I was fourteen when my life took an unexpected twist and I became a fully-fledged member of DAD’s, The Didsbrook Amateur Dramatic Club. I had been coerced by my Mother to audition for the part of Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz. She had already been cast as Glenda and Edna Fowler as the Wicked Witch of the West, but the real stars of the show turned out to be me, and the children from Didsbrook Primary who played the parts of the Munchkins.

The director of DAD’s production of the Wizard of Oz was Jocelyn Robertshaw.  I hadn’t really seen her since the day she caught us by the trout lake, apart from at a distance when Tom and I went swimming in the pool at The Manor. I was on stage having just finished singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow and was squinting into the spotlight trying to see who was sitting with my mother in the stalls.  A woman stood up, clapping enthusiastically.

‘Bravo, young lady!’  Then, turning to my mother.  ‘Joan Fothergill! You didn’t tell me your daughter sings like a nightingale and can act the socks off the entire DADs membership.  Gosh, how time flies, young lady.  The last time I saw you was by the lake wearing a pair of pink knickers.’  My cheeks turned crimson and I heard my mother mutter,  ‘what lake?’

‘Lucy, dear, welcome to the fold, welcome to DADs!  The part of Dorothy is indisputably yours!’

‘She’s a writer too, Joc.  She’s won some prestigious competitions.’  I remember being mortified.  How could my Mother tell a multi-published author that I’d won a few school writing competitions and make it sound like I’d won the Booker Prize?

‘If she writes anything like as well as she sings and acts, she’ll be a member of the Didsbrook’s Writer Group before she can say, Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. Thank you, Lucy.  We’ll see you at rehearsals on Monday eve.  Right… time to crack on, who’s up for the part of the cowardly lion?’

It was at that moment Jocelyn Robertshaw became one of my teenage idols, alongside One Direction and the Jonas Brothers.  I also made becoming a member of the Didsbrook Writers Group one of my fourteen-year-old self’s lifetime writing goals. I was in awe of Jocelyn, who was not only the founder of DADs but was also the founder and doyenne of this revered body of home-grown writing talent.