‘Don’t fuck with me fellas. This ain’t my first time at the rodeo,’ said Joan Crawford, entering a roomful of intimidating grey suits at a Pepsi board meeting. That film was a Damascene moment for me: never again would I take no for an answer, or feel like one of life’s victims. No: I’d rage and rage against the dying of the light.
Then my world collapsed: I broke my heel falling six ft off a ladder. I was disabled in a wheelchair, cursing and blinding with nothing to do. At nearly eighty, doctors decided it was too risky to operate. was too old for an operatio. Bored and housebound, I started to write my memoir, looking at a painting of myself by my late husband, the London artist Cyril Mann (1911-1980).
We married in 1960, a week after my 21st birthday, without parental consent. My Dutch Indonesian parents were horrified. It was a scandal. Cyril was a struggling, impoverished artist, 28 years my senior, living in an Islington council flat. I refused to listen to reason, even when he had a nervous breakdown and was sectioned.
For twenty years I was Cyril Mann’s muse, model and gave him the financial support he needed so that he could paint full time without distractions.
When I started writing, friends said I’d never get an agent (I did), nor a publisher (yes, I did, in fact I had a choice of two). My book ‘THE GIRL IN THE GREEN JUMPER - my life with the artist Cyril Mann’, published by Pimpernel Press Ltd, is a book with art, not an art book.
The Independent art critic Mark Hudson, who wrote the introduction, interviewed me at the Oxford Literary Festival. I gave a talk/launch at Hatchards, where ‘The Girl in the Green Jumper’ became the No 1 seller in the art, fashion and photography section in April. At a third launch on publication date at Daunt Books, Holland Park Avenue, I signed and sold 44 books, one every two minutes.
I’m a first-time writer, now nearly 83. My talented artist husband is not ‘a household name’. Not yet! Please take a look at my book. And never allow yourself to feel a victim.
‘Don’t fuck with me fellas. This ain’t my first time at the rodeo,’ said Joan Crawford, entering a roomful of intimidating grey suits at a Pepsi board meeting. That film was a Damascene moment for me: never again would I take no for an answer, or feel like one of life’s victims. No: I’d rage and rage against the dying of the light.
Then my world collapsed: I broke my heel falling six ft off a ladder. I was disabled in a wheelchair, cursing and blinding with nothing to do. At nearly eighty, doctors decided it was too risky to operate. was too old for an operatio. Bored and housebound, I started to write my memoir, looking at a painting of myself by my late husband, the London artist Cyril Mann (1911-1980).
We married in 1960, a week after my 21st birthday, without parental consent. My Dutch Indonesian parents were horrified. It was a scandal. Cyril was a struggling, impoverished artist, 28 years my senior, living in an Islington council flat. I refused to listen to reason, even when he had a nervous breakdown and was sectioned.
For twenty years I was Cyril Mann’s muse, model and gave him the financial support he needed so that he could paint full time without distractions.
When I started writing, friends said I’d never get an agent (I did), nor a publisher (yes, I did, in fact I had a choice of two). My book ‘THE GIRL IN THE GREEN JUMPER - my life with the artist Cyril Mann’, published by Pimpernel Press Ltd, is a book with art, not an art book.
The Independent art critic Mark Hudson, who wrote the introduction, interviewed me at the Oxford Literary Festival. I gave a talk/launch at Hatchards, where ‘The Girl in the Green Jumper’ became the No 1 seller in the art, fashion and photography section in April. At a third launch on publication date at Daunt Books, Holland Park Avenue, I signed and sold 44 books, one every two minutes.
I’m a first-time writer, now nearly 83. My talented artist husband is not ‘a household name’. Not yet! Please take a look at my book. And never allow yourself to feel a victim.