Location: Colchester
Jane Allison
Born in Pontefract, where the liquorice comes from – I even had a vacation job at the factory! I studied for O and A levels at the Girls’ High School and participated in school drama productions there. Leaving school, I chose to attend the new University of Sussex, which enjoyed some notoriety during the 1960s. I benefitted greatly from a glorious three years there. Having spent a year out before university, teaching in a tough primary school in Pontefract, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I took the Cert Ed in English at Durham and went on to teach English at several schools. However, I took 8 years out when my children were born and then returned part-time until I finally got a full-time post as an English teacher at Garstang High School in Lancashire. Four years later we moved to Durham. My husband’s career as a Methodist Minister involved us in several moves to different churches during these years and we ended up in Colchester in 2005. It was then I finally retired from teaching and began writing the story that I had been meaning to write for many years.
