Biography

Janet was born and grew up in the North East of England when soot, formica and winkle pickers were all the rage; when it was actually compulsory to smoke on buses and packets of crsips used to have blue twists of salt inside them.

Her education was something she can’t talk about without getting variously annoyed, upset and outraged.

She spent many years oscillating between Scotland, where she felt more comfortable culturally and politically, and the South East of England where there were better employment opportunities. She now lives in London.

She worked for many years in post-16 education as a practitioner, manager, trainer, inspector and consultant, but has always felt compelled to write. Now, writing is her top priority. Her first collection of short stories, ‘The Map of Bihar and Other Stories’ was published by Circaidy Gregory Press in 2019, and her second collection has been accepted by Fly on the Wall Press for publication in 2021. She is working on a third book, and has completed a play based on the short stories and vignettes of the remarkable Indo-Pak writer Saadat Hasan Manto.

She shared 45 years of her existence with the composer, Naresh Sohal, and has travelled widely in India. She is a long-standing practitioner of yoga, which she also teaches.

The first set of photos show what was once the site of Lambton Coke Works, a particularly nasty invasion of giant hogweed near Chester-le-Street,  the Durham – Sunderland Railway as was, Wear floods on the periphery of the Lambton estate, July 2009, Durham City at twilight, the instructions for winding a pit cage safely in the shaft and, bastion of bastions, Durham castle.