The youngest of four children I was born in London in 1955 and grew up in a small country village in Bedfordshire. I have always loved the countryside and I have a great passion for wildlife. It was at the age of around 11 years that I realised I wanted to become an artist and I had a choice between art or acting and art won. Having made this choice I was on a mission upon leaving school and embarked on a two year foundation course at Barnfield College. Upon leaving college I lived in a studio apartment in Wapping, East London and I suppose you could say that I did the ‘bohemian artist’ thing. I had already built up a successful relationship with a gallery called the Curwen Gallery who gave me my first one-women exhibition in the 80s. I also won a few awards – 'The Lloyds Young Printmaker of the Year' and the 'Elizabeth Greenshield award' which allowed me to paint for a year. Throughout all of this in the 80’s I was lecturing and doing other various jobs to support myself and my art. However, although it made me realise just how hard it was to earn a living I was still only interested in painting full-time, I knew that I did not want to lecture full-time or do any other job for that matter – painting was my passion and still is!