Bel Mooney

(From official website)As someone who has worked right across the media, I ‘meet’ the widest range of people through my books for adults and children, journalism and broadcasting. And I love it – especially my latest metamorphosis into an advice columnist, first for The Times and now for the Daily Mail on Saturdays. Believe me, there’s no complacency when I say I am blessed with a terrific life. It hasn’t all been easy. But I guess nobody’s life is…and why should it be?I was born in Liverpool in 1946, where home was a flat in a low-rise estate called The Green, on Queen’s Drive, near Broadgreen Hospital, where I was born. I went to Northway Primary School and then passed the 11+ to go to Aigburth Vale Girls’ High School. This was old-fashioned state education and it served me very well indeed.Then when I was 14 my world was turned upside down by a move to the South-West of England, to Trowbridge in Wiltshire. That’s when my beloved, hardworking parents obtained their first mortgage, on a three bed-roomed semi. It was such a step up in the world! I went to the local girls’ grammar school and tried to learn a new accent, in order to fit in. It wasn’t easy. But maybe writers should never really fit in…When I left school I went to University College London, and in 1969 gained a first class honours degree in English Language and Literature. In 1968 I married my first husband, the broadcaster and writer Jonathan Dimbleby. We met in our second year (he was a philosophy student) and married in a whirlwind after knowing each other just four months. Our marriage was a real meeting of minds and was to last for 35 years, until 2003. Jonathan is one of the best, most wonderful people I have ever met. Still.When I graduated I expected to go back to Uni and do a PhD as invited by my department, but I was seduced down the primrose path of journalism, and have never regretted not writing that thesis on Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Anyway, I am now a Fellow of UCL and hold honorary degrees from Bath University and Liverpool John Moores – so, if I wanted, could dip my toe into university life once more.My first job was on the now-legendary magazine NOVA, which was very exciting, as it used some of the best writers, photographers and designers around. I was Assistant to the Editor, then a feature writer, then contributing editor. After that I had a contract with the Telegraph Magazine, contributed to the Sunday Times, Guardian etc, and was a regular with the New Statesman, under the inspiring editorship of Anthony Howard. Later still I wrote columns variously in the Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, the Listener and the Daily Mirror.In 1974 Jonathan and I had Daniel, then in 1975 our second son Tom was stillborn, and in 1980 we had Kitty. At that time we moved to Bath and I began another career as a broadcaster, making programmes for radio and television. I also began to write fiction, starting with ‘The Windsurf Boy’ (1983) and then the first ‘Kitty’ book, ‘I Don’t Want To’ (1985). In 2005 I began a new strand of my career, writing a weekly advice column for The Times, and in 2007 I took that column to The Daily Mail.In September 2007 I married the photographer Robin Allison-Smith. We live in Bath with our small white dog, a Maltese called Bonnie (of course!) We like doing travel pieces together and riding around on Robin’s Harley-Davidson ‘Fat Boy’ and dancing to the 1972 Wurlitzer and eating and drinking and going to the theatre and hanging out with friends and with Dan and Kitty. Robin and I have set up a company ‘Moon Media’ which offers photography and words, sometimes together. Contact www.robinallisonsmith.co.uk to discuss possibilities. We are also co-owners of a boutique ski chalet in the French Alps, so if you are interested in a wonderful holiday (beautiful in summer too) www.broski.co.uk.