Gail Lockwood and her Imaginary Agony Aunt
For fifty-something Gail Lockwood the new millennium starts with redundancy. Her to-do list reads,
‘Get a job.
Pay off the suite.
Do roots and nails.
Get a man and get laid.’
Not easy when her boss, the flamboyant Bradley Jones, has jetted off to Spain, and the job centre has nothing for a woman whose only qualification is a Brownie badge.
Gail finds herself unemployed and firmly sandwiched between her eccentric mother and her problem daughter, Tamsin, a single mother who always seems to need last minute babysitting. But as she navigates through the job market, her mother’s suspicious new boyfriend and an accident that brings her old boss back into her life, Gail starts to realize that sometimes, the most important things in life can’t be put on a to-do list.
Will Gail be able to navigate the ups and downs while still achieving everything on her list?
Lynne Hackles
Lynne Hackles has been writing for many years. Her short stories have appeared in women’s magazines in the UK and abroad. She has regular features in Writing Magazine and has had a children’s novel for pre-teens and four non-fiction books published. She has also ghosted a book. Lynne is a creative writing tutor for a correspondence course and has led workshops and given many talks.
Until the first lockdown she was of no fixed abode as she and her husband had been travelling for three years all over the UK in their motorhome. After all the campsites closed they lived on a friend’s drive for seventeen weeks before moving into a house and selling Bill, their beloved motorhome.
Lynne is known for her sense of humour and has been told she should be doing stand-up comedy. She says she knows there is a difference between comedy and humour and she can’t stand up for long due to a life-time back problem.
Back in 2007 she appeared on Deal or No Deal and was described by Noel Edmonds as having warmth, colour, energy and positivity. He also thought she was a little crazy as she gambled between 10p and £75,000. She won the big money.
Author portrait © Lynne Hackles