At the inn Ruby, the inn keeper’s wife and village midwife, continues her tale about the special baby she delivered one starry night. The baby receives surprising visitors.  

Nativity means ‘birth’. In the story of Jesus’ birth, one innkeeper generously relented and allowed Mary to give birth in the stable amongst the animals, the only place free of travellers. Tradition has it that two midwives were present. Now, with our modern knowledge of childbirth and hygiene, we know how dangerous birth in a stable would be, regarding infection for instance. Yet a child is born in the stable and as far as we know – safely with no harm to mother or child. I like to think of those midwives and how they might have coped with the situation.

Have you ever really thought about public war memorials – what they really mean, why we have them? The answer seems clear – to remember and honour the dead – but it’s not that simple.

Although I’ve written three books set in the fictitious village of Warren Horesby (but based on a ruined medieval village in East Yorkshire), I’m still drawn to the medieval life and the might-have-been of life there. So…I’m planning to write a story every now and then about characters other than the window makers. ‘An Imperative’ is the first. It concerns the time after the Great Pestilence when survivors had to readjust to a new way of living. My character, a woman, is facing starvation and must do something about it.

One of the characters in my third book in the trilogy of The Window Makers, Woman of Glass, says, ‘I’m aging and look back with fondness, while mystified by the present and fearing the future.’