Homespun talent (From Stroud News and Journal)

Homespun talent

"I SEE MYSELF as everyone's mother," said novelist Katie Fforde, talking at her Rodborough home last week.

And after being welcomed into her overflowing household and warmly introduced to her two sons, daughter, husband, family pets and foster dog, I can quite easily believe her.

Katie Fforde the famous author is inseparable from the maternal Katie Fforde at the heart of the community - with ties to local schools, businesses, shops and leisure clubs.

She moved to Stroud in 1981, and, among other roles, has worked in the town centre, sent her children to Archway School, helped out with Brownies, attended Minchinhampton dance classes and is now a member of a Cainscross singing club, the Thames Head Singers.

Katie, who will be 50 this year, is very much a home-grown celebrity.

Her eight novels, the first loosely based on her job at Mother Nature, Bedford Street, Stroud in the early 1990s, have been distributed across the world and translated into German, Dutch, Italian, French and Polish.

Last week she opened the Stroud Valleys Visual Arts Festival and she spent Saturday afternoon signing copies of her new book in Stroud Town Bookshop on the High Street.

But instead of living in the remote author's retreat I expected, Katie's house is in the heart of Rodborough, where she looks after her big family while working on her latest story.

"Most people know me for a reason other than my writing," she said. "So I don't feel like a celebrity.

"I don't think I've changed since being published." Katie's first book was Living Dangerously, which opened in a cafe inspired by Mother Nature.

She took a job there ten years ago after moving to Stroud, and she would work from September to the middle of July, then take a break to look after her three children during their school holidays.

She wrote the essence of Living Dangerously in just six months - after trying for eight years to write a Mills and Boon novel - and was almost immediately successful.

"Meeting the publishers was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life," she said. "I had typed the book in my bedroom and printed it out on an old Amstrad.

"Seeing it with a proper cover in the hands of all those people felt like my dirty washing was being aired."

Katie and husband Desmond, who will celebrate their 30th anniversary this year, moved to Stroud from Wales with their two young sons.

Desmond was in the merchant navy when they first met, when Katie was 18, and they travelled the world in his ship before settling down with their family.

Katie, and Desmond were introduced by their mothers, who were old friends. They met in France, and spent two weeks on holiday with friends in a farmhouse.

"We met in the Dordogne," said Katie. "It was very romantic.

"Everyone there was teasing us that we had fallen in love.

"I didn't know it was love, but I was aware something momentous had happened." After they were married, the couple toured Europe and the Americas with Desmond's job, paying visits to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Central and South America.

"We saw the Panama Canal, which was amazing," said Katie. "And we spent four or five days in Argentina in 1977.

"I remember being quite aware of the tension. "There were lots of armed police, and there were certain sides of the road which you weren't supposed to walk on."

The Ffordes continued travelling through Katie's first pregnancy with eldest son Guy. She entertained herself at sea with embroidery, helping out in the bar and arranging the library while her husband was working.

"I also wrote a diary," she said. "But it was the most boring document I've ever read. "I was suffering from morning sickness, and I just used to write things like, was sick... or not sick..."

After Desmond left the navy, the pair ran a catering business on hotel boats - which later inspired one of Katie's books.

Their first house was in Wales, where they lived for three years with their babies, Irish wolfhound and pet hens.

Katie admits to being a big animal lover. "My favourite things are cats, dogs, and sitting around drinking gin and tonic," she said. "Desmond loves boats, but I'm not so keen on them."

The couple decided to move to Stroud because Katie had fond childhood memories of holidays with a friend in Birdlip.

"I remember taking a train aged 10 or 11 all through the Golden Valley," she said. "It was really beautiful, and I thought, I want to live in Gloucestershire."

Though Katie was brought up in London, she feels most at home in Stroud. "I think you're either a country person or a city person - it doesn't matter where you were born," she explained.

"I do love this area, and it suits us very well. "I like the landscape, and the people."

Katie lives with sons Guy, 24, Francis, 22, who spends term-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he is studying Tibetan and Comparative Religions, and daughter Briony, who is nearly 20.

Guy and Francis have been Buddhists since they were teenagers. When Guy was 18 and Francis 16, they both moved out to a Cheltenham Buddhist centre. Francis stayed there for three years, until he decided he wanted to do A levels.

"I think Buddhism is a really good way to live by," said Katie.

"It's very against feeling angry. You are supposed to think of every living creature as if it were a reincarnation of your mother, so you have to treat everything as if it were your mother. "I'm not sure what effect it's had on me, except I've stopped killing ants, and I think of myself as everyone's mother.

"But I'm not sure I believe in anything, really."

Katie's philosophy in bringing up her children was to allow them to develop their own personalities without any formal punishment at home.

"I'm a very laid back parent," she said. "Idle, really.

"All I asked my kids to do was to be nice to other people and not to drop litter. "I think I succeeded."

Eldest son Guy studied English, Media and Drama in High Wycombe. He now works at the Cotswold Chine home school.

Katie and Desmond have just bought a 75ft Dutch barge that they plan to keep in Isleworth, near Canary Wharf, for their children to live on in London.

The boat sleeps eight and has a cabin for the parents to stay in when they visit the city. "Francis already lives in London so it will save us some money if he lives on the boat," said Katie.

"And I'm sure the others will want to move there in the future so it's a good investment." In the meantime, the family remains at Rodborough.

Desmond works as a self-employed marine surveyor and Katie is currently on the ninth chapter of her ninth novel.

Her ambition is to have one of her books made into a film. She would also like to travel to South Africa and South America.

"And one day," she said, "I want to live in a tidy house."

Katie's latest novel, Highland Fling, follows the story of a virtual assistant - a PA who never meets her boss, but communicates via email - who is sent on an assignment to the romantic wilds of Scotland.