Pelham is from the UK and at 72, she started blogging and writing. She started because, in her own words, “I was left sick and somewhat disabled and quite frankly, bored!” A young friend called Lauren encouraged her to write. Lauren “sat at my new laptop, (a present from my brother) and said ‘Okay say the opening lines and I’ll type it for you!”
Unable to argue with her about the senselessness of my writing a novel, I came out with a ridiculous sentence, now discarded. Two pages later she left and I read what I had dictated. Six weeks later I was still thumping away; when my hands were too sore, I used a pencil to hit the keys.
Now a year later the first three stories are out as an e-book thanks to a friend who told me about VDU publishing. I am nearly finished with the next three stories. I know the storylines are original and quite funny, but the new ones are more serious.
Today I have a great sense of achievement, in spite of the fact that I don’t have a degree, I failed the 11+ and had to sit OL English 5 times. Ironically, this was all due to the fact that as a left-handed person, I was forced to be right-handed and the resultant word blindness still affects me. I have to rely on spell check and even that can let me down. (A wonderful lady called Lynda is my fallback over my spelling mistakes. She also checks my punctuation as eyesight problems mean I cannot see even the full stop.)
The late Pelham’s story shows the power of many things—encouraging others to find their gifts as both Lauren and Lynda did for Pelham, pushing past difficult barriers and obstacles, and refining your gift as you move forward in it. She was an encouragement to many.