Born in India in 1946, Henrietta Branford tried several jobs before becoming a writer. She maintained that one of the nicest involved working in a market in Florence, Italy.
A regular visitor to schools, henrietta found that children gave her many brilliant ideas for stories, but she said it was hard to find time to get any of them written down. Most of her stories grew from voices and one or two pictures in her head.
The people in Henrietta Branford ‘s books are all based on people she met or heard about, and the places are all real too. She did once go to a convent, and she was taught for a term by someone like Valburga Vilemile (in the ‘Dimanche Diller’ series). She used to live in the New Forest and ride a pony very much like the one ‘Dimanche Diller’ rode on her pony trek. His name was Hightown Thunderbolt. ‘Dimanche Diller’ never went to school at all, but Henrietta went to at least eight. Even so, she claimed she never quite learned to spell.
Henrietta lived in Southampton with her partner, the photographer Paul Carter, until her death on 23 April 1999 from breast cancer. They had three children.
