Tucked away in a cardboard box in my bedroom, is a little collection of stubby notebooks, where, in a round hand, a solemn little girl scrawled down the countless stories that were running through her head. Almost since she could talk, she had told them to her little sister lying side by side in bed, till the audience rolled over in sleep, - or some grown-up slipped in to tuck down and silence the teller. Then came the marvellous introduction to books, and the entry into wonderland. Fairies and knights and dragons, giants and beasts, they crowded her head, and pushed out the simple "family " tales that had gone on so long from night to night. Strange fancies came which could not be put into words, the stories they made could not be told aloud, they came lying awake in bed, or, most of all, in the strange darkness of church where, on Sunday morning, crushed between two adults, she sat gazing at backs and listening to the far-away murmur of an unseen preacher taking the congregation through an endless Service. It was too disturbing for dream when they jumped up and down and sang, but when the congregation settled back and left it to the unseen voice to talk alone, it was peaceful and pictures came thronging. There were Grimm's fairy-tales -- sometimes she wished she had never read them, and at other times she could not keep away, but came back with a shuddering fascination to the horrors of "the Robber bridegroom." 

'Then they tore off her dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body in pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it.' 

How the words stuck, how the gruesome picture they conjured up stayed in her mind. Up there, in the dark corner over the pulpit, was the table laid out, and the maiden on it . She wasn't dead -- death meant nothing but a name at that time -- she was being mutilated, her beautiful limbs chopped off to satisfy a raving dragon. Perhaps, I hazarded, she was doing it voluntarily, to save be other maidens -- one week he demanded -- perhaps, oh, a glow of hope, the limbs would grow again. That was it, and in that form the story crystallised; an knew that she had this magic property, and she offered herself as the saviour of the country . Week by week the story grew, and always in the dark corner over the pulpit was the scene set. 

I wonder sometimes if I ever visited that old church again, if I should see it-- the dragon-defying maiden,stretched out, naked and beautiful above the pulpit. 

Soon I realised that there were secret dreams stories, and public ones,and the urge to create got hold of me. The earliest of the books I cherish is entitled "Our Little Folks Own Picture Book", and is drawn up as an illustrated magazine. It has a crayoned cover representing a strangely shaped mother in - mauve ad green presenting a copy of the magazine to a delighted daughter of tubular appearance, whose white pinafore comes within an inch of her ankles. Proudly across the bottom run the words:"Printed by Susan." This publication which, designed to be issued monthly ran, as is the way with such efforts for two months. is carefully ruled with lines from end to end, on which in round pencilled writing are inscribed stories, riddles verse and here and there, coloured pictures. Certainly, there is little sign of artistic genius here, and the literary efforts, though a notable achievement in perseverance for eight and a half, have very little distinction. One gem arises in the course of a story: "It would take too long to tell you everything they did going, so I will not." a piece of self-restraint that many modern authors might copy.