Retired librarian is now an author
Cheryl’s debut success at 69
CHERYL Missing has -penned her debut novel ... at the age of 69
FOR more than three decades, Cheryl Missing has helped run libraries across the city – now they are stocking her debut novel.
The 69-year-old retired from the Portsmouth library service, where she helped run centres in Portsea and Paulsgrove, in 2009, allowing her to undertake her life-long ambition of writing her own book.
More than a decade later, Cheryl is thrilled that her novel Oh Carole!, a family saga set in 1960s Portsmouth, is now available to buy online and to hire from libraries across the city.
The novel follows a group of teenage girls as they are forced to confront the era’s attitudes to sex, motherhood, and adoption.
Drawing on her own experience of being raised by adoptive parents without ever meeting her birth parents, as well as her friend’s experience in a mother-and-baby home, Cheryl describes writing the novel as an extremely emotional endeavour.
She said: ‘My parents who adopted me were wonderful. I was very close to them, and I put a tribute to them in my book.
‘But I think at this point in my life, I would have liked to meet her – my birth mother.
‘But she died, and I have not been able to find any brothers or sisters.
‘I wouldn’t have been able to meet her when my adoptive mother was alive - it would have upset her too much. So I put myself into the fictional character's position. ‘It was very emotional.’ Cheryl was encouraged to turn her experiences into a work of fiction after she set up a writer’s group with Portsmouth novelist Julia Bryant, a former nurse who has now written six historical novels set in the city.
Cheryl said: ‘She really inspired me.
'I was going to send the novel out to agents, but I know the market is flooded.
‘I decided to self-publish because of my age – I didn't want to spend years and years waiting for it to get published.
Oh Carole! is available to buy paperback from Amazon and Amazon Kindle as an e-book, with a second novel on it way.
Encouraging other budding writers, she added: ‘I would say to people go for it. I only wish I had started writing it when I was younger.’