ANN CLEEVES

VERA Stanhope grew out of late summer walks through the Northumberland countryside. My books often develop this way.

Vera reminds me of the formidable spinsters I knew when I was a child. I was born in the mid-fifties and there were women who’d been given roles and responsibilities during the war, which would have seemed impossible a decade earlier. They went on to be authority figures: teachers, childcare workers, hospital matrons. They’d decided they’d rather be single than housewives. I didn’t see Brenda Blethyn, who has played her on screen since 2011, in my head during those walks. My Vera was bigger, odder to look at, less appealing. She still is, though it is Brenda’s voice in my head when I’m writing and she captures the essence of my detective chief inspector in the fictional Northumberland and City Police. The TV series happened by chance. My first Vera book, The Crow Trap, was published in 1999 and I still needed a day job to survive. Then a copy was picked up for a holiday read from a north London Oxfam shop by a woman heading off to Spain. Nothing unusual about that, except Elaine Collins was an executive for ITV Studios and looking for a series with a strong female lead to adapt for the popular Sunday night drama slot. She went on to produce both Vera and my Shetland series and I still think of her as my fairy godmother.

●●Ann Cleeves will be interviewed by Steph McGovern on July 23 at the Theakston Old Peculier CrimeWriting Festival. Her new MatthewVenn novel The Heron’s Cry is published on September 2 by Pan Macmillan