Jane Gardam
Jane Gardam
Jane Mary Gardam OBE FRSLis an English writer of children's and adult fiction. She also writes reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empirein the 2009 New Year Honours...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth11 July 1928
potter seemed sensible soon
I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.
chekhov country ethic hardy life
English country life is more like Chekhov than 'The Archers' or Thomas Hardy or even the Updike ethic with which it is sometimes compared.
fear knew nearly
I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn't going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped.
While writing a novel, I don't read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed.
bored cases children far man maybe
For years, there was no man in the house when my husband was off on law cases in the Far East. Without writing, I would have been bored and unfaithful, maybe both, and the children would have been hideously over-protected.
bit changed discovered hope indeed loving nice though
I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.
began child elizabeth genius great morning novelist until victorian wife youngest
Only a great genius like the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell can be mother, wife and novelist without solitude. I couldn't write until my youngest child went to school, and then I began - the first morning - and I've never stopped.
tremendous
Mum was a tremendous Anglo-Catholic. Very impressive, actually. She made me go to church for years - I still don't want to because of that.
I hate the idea of sequels. I think you should be able to do it in one book.
absolutely children empire taught
When I was young and the empire was beginning to disintegrate, the idea was absolutely unbelievable, particularly to children who'd been taught that the sun never set... that's what all my books are about, the end of empire.
best novel somewhere sure won wrote
The best novel I wrote was one called 'Crusoe's Daughter,' which never won any prizes. But I was getting somewhere in that. I'm not sure I have in any of the others.
children my-children happens
I gave myself to my children. It happens to some women.
country archer ethics
English country life is more like Chekhov than The Archers or Thomas Hardy or even the Updike ethic with which it is sometimes compared.
thinking young-writers influence
I think the most dangerous influence for a young writer is to be treated with cynicism or discouragement.