Why do you write about animals and farm life? Have you lived on a farm?
I do love animals, but I've never lived on a farm. As a child I spent a lot of my time on a farm with my cousins in Yorkshire. I always wanted a horse or sheep and dogs, but of course I couldn't have them. When I got older I did get a dog. My dog Tess was the model for Speckle in Home Farm Twins. Sadly Tess died a while ago. I loved horses very much as a child.

Is this why you wrote about Half Moon Ranch?
Yes. I love horses, but I was quite a late developer as far as riding was concerned. When I was researching the Half Moon books, I learned to ride in England in six weeks before going out to Colorado. I needed to be able to ride to make the characters in the story believable. The ranch is based on a real ranch called the Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado, which is at the foot of the Rockies. It's great fun riding there!

Why did you choose twins as the main characters for the home farm twins?
I chose twins deliberately to introduce humour into the stories. A lot of funny
things can happen in the stories because people muddle them up. Also there are
twins in my mum's family.

Are the TV series twins as you imagined them?
The twins are not at all how I imagined them, but they are very good and lovely girls. Sixty sets of twins auditioned and they were by far the best. They live on a farm in the south east and they love animals too, so I'm very happy with them.

Do you write on a computer?
Yes, always. It's far more flexible; I can re-jig paragraphs and it still looks neat on the page. My daughter Eve helps me with my research and downloads information from the Internet for me. When I am working I sometimes put a notice up saying DO NOT ENTER, as I really need to be focussed on what I am writing.

What are your ambitions?
My ambition is to carry on writing and maybe develop some ideas for TV - but that is in the future.

Information supplied by Hodder Children's Books