Julia Jones, formerly also known as Julia Thorogood, is an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
writer, editor, book publisher, aged-care advocate and classic yacht owner.
Early life
Julia Jones was born in
Woodbridge, Suffolk
Woodbridge is a port and market town in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is up the River Deben from the sea. It lies north-east of Ipswich and forms part of the wider Ipswich built-up area. The town is c ...
in 1954.
[biography page]
on Julia Jones' personal website, golden-duck.co.uk, viewed 2011-07-08 When she was 3 years old, her father George Jones bought the wooden sailing
ketch
A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch fr ...
''Peter Duck'', a yacht originally commissioned and owned by children's novelist
Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...
and named for a character in
one of his novels.
[Setting sail on Arthur Ransome's boat](_blank)
on ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' website, viewed 2012-10-13 This nautical connection with Ransome, along with numerous
pony book
Pony books, pony stories or pony fiction form a genre in children's literature of stories featuring children, teenagers, ponies and horses, and the learning of equestrian skills, especially at a pony club or riding school.
Development of genre
...
s, helped to shape a lifelong enthusiasm for books.
Writer and publisher
Jones opened a bookshop in
Ingatestone
Ingatestone is a village and former civil parish in Essex, England, with a population of 5,365 inhabitants according to the 2011 census. Just north lies the village of Fryerning, the two forming now the parish of Ingatestone and Fryerning. Ing ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, which she then developed into a small-scale local publishing business, reissuing a Second World War autobiography by crime writer
Margery Allingham
Margery Louise Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English novelist from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", and considered one of its four " Queens of Crime", alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.
Alli ...
.
[ Jones's interest in the Allingham family grew; she researched Margery Allingham's life and wrote a biography published in 1991. Jones has also studied the fiction writing of Margery Allingham's father, ]Herbert Allingham
Herbert John Allingham (1867–10 January 1936) was an English editor, journalist, serial pulp fiction writer, husband of writer Emmie Allingham and father of crime novelist Margery Allingham.
Early life
Herbert John Allingham was born in Ke ...
.[
In 2006, while working on a PhD on Herbert Allingham, Jones decided to become a writer of adventure stories like the ]Swallows and Amazons series
The ''Swallows and Amazons'' series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in En ...
of Arthur Ransome she had read as a child.
Aged-care advocacy
In November 2014, Jones and co-founder Nicci Gerrard
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard (born 10 June 1958) and Sean French (born 28 May 1959), who write psychological thrillers together.
Personal lives
Nicci Gerrard and Sean French were married in 1990. ...
set up an aged-care advocacy group, John's Campaign, to promote extended visiting rights for family carers
A caregiver or carer is a paid or unpaid member of a person's social network who helps them with activities of daily living. Since they have no specific professional training, they are often described as informal caregivers. Caregivers most commo ...
of patients with dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
in hospitals in the United Kingdom.
Personal life
Jones has five children. She was previously married to Chris Thorogood; in 2019 she married Francis Wheen
Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.
Early life and education
Wheen was born into an army familyNicholas Wro"A life in writing" ''The Guardian'', 29 August 2009 and educated at two ind ...
, a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is deputy editor of ''Private Eye
''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...
''.[Nicholas Wro]
"A life in writing"
''The Guardian'', 29 August 2009
Bibliography
Books by Julia Jones:Julia Jones page
on Amazon.com, viewed 2011-07-08Strong Winds series
The Strong Winds series is a series of children's books written by English author Julia Jones. The books reference many of the settings and characters of the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. The books use adventure stories about ...
:
** ''The Salt-Stained Book'' (Strong Winds vol. 1) June 16, 2011
** ''A Ravelled Flag'' (Strong Winds vol. 2) November 1, 2011
** ''Ghosting Home'' (Strong Winds vol. 3) July 2, 2012
** ''The Lion of Sole Bay'' (Strong Winds vol. 4) October 7, 2013
** ''Black Waters'' (Strong Winds vol. 5) July 2, 2015
** ''Pebble'' (Strong Winds vol. 6) November 15, 2018
* (edited/published) ''Cheapjack. Being the True History of a Young Man's Adventures as a Fortune Teller, Grafter, Knocker-Worker, and Mounted Pitcher on the Market-Places and Fair-grounds of a Modern But Still Romantic England'' by Philip Allingham, republished July 1, 2010
* ''The Adventures of Margery Allingham'' March 2, 2009
* (writing as Julia Thorogood) ''Margery Allingham: A Biography'', October 14, 1991
* (published) ''The Oaken Heart: The Story of an English Village at War'', by Margery Allingham, re-issued 1988 and March 3, 2011
* (edited/published, as Julia Thorogood) ''Yesterday's Heroes'', by June Jones, January 1, 1986
References
External links
Author's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Julia
1954 births
British children's writers
Living people