My interests divide between a fascination with the historical background to our everyday lives – the way we run our homes and bring up our children, and the food we eat - and with literary geography: the settings that inspired writers I love. As a result my live is a wonderful balance between domesticity and venturing out and about. I’ve written nine books on these subjects. The best known are Dream Babies: Childcare Advice from John Locke to Gina Ford and Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint’s Trunk (which resulted in my becoming Executor of the Arthur Ransome Literary Estate). I have also written a biography, Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur’s Chronicler. Writing this led to a deep fascination with the fifteenth century, and I'm currently writing a fifteenth century history mystery about Alice Chaucer (which may or may not work), and a new book for Frances Lincoln: Arthur Ransome At Home and Aboard.

My books brought me a parallel career: that of being a journalist,  and broadcaster, using their subject matter as a springboard to writing diary and opinion columns in such newspapers as the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Times, and documentaries for radio. I also review books and audiobooks, and I have had three audiobook anthologies published.