Celia Boyd - First Dry Rattle

It's wonderful how someone you've known for years can suddenly surprise you.

I first knew Celia through the Hay Arts committee - she resisted being chair, but was a driving force while I was secretary. She was instrumental in organising several fund raising concerts (including a Gilbert and Sullivan evening in which she played one of the Three Little Maids From School - not one of Hay's finest theatrical moments). She talked of being an actress in her youth, playing roles such as Shakespeare's Mistress Quickly.

I had no idea she was a published author, until today, when I walked past Pemberton's. This is the only shop in Hay that sells new books, and half the window was taken up with advertising for Celia's new book, First Dry Rattle, the first in a trilogy about the English Civil War, following a young surgeon called Thomas Fletcher. It's set in Worcester, and leads up to the battle of Edgehill - the title is taken from a Kipling poem about the battle, and describes swords being drawn.
She's also written a children's book called Young Ravens, set in the Second World War, and First Fashionings, Social Conditioning, which is Georgian.
She's even contributed to the Cambridge Guide to Children's Books.
Now she's working on the rest of the trilogy about Thomas Fletcher.