Tag: #Anna's

Jane Cottle is retired but not retiring and has had an interesting life which is probably why she has a vivid imagination and enjoys writing.

Her mother ran a music hall troupe so from an early age she was singing and dancing on stage.  Her father was a politician so she got introduced to quite a few famous people and appeared several times on television.

At 17 she was offered a recording opportunity by Apple Core, the Beatles recording company but turned it down!  She wanted to study and became a teacher instead.

Her first degree was in English from Sussex university and all her working life has been in education, initially in a primary school in London and later at a school for the blind in Kent. Whilst working she continued to study at Birmingham and Canterbury universities specialising in visual impairment, physical impairment and multisensory impairment.  She has tutored both Birmingham and Cambridge universities, training teachers to become specialists in visual impairment.  Her last post was as an education manager for Kent working specifically with children and adults who were blind or deafblind.  In 2011 she won Kent teacher of the year for her work with blind students. Her work with blind people has often inspired her writing because she had to paint pictures with words for them, particularly when describing abstract visual phenomena such as clouds and rainbows. 

She has always loved writing and performing and has written several musical plays for schools and also academic texts including one on writing in Braille. Outside of work she has performed in many amateur shows and pantomimes and as a result met more famous people and occasionally appeared on television.

Jane has been married twice and is now a widow. She has one son.

When she retired she completed an open university course in creative writing and joined Write by the Sea and also Shepway writers.  She writes for herself as a hobby because she has a head full of words and just has to write them down!  She has entered a few writing competitions and has won a couple and been shortlisted for a few.  She had two stories in Ghosts by the sea and there will be a couple in the new anthology.

She doesn’t particularly yearn to be a published writer but wants to leave a legacy behind of the thoughts in her head and the person that she is.  

After her mother died Jane discovered a treasure trove of poems and plays that her mother had written which brought great pleasure to the whole family.   Jane hopes that at some time in the future someone will read her own scribblings and understand her thoughts and feelings about life in the same way.