boots in the classroom, no crowding in the Wendy house) but felt right at home with the letters of the alphabet displayed on the wall. D was for duck and there was a cheerful looking mallard, like the ones on the duck pond on the village green, illustrating the fact. Books with lots of pictures and a few easy words were handed out and I raced through them.

From about this age, when a grown-up would bend down and ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would announce, “I am going to be a writer.” Since I was a complete bookworm, this was no surprise.

Primary school finished. I was overcome with emotion on that hot summer day in 1977 and sobbed all the way home. I didn’t stop crying until it was tea-time and cried myself to sleep that night. Something new and scary was coming and I didn’t fancy it much.

None of my friends went to my new school. Seven of us from our enormous class (forty-five sounds about right) had gone to this one, but everyone else had scattered to other high schools. Some of the boys went to Davenant, the faith school up the road, others to the boys’ grammar which was linked to my new school, yet others to West Hatch in Chigwell, a smattering to Epping and Ongar Comp and some to Lucton Boys and Lucton Girls. Back then, there was quite a choice.



School wasn’t great, but one saving grace was the library. Like a literature-hungry locust, I chomped my way through Junior Fiction and started wading through Senior Fiction aged around 12. I could escape from my feelings in there, from the ever-growing suspicion that I didn’t fit in, was no good at anything (apart from English) and was in fact a bit of a waste of space. I stocked my mind with humour, fiction, fact, history, and anything I could lay my hands on. Most lunchtimes, I could be found in the library devouring a book. Looking back, I can see that I was filling my mind with stories, writing techniques and narrative which would stand me in good stead in later life. At the time, reading was an escape from a life which was absolutely no fun at all.

I left Essex in November 1984. I ended up in Exeter, a place which I will always love. There I found people who I still count as dear and valued friends. I started to carve out a life, discover new things, explore. Reading was still my all-time favourite thing. I was always broke, but I’d amble round second-hand bookshops and come home with a carrier bag full of tatty paperbacks. Did I write? No. I had left that childish dream far behind.

In 1993, I got married to a Buckhurst Hill County High School boy and found myself back in Essex. My new job involved boarding a Central Line train every morning, walking through the streets and squares of Bloomsbury (including Gower Street, used as Baker Street in Sherlock – fun fact) until I reached the vast, brutalist concrete structure inhabited by the Department of Psychology at UCL. I loved that job. My boss had just become Head of Department. We hit it off at once and spending my days in a place which was dedicated to learning (plus plenty of recreation after hours, mostly in a pub with sticky carpets which served doubles for £1 on Friday nights), my writing mojo stuck its head back over the parapet.

One day, I was chewing the fat with one of the girls from Educational Psychology on the floor below us. She was doing a master’s degree. I expressed interest and mentioned that I had vaguely thought of doing an English degree myself. We were surrounded by places of learning. UCL covered a fair bit of ground in Bloomsbury, we had Senate House Library next door, Birkbeck a stone’s throw away plus various other establishments. If you really wanted to expand your horizons, this was the place to do it.

Sarah encouraged me to have a go. “Look, you’ve got a really supportive boss, loads of resources on your doorstep and nearly everyone in admin is studying something. Why don’t you give it a try?”

So, I did. I filled in a form with a pen (something we used to do in the olden days) and submitted it to the front office at Birkbeck. A letter arrived the next week inviting me to come and sit an exam. Three thousand other people had had the same idea as me and looking around the hall at everyone scribbling away, I asked myself, “What are you doing here?”



I looked down at the exam paper. Words I knew well leapt off the page. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 1984! Good old George Orwell and his dystopian view of the future. I was off, covering page after page with answers. In due course, another letter arrived telling me that I was through and inviting me to write a piece based on anything I chose. It could be journalism, fiction, sci-fi, romance, in fact any genre I fancied. I thought long and hard. It had to be something that not many people would think of. I plumped for a Martha Gellhorn short story called “Ruby.” I couldn’t read it now, having had the children. It’s probably one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but on a hot summer’s day, with a notepad balanced on my knees, it seemed like just the job to get me in.

Which it did. Result! There were one hundred and twenty places available on the course and they’d whittled the original three thousand people down to three hundred or so. The next letter invited me to visit the English Department where I would be interviewed by two lecturers. This was getting serious. My boss was his usual chilled out self about the whole process. He wished me luck and told me to take as long as I liked. I turned on the answerphone and marched out on to Bedford Way to make the short trip to Birkbeck.

Arriving in the Department, I inhaled the smell of books and knew I was home. Suddenly, I realised that I wanted this more than I’d ever wanted anything. My name was called, and I found myself in something resembling a moderately spacious broom cupboard occupied by two women. One was clad in a flowing velvet outfit, had long blonde hair and a soulful face. She, it seemed, was a specialist in medieval literature, about which I knew virtually nothing. The other was wearing more modern clothes and was an expert in the field of Old English. I was stumped.

The whole thing was a blur. After fifteen minutes or so, I was ushered out of the cupboard and emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. Back in Psychology, my friends clustered round asking me how it had gone. I genuinely didn’t know, but when yet another letter arrived, I ripped it open to find that I’d been offered a place. I was ecstatic.

Birkbeck is part of the University of London but specialises in offering courses to people who work full-time. I’d do a day’s work in the Department then amble over to Birkbeck two nights a week and soak up lots of lovely, delicious, delightful learning. I loved every minute and made some wonderful friends. Some of the other people on the course were already published writers. I was in awe of them.

I graduated after four years, then left UCL to go to a job at a firm of patent attorneys on the edge of the City. Five years of hard work, a steep learning curve and some speedy character development followed. Again, I was fortunate to meet some lovely people. In the summer of 2003, I departed, expecting my first child. Still not a writer.

Years passed; stuff happened. We were expecting child number two and wanted to move. In the autumn of 2006, with a three-year-old and a six-month-old baby who had recently given up sleeping through the night, we moved into our new house. Looking back (and my apologies for the length of this blog – I may not be posting again for a little while, so look on it as buy one, get one free), I can see that all those millions of words I’d devoured over the years were sitting in the header tank at the back of my brain patiently waiting for a chance to come out.



Life in Wickham was, and is, a rich tapestry. I met people at the toddler groups, in the doctor’s, at preschool, in the park, in the nursery corridor. We nursery mums were pushing babies in prams, juggling recalcitrant toddlers, toting new pregnancy bumps, and carting bags full of nappies, wipes and biscuits around with us. Fourteen years spent at the primary school with three children, a stint running Thursday toddlers, various church activities and general socialising means that when I walk or drive into Wickham, I will absolutely one hundred percent run into someone I know.

In 2008, pregnant with child number three, I was sitting at Ipswich Hospital waiting for a scan when my phone rang. It was a friend from Essex who worked at a large Christian charity who were looking for a freelance, part-time writer to assist the editor of their magazine. “I kept reading the ad,” she said. “I knew it reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who. Then I read the phrase, ‘must be nice, but pushy’ and I realised it was you.”

Naturally, three months pregnant and with two little boys, no family near by and a long history of taking on too much, I jumped at the chance. I got the job and that was the beginning of my writing career. Aged forty-one. It had been a long time coming. I wrote for Stewardship and learned about turning in a certain number of words to a deadline, creating engaging content and coaxing good stories out of interviewees. Then I got another freelance job, then another and another. By the time lock down hit last year, I was in the best position I’d ever been since I went self-employed. It had always been hand to mouth, and sometimes not even that, but in March 2019, I was feeling confident that my freelancing career was really going places.

At the end of March, as lock down restrictions were announced, I watched as one by one, many of my clients shut their operations down and cut back on their spending. I still had some work, but not a huge amount. What I did have was lots and lots of time. I was writing a weekly blog which felt great. I was contributing to a monthly one for the Association of Christian Writers. I wrote and I wrote, and I wrote, and people said nice things.

One day in February last year, I was sitting with my laptop on my knees gazing out of the window (old habits die hard) and chuckling to myself as I formulated my April blog for ACW. I do like to write funny and I thought that the world could probably do with a few more laughs. What if I invented a person who made their living by posting aspirational content across social media platforms? Someone who was an expert at angles, lighting, content and strategy? Someone, in fact, who was the opposite of me. What would she be called?

I thought hard. She would be smug and therefore her name would have to reflect that. A rich, posh woman – Isabella. Yes, that was a good name and gave me the, “I” in “I Am Smug.” Middle name Mary. Last name Smug. “Isabella M Smug.” I pondered it. It didn’t look quite right. Suddenly, I typed two extra letters and suddenly, there she was. Isabella M Smugge, as in Bruges.

I entertained myself by writing the two opening paragraphs. I made them as far from my life as possible. My imaginary woman was musing on her perfect life, her weed-free garden, her gigantic Georgian house, her glittering writing career. I grinned as I posted it and thought no more of it.

I got some great comments. People seemed to like my monstrous creation. In May, I wrote a much more serious piece, but I put Isabella in again. I found that she had something to say. Still, she was two-dimensional, not a real person, simply a device.

That was on 7th May this year. Lots of people I liked and admired, all writers, said that they would like to know more about the world of Isabella M Smugge. A couple suggested she might make a good heroine for a novel. I was flattered but knew that I could never write a novel.

The message which changed the direction of my life came in at eleven minutes past two that day. I was on the veg patch with Mr Leigh, clad in ancient clothes with my hair in plaits, stumping around with a spade and smelling richly of compost. In my defence, we had just put up a poly tunnel and were composting anything we could lay our hands on. My phone pinged. After five minutes or so, I pulled it out of my pocket. Tony Collins, a fellow member of ACW had messaged me.

“Hi Ruth. If you want to work up a proposal for Isabella, I would be pleased to take it to some publishers for you. I am working as a freelance commissioning editor these days. Feel free to contact me.”

I forgot I was a respectable middle-aged matron of the parish and let out a shriek, dropping the spade and bounding over to Mr Leigh, engaged in watering in his seedlings. There was much excited yelping. I took some deep breaths and replied in an enthusiastic yet measured manner. It’s important to note that I had no idea what I was talking about. I hadn’t written fiction since my primary school days. Back came the reply. “Perhaps two sample chapters, given that the tone is of particular importance with humour. I look forward to hearing from you.”

Giddy with excitement, we bounded over to the house like a pair of spring lambs. Tea was made and I was encouraged to sit down, open my laptop and get writing. That was on the Tuesday. By Friday evening, the two chapters were written, and Isabella had turned into a real person with a life, ambitions, deeply buried sadness and a very bad hashtag habit. I hit send and waited to hear back.

I’m going to stop there, since most of you have probably nodded off by now. Isabella is out there. This week, she’s been delivered all round Wickham, Ufford, Melton, Hollesley, Kesgrave, Martlesham and Campsea Ashe. Packages containing her and her merch have gone all over the UK, to the USA, Australia, Norway and France. That little girl, bent over a book about a talking wolf, turned into a woman who has had the most exciting, joyous, thrilling and downright bonkers week of her life. And none of it would have happened without the journey I’ve just described to you.



Isabella was written in Suffolk and she’s of the place. From the minute she pranced into the playground in her designer clothing looking down on everyone, she burst into life. Words cannot express my gratitude to everyone who has taken the time to read her and tell me what they think.

I can now say, “I am a writer” and truly believe it. I wouldn’t be a proper one if I didn’t finish with a quote from someone else. Anton Chekhov in this case. I haven’t read much Russian literature[1] but I really liked this. “Don’t tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

It’s been six days since Isabella arrived. What a journey.

Images by Pixabay.

Ruth is a novelist and freelance writer. Her childhood dream of writing a real book came true and now she can hold that book in her hands.




























[1] Hands up, I only read Dr Zhivago in my teens and it was really hard.

Don’t Squeeze Your Bag

We moved from Essex to Suffolk fourteen years ago, leaving a metropolitan area on the edge of London to come to a hamlet surrounded by fields. Some of the first people I met were my immediate neighbours.

Pretty soon, I found that these ladies baked, made jam and went blackberrying while still managing to work and bring up a family. I felt a touch inferior, the city girl who used shop-bought crumble mix and didn’t know a crab apple from a bullace. My mum had always made jam and chutney, the cupboards filled with neatly labelled jars of preserves. Shop-bought jam never made it on to the table in our house. I had neither the time nor the energy for such goings-on, but once we moved, I began to change.

It was a slow process. I had my work cut out looking after three little children, getting to grips with school and working from home. I cooked from scratch most nights, but I took short cuts too. At toddler group, we’d sit and laugh about what our children were eating that night. My speciality was, “Doigts de poisson avec sauce tomate.”

Time went on. The children grew. By 2013, we were applying for a high school place for our eldest. That September, I popped round to a dear friend’s house in a neighbouring village. I walked into her kitchen to find her wrestling with a large piece of muslin and a pan of bubbling apples.

“Give me a hand with that muslin,” she said, tying a knot in a long piece of twine. We hung it up over a large bowl and she poured the apple mix into the muslin bag. I had no idea what she was making.

Over coffee, she told me it was apple jelly which she’d finish with strips of chilli. “You should try it. You don’t even have to peel and core the apples.”

That sold me. By now a fully paid-up member of the bish bosh bash school of home cuisine, such an easy process appealed to me. I bought a book (The River Cottage Preserves book – excellent) and got to work. I chopped up piles of apples, stewed them with water and strained them through my newly acquired muslin. Satisfyingly, the pulp would drip gently into the bowl, a tranquil backdrop to the frenzy of visiting various school open evenings and wrestling with complex application forms. I was incredibly proud of my first batch and so began my love affair with preserves.

I branched out, making jelly with bullaces, crab apples, medlars, raspberries, blackberries and herbs. Bent over my pans, inhaling fragrant steam and stirring the bubbling mix, I felt like an alchemist, turning fruit into a beautiful, clear, set jelly.

After a couple of years, I had several preserves books on the shelves. All of them gave the same warning. “Never be tempted to squeeze your bag or your jelly will go cloudy.” I never did, although it was hard, watching the slow progress of the juice through the muslin and longing to hurry it up. Like so many things in life, there was a golden rule and breaking it would have led to a spoiled batch.

This autumn, I’ve experimented with different types of hedgerow jelly, all of which have turned out well. My outhouse is full of jars of gleaming ruby, blush pink and deep orange jelly. I love making it, but it has a bittersweet edge.

My dear friend died suddenly at the end of August a few years ago. The grief which hit me felt like an Atlantic breaker, roaring towards me and knocking me off my feet. I cried for months, woke up from dreams in which I found it had all been a mistake and she was still alive, saw books or earrings or scarves that were perfect for her birthday and then remembered with a jolt of pain that she would never wear them again.

It took about two years before the worst of the anguish subsided. I realised that I had to go through it, not around it. I began making jelly again, always remembering her as I stirred, strained and tasted. One day, three and a half years later, I sat down and wrote a poem about her. It just came out. I didn’t even have to think about it. Here it is.

Apple Jelly

“I remember that day so well. September, apples rosy on the trees.

Leaves just starting to turn. The smell of woodsmoke in the air.

I popped round for coffee, as I so often did then.

And there you were, making apple jelly.

The sharp smell of fruit in the air, the sound of bubbling from the stove.

Quick cutting with your sharp knife, pips and stalks and leaves intact.

You flung open the cupboard door to reveal treasure within.

Jar after jar of clear gleaming apple jelly, chilli-jewelled and glowing.

“It’s easy. You should try it,” you said, smiling as I held the muslin bag for you,

Apple pulp dripping luxuriously into the waiting silver bowl.

“No peeling or coring, just cut them up and chuck them in. Boil vigorously.”

We both laughed, liking the idea of a really good vigorous boil.

You had less than three autumns left. Neither of us knew that day.

If we had, my tears would have dropped into the apples and ruined the set.

My sobs would have drowned out the sound of laughter, the scent of coffee.

You were still well, your years uncounted and no end date in sight.

Like that sharp knife quartering the fruit, your days were numbered.

Like the sugar boiling with the fruit, our memories were sweet.

Like the glorious autumn colours, it was all over too soon.

Too soon.

Since then, every year I harvest the apples and forage for fruit.

I line up the chutneys and jams and fruit jellies.

I gaze into the bubbling, fragrant, vigorous boiling and see you as you were.

Smiling in your kitchen, generous, kind, loving till the last.”

She left a wonderful legacy behind her. I wish I could have her over for coffee again, to chat about how the children are doing, wander over to the veg patch and try some of my jelly. But I can’t. That time is gone. I suppose, like the jelly, my memories are composed of the sharp, bitter bite of apples and the sweet unifying taste of sugar. Sour sweet. But never cloudy.

Images by Pixabay

Ruth is a freelance writer and novelist. She is married with three children, one husband, four budgies, six quail, eight chickens and a kitten. Her first novel, “The Diary of Isabella M Smugge” is coming out in March and she has another work in process. She writes for a number of small businesses and charities. Ruth is a recovering over-achiever who is now able to do the school run in her onesie most days. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life.