Rachel Beresford-Davies

Rachel Beresford-Davies is a lapsed nutritionist but successful fudge maker living in the south of England with her husband, two sons, two dogs, a cat and three chickens. She grew up in Hong Kong, spent her twenties in London and is now living the good life in glorious Hampshire. She has a number of qualifications although she has never really used any of them, preferring the journey over the destination. She has discovered, rather late in life, that writing is all she wants to do, and does so as often as she is able. She draws inspiration from the everyday and often mundane observations she makes in her everyday and often mundane life.

Rachel started writing about ten years ago, after entering a short story competition for parents run by her children’s school. She was pleasantly taken aback, both by winning the competition and by how much she enjoyed weaving her story from an everyday event. She has since been published on the short story websites ‘Literally Stories’ and ‘Words for the Wild’ and in the print anthology ‘In the Kitchen’ published by Dahlia Books.

Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why?

A: Probably E.M. Forster. His writing is as near to perfection as I think I’ve ever read.

Q: What is the first book you remember reading or having read to you as a child?

A: The first book that made a big impression on me was Rebecca’s World by Terry Nation. I borrowed it from our tiny school library when I was nine, and probably read it four or five times before returning it. The characters are brilliantly described and it has the perfect amount of ‘mild peril’ for a nine-year-old. I completely identified with the main character, Rebecca, and felt like her compatriots in her adventure were members of the family. Genius. I of course read it to my own children (more than once), and they read it themselves when they were old enough, and loved it almost as much as me. And they’re boys.

Q: Who is your personal inspiration?

A: My parents – my father was in the army and he and my mother had a globetrotting married life together, producing four children along the way. There’s an entire encyclopaedia of stories in them.