View Reviews of books by Sarah Hawkswood
Countdown with ...
Sarah Hawkswood
Sarah
Hawkswood describes herself as a wordsmith, who is only really happy when
writing. She read Modern History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, taking Military
History and the Theory of War as her special subject.
Her
first job was writing educational material for Salisbury Cathedral and her
first published book was From Trench & Turret: Royal Marines Diaries and
Letters 1914-1918, which was a labour of love because her father, grandfather
and great-grandfather all served in the Corps.
She
turned to fiction when her children were in their teens and an empty nest
loomed, and says that ‘her boys’, Bradecote, Catchpoll and Walkelin, have
become so much part of her life that they are effectively real, just
non-corporeal.
Her pen name is that of her six times great-grandmother. Sarah is married, with two grown-up children, and now lives in Worcestershire, which makes writing the Bradecote & Catchpoll series easier when planning their adventures. When not writing, Sarah has a passion for dressmaking (without the awful time pressures of the Great British Sewing Bee) and is a keen birdwatcher.
Website: http://www.bradecoteandcatchpoll.com
Interviewed 26 March 2022
Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...
Salisbury Cathedral, civil servant, military historian, weapons cataloguer, mother, novelist.
Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...
A small bust of the Duke of Wellington, my William IV ladies’ writing desk, a teapoy, the Severn valley, my current cup of tea, a bunch of red wooden tulips from a Dutch friend, my fountain pen, a reel of purple cotton, and a wooden model of a brig, made by my father, in its glass case.
Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?
Buckwheat pancakes with scrambled egg, a tomato and grated cheese on top.
Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...
Sir David Attenborough, the first Duke of Wellington, Sir Terry Pratchett, Ingrid Bergman, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, Sir Michael Caine, Bill Bailey.
Six things you can't live without ...
My close family, tea (loose leaf), music (classical/film), hedgehogs, paeonies, the song of a blackbird.
Five favourite words ...
Pusillanimous, vandyking, clunch, macaroon, aardvark.
Four places you'd run away to ...
Ganges, Vancouver Island; the Lofoten islands; Stokesay Castle, Shropshire; Porto.
Three books you've bought recently ...
Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead; Down to Earth by Monty Don; The Story of the Country House: A History of Places and People by Clive Aslet.
Two things that make you rant ...
People calling English ‘British English’ (it is the one form that does not need a qualifier).
Garlic in food that really does not need it (since I have a strong intolerance to it) – it is becoming ubiquitous.
One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...
Worry less (still applicable).
