Hello everyone – my name is Mary Collingwood Hurst, and I have had seven books published so far – I do not have a genre as I am a fairly eclectic writer putting down on paper whatever comes into my head!

I have been passionate about writing all my life and started making up stories in my head when paralysed from the neck down with polio at the age of four and very lonely in an isolation unit for months. My imagination was my friend!

My first book for adults was Green Smarties tales of a Navy wife which covers my story of twenty years married to a Royal Navy pilot. This meant living in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, and contact with Special Branch and other unusual events, ending up being bugged by MI5 so is a non-fiction mixture of both social and Naval history.

The second book is a novel based on my own experience with a child with leukaemia and the research I took up as a result.

The Nellie and Sybil Sagas are just light relief but based on true stories about two elderly ladies and the antics they get up to.

There then follows three books – fantasies about an island in a bottle I found in a junk shop. Aimed at helping anyone and particularly today’s younger folk who are going through various traumas with mental health issues although there is no age limit.

The latest book in that series The Lighthouse in a Bottle has just been launched and is available on Amazon and can be ordered through bookshops along with any of the other books.

​Find out more about me here.