The only thing a secretarial course taught her was that she didn’t want to work in an office. Applying to do her nursing training, she was advised to write the entrance test for the three-year State Registered Nurse Course, but at 18, the two-year State Enrolled Nurse program sounded more attractive. Anyway, if she liked it she could always make up the time later, couldn’t she? How simple it all sounded.

On completion of her training, she worked for five years in a phenomenally busy Accident and Emergency Department, which she adored. However, itchy feet got the better of her and she headed off for a year in Australia with her younger sister.

Six weeks before she came home Carol met her future husband. Proof, she says, that whirlwind holiday romances can work. An extremely expensive courtship followed. Long letters, longer telephone calls, and even longer air flights, until finally they married and settled in Melbourne, Australia.

Now seemed the perfect time to get her nursing on track, and she applied and was accepted to do her Bachelor of Nursing. However, a vague feeling of nausea on enrollment day was to change all that. Surely she could combine university with one tiny baby, couldn’t she? After all, how much work could it be?

Through all of this the desire to write a romance was there and many a night was spent bashing away at the typewriter, and later the computer, but it was so much harder than it first looked and she never managed to quite finish it….

While pregnant with her second child, a brilliant storyline came to her. The first book was unceremoniously shelved and she worked hard on her masterpiece. Finally, she plucked up the courage to submit and smugly awaited its acceptance. Of course, it was rejected and, in truth, it was absolutely awful, but an encouraging letter pointing out where she had gone wrong (it was a long letter) kept the writing bug alive.

Six months after the birth of her third child, the sudden death of her father, and its painful aftermath forced her to reappraise her life’s goals. Her father had never been one to waste a moment, and realizing what a precious gift life was and with her husband’s encouragement, Carol decided to seize the day. The initial manuscript was taken down, dusted off, revamped, relocated, and rewritten and finally, after the longest time, accepted.

Now she is happy to concentrate mainly on writing, though she will always nurse. The ambition to do a Bachelor of Nursing has been replaced by a desire to do a Bachelor of Midwifery and she is awaiting the implementation of the course in Australia. She remains quietly confident that she can somehow combine family, writing, study, and nursing. After all, how hard could it be?

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