But Armstrong made most of his fortune from the manufacture of armaments (my dad got his first job at the Vickers Armstrong plant that builds tanks) . Like most men of his time, he never saw any contradiction in this and his charitable work. To the modern eye, Armstrong was a contradiction. But Rothbury itself is a place of contradictions.

More recently, the country town has been in the news as the site of the last stand of the infamous gunman killer Raoul Moat, who died on the banks of the river Coquet where previously I had walked with my daughter and fed the ducks.

This was the first time I’d visited Rothbury since that manhunt 18 months ago. I couldn’t help thinking of the terror that must have gripped the people there as their whole town was cordoned off by police. Yet, ironically, Moat chose Rothbury because it was the place he felt most at peace.

I was thinking about this tension between war and peace and life and death as I worked on a devotional booklet for CWR called Inspiring Women Every Day. I have been commissioned to write a series on the book of Ecclesiastes. While in Rothbury, I was thinking about the famous passage in chapter three that was immortalised as a protest song by The Byrds in the 60s – Turn, Turn, Turn. (This is a 1990s version by an all-star band, including David Crosby and Roger MGuinn).

The tension between life and death, war and peace and the cycles of nature are found in much of my writing. My literary thriller, The Peace Garden, is a good example.

My thoughts on Ecclesiastes will only be published next spring, but for now, here is a taster:

Reading: Ecc 3:1-8

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” (Ecc 3:1)

I am writing this in a rented country cottage. There are baby rabbits and lambs in the fields. There are blue tits and robins building their nests and a male pheasant impressing his lady friend. Spring flowers are everywhere; the world is full of hope. The last time I was here was it was the end of autumn and birds were fewer and rabbits scarcer. A fox wandered by but didn’t stop, hurrying home before the winter snow set in.

Nature has its seasons. There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot. We also have patterns in our lives: we are born, we grow up; we die. In between we might get married and have children; we learn; we work; we retire. Each season has its own challenges.

Spiritually too there are seasons. There is a period of awakening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit; then the moment of immense relief when we ask God to inhabit our hearts.  There is the season of rapid growth as we devour the Word and enter into discipleship. There is excitement when we glimpse a potential future and the lull of disappointment when we never seem to reach it. There are the dark nights when God cannot be felt, the spring mornings when hope is renewed, the summery days when we are comfortable in his companionship and the approach of autumn when we start preparing for meeting Him face to face.

Recognising your spiritual season allows you to have grace for your soul. Do not be frustrated if you are no longer busy doing things for God when He has called you to a time of preparation or withdrawal.  But learn too to recognise when He is stirring you again to enter a new season of growth.

Father, help me to recognise the spiritual season of my life and grace to embrace all you have for me within it. Amen.

Two of these stories were written when I did my MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University. The third, Enemy Lines, was made into a short film by FNA films. It was screened at festivals in New York, Jersey, Newcastle and London. You can see a taster of the film here.

I have adapted and extended another of the stories, Another Man’s Shoes, into a feature-length screenplay. Although it has still to attract a producer, the screenplay was a semi-finalist at the Socal Film Festival in California in 2009.

But now, for the very first time, you can read the original stories as they were first written.

The Yacht Trip
Can a ghostly meeting on a remote Northumberland coast prevent a tragedy?

Enemy Lines
A soldier and a war protester change sides. Will love conquer all?

Another Man’s Shoes
It is said we all have a doppelganger. But what happens if yours is already dead?

‘Different Tracks‘: sometimes it’s only when you change tracks that you realise the route you should have taken. Download your free e-book here.

When I was 16 I got a part-time job and earned enough money to buy a second-hand guitar. I started teaching myself. I never progressed to any great level with it as the steel strings hurt my fingers and the family cats knocked it over and broke its neck (they were flippin’ lucky I didn’t break their necks!) However, I could and still do play enough to accompany myself singing – whether that’s a blessing for anyone else is still to be determined.

When I was 18 I took a full time job as a waitress. I could then afford to pay for piano lessons again and arranged to practice on the church piano. But a year later, I was off to university and living on my own so all my spare cash went on the basics. Once again, piano lessons had to stop.

At uni I studied writing for the media and drama (oh, and history, but let’s not confuse the issue). And I hope you don’t mind me confessing that I was pretty good at both. I still am. So much so that I now lecture in writing for the media and for stage and screen.  And if you check out my books, stageplays and screenplays you’ll see that I also write my own material which has been published and performed. Some people would think that was enough: I am more than blessed to have a career doing something creative.

And yet, there is still my music. Since ‘giving up’ my never-quite-started piano lessons at 19 I have continued to dabble. We have many instruments at home, including a piano and a guitar. And I married a professional musician (although he’s now a computer programmer, he still plays music as a hobby).

I tried picking up piano lessons again when I was 34 and finally had some spare cash. But then I got pregnant and after vomiting one too many times on the bus journey to my lessons, I again put them on hold.  After that there was the baby and as all parents know having a small child leaves you with very little time for yourself. But I’ve carried on playing and although I never took exams, I can play Grade 3 pieces and still enjoy having a doodle.

Then when I was 40 (yes I know darlings, I hardly look it ) I took it upon myself to ask Santa for a clarinet – an instrument I’d always loved but never tried.  Santa must have mislaid my letter so I went ahead and bought one myself. Now, a year later, I’m about to embark on my Grade 1 Clarinet exam!

Looking back on my failed musical experiments I wonder why I have continued to pursue it. Quite clearly it is far too late for me to have a serious career in music (despite the  few years I spent in musical theatre as a singer and actress – but that’s another story!) and I already work professionally in the creative arts. So why do I keep on yearning for it?

The answer is that I simply enjoy it.  When I want to calm my mind, my heart and my spirit, I play. Whether it calms anyone else’s, I’m not so sure, but it’s a real gift to be able to spend some time alone and simply express myself through music. And the fact that it is too late for me to have a career in it allows me to just enjoy it. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing very much, but there’s the pressure of meeting deadlines and maintaining a professional standard that can drain my soul rather than feed it.

So that is why I enjoy being useless at the clarinet. And the piano. And the guitar. And watercolour painting … oh, didn’t I mention that?

Well I thought this was the funniest thing and hoped all my Facebook friends would think so too. So I mentioned it in my status. As expected, loads of people ‘liked’ it and gave various LOLs and thumbs’ up. But what I didn’t expect was the number of people, while thinking it was funny, were shocked that I had confessed to it on a public forum like Facebook.  Then when I came back from holiday, someone at church told me they had laughed for three days after reading the post, but not because of what happened, but the fact that I’d ‘gone public’ about it.

Now I think that’s very strange. What is there to be ashamed of? I would be deeply ashamed, for instance, to share some moral failing on a public forum, like the time I … no, better stop there … But some dirty underwear? That’s not naughty or bad it’s simply funny.

But it got me thinking that we all deal differently with our shame. For some people admitting they’ve done something wrong or silly is beyond mortifying, for others, like me, it’s just an excuse to have a good laugh. We’re all different. And thank God for that!

There are some parallels between my own take on life and that of my fictional heroine Natalie Porter in The Peace Garden. Like the time she got caught on a string of barbed wire while hiding in a hedge and spying on a good looking boy. And if you look close enough, I’ve still got the scar to prove it

If you would like more news of my dirty underwear and other exploits, you can follow me on Facebook.