As Val launches her 27th book, she shares insights on lockdown life and dancing days
AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR ISN’T SLOWING DOWN ANY TIME SOON
THE pen of award-winning East Yorkshire novelist Val Wood is seldom still. The Beverley-based author has just released her 27th book, Children Of Fortune, but has already made considerable inroads into her next work.
“I can be quite exhausted by the end of a day, writing does take up a lot energy,” said Val, whose historical romances are collected and cherished across the globe, “but I am better being busy, it makes me feel alive.”
The impact of Covid-19 has been felt by Val, however, the “strangeness” of lockdown hampering the usual flow of creative juices.
“It’s been a really strange time,” she said. “At the beginning of this year, somehow the ideas wouldn’t come. It wasn’t just me, a lot of authors and other people have said the same.”
Nonetheless, Val was able to triumph over the adversity and has brought Children Of Fortune to fruition.
It is a sprawling historical work set in 1864 East Yorkshire and, focusing on three siblings, grapples with themes of family duty, honour and freedom.
It carries forward the story of Beatrix, protagonist in her 2020 work The Lonely Wife.
Val said: “I thought I’d use what I already know. When I got into it, I found I really enjoyed it, watching these children grow up into adulthood and seeing their quirks and personalities coming out.
“With a sequel, however, you have to be sure everyone can read it and understand it as a standalone book.”
Val is delighted that she will be able to reunite with her fans in person this year for the launch of the book, albeit with Covid security measures in place at Hull’s Waterstone’s store, when the Lord Mayor of Hull was expected to be in attendance.
“For last year’s launch of my book, The Lonely Wife, I asked two actors from East Riding Theatre
if they would be interested in reading a couple of the first chapters of the book for a virtual event and it was just brilliant. I cried as I watched it because they were bringing the book to life.
“It was a first and really different and really lovely – it received lots of hits.
“This year, I expect there will be many of the people who come year on year to my signings, I have missed them. Some travel from all over to attend and I think that’s wonderful.”
Val’s 27th novel since she brought out her debut work, The Hungry Tide, in 1993 - it won her the Catherine Cookson Prize for Romantic Fiction – has been dedicated to her late friend and mentor, Hull author Daphne Glazer.
“Daphne was inspirational,” said Val, who was coached in her writing by Daphne during the 1980s.
On learning of Daphne’s death earlier this year, Val said at the time: “She was perhaps more of an influence on writers over the years than she would ever have imagined. I still have a
notebook with Daphne-isms.”
Val said: “I followed Daphne around for about ten years. She taught us that you can write a story about anything, any object, and it reminded be about how I used to write about ‘my life as a penny’ or ‘my life as a dog’ at school.”
Covid has also affected Val’s socialising –“I don’t feel like I have been very far at all in the past couple of years” – but she has had her daughter’s cat for a sleepover, she said, and managed to get away for a week to Jersey for a muchneeded break with daughter Catherine and Catherine’s partner John.
“I sat on my balcony overlooking the sea and enjoyed the peace and quiet,” she said.
“I don’t take anything to do, my tablet stays at home. I love Jersey and its slower pace of life.”
Back in the day, Val used to take part in exchange visits to Holland and still corresponds at Christmas with one of the Dutch family members she has known since her teens.
“I went over to Holland a few times and they came over here. I used to try to speak some words of Dutch, but they just used to laugh at me.”
Val, who also has another daughter, Ruth, also revealed she was something of a dancer in her youth.
“It wasn’t like Strictly, that’s show dancing, but I did enter competitions and I got all my ballroom medals. I went for lessons with Dorothy Chester in Beverley Road, in Hull.
“I loved dancing and still would now, but I don’t think my legs would let me.
“I was a model as well,” revealed Castleford-born Val. “My mum said, would you like to be a mannequin, which is what they called models then, and I got to wear all these nice clothes.
“I’d go to Leeds to the Queen’s Hotel and walk around with a book on my head, learning deportment.
“When I left school I worked for the House of Mirelle (a highend fashion business in Hull). I remember the New York Ballroom, in Anlaby Road, where they would hold two fashion shows a year and there would be the orchestra playing and we’d be walking along the platform wearing all these lovely clothes. I was the baby really, then, and the orchestra would play Ain’t She Sweet. I loved being there and doing that, I must have been a show-off, really.”
The pandemic has also seen Val return to a pleasure of years gone by – baking her own bread.
“I always liked my garden and growing things to cook and I’ve always liked baking; my granny baked her own bread in her range.
“I don’t have any scales, I just guess the amount of flour; bread needs a good hot oven.”
She compiled a collection of traditional Yorkshire recipes into a book, Mrs Scryven’s Yorkshire Pye, in 1996, for which daughter Catherine and Val’s late husband, Peter, created the illustrations.
The Sunday Times best-selling author, who had her face beamed on to the buildings around Queen Victoria Square as part of the Made In Hull light and sound show that launched the UK City of Culture celebrations in 2017, is hoping she might get back to a carol concert this coming Christmas, another gathering she missed last year.
“I usually go to St Mary’s in Beverley,” Val said.
As for her next book, she’s concentrating on a poverty theme, she says.
“I haven’t got a middle or an end yet,” said Val. “I think people like to read about poverty, it makes them feel better about themselves.”
Daphne Glazer taught us you can write a story about anything, any object Val Wood