Members of Keighley-based Airedale Writers’ Circle gained some welcome hints and tips from crime writer Frances Brody, guest speaker at the July meeting held at the Blind Institute near Keighley Library.

They also learned – and not for the first time – how difficult it can be for aspiring writers to get themselves into print.

Writing came to Frances at an early age although, it seems, she wasn’t at first aware of it. “When I was a child, it didn’t cross my mind to be a writer,” she said. “I just told stories, wrote bad verse and pantomimes. Acquiring 30 pen-pals should have given me a clue. I had to hand on some of them to girls at school because of postage costs!”

At 18, she bought a portable typewriter and began writing a novel, but ran out of steam after the first 30 pages.

Meanwhile, her fortunes blossomed in other directions. Frances found herself living and working in Manhattan at the age of 19, and enrolled on a writing course at New York University. On her return to England, she won a place at Ruskin College, Oxford, from where she went on to read History and English Literature at York University.

Her first break came writing stories and plays for BBC Radio, while her novel Somewhere Behind The Morning won the Harper Collins Elizabeth Elgin Award.

But it was probably the Kate Shackleton crime mysteries that brought her real fame in her own back yard.

Frances said: “The series began with a picture of a man trapped behind a high wall, unable to return home. Someone needed to discover who and where he was.”

Along came Kate Shackleton, sleuth extraordinaire. Set in the 20s, the novels exude the grit, rain and windswept landscape of Pennine Yorkshire.

Time spent in Bradford provided Frances with a valuable insight into the woollen industry for the first in the series, Dying In The Wool. Her fifth Kate Shackleton novel – Murder On A Summer’s Day – will be published in October.

For would-be authors, there was plenty of sound advice in store. “What you don’t know is what you’ve got to find out through your work – discuss it with other people,” Frances said.

And, perhaps most of all, Kipling’s words of wisdom about his six honest serving-men: their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. All solid stuff, making for a most enjoyable evening.

The next meeting of the Airedale Writers’ Circle will be on Tuesday at 7.30pm, when members will read from their favourite books and explain their choices. The meeting after that will be on September 10, when the poet James Nash will be our guest.

Visit http://airedalewriters.btck.co.uk/ for further information about the group.