Sue Limb (born 1946,

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town and unparished area in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 35,842. History Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce peopl ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

) is a British writer and broadcaster.

Biography

Limb was born in

. She studied Elizabethan lyric poetry at

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sid ...

and then trained in education. While her first published book was a biography of the Antarctic explorer Captain

Lawrence Oates Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates (17 March 188017 March 1912) was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died from hypothermia

co-authored with

Patrick Cordingley Major General Patrick Anthony John Cordingley, (born 6 October 1944) is a retired British Army officer who commanded the 2nd Division from 1995 to 1996. Military career Cordingley was educated at Sherborne School and the Royal Military Acade ...

, later works are predominantly novels – many of them for young adults – and comedies for radio and television, often with a literary or historical setting. Limb's debut novel ''

Up the Garden Path ''Up the Garden Path'' is a 1984 novel by Sue Limb, which was adapted into a radio series by BBC Radio 4, and later into a television sitcom by Granada TV for ITV. Both the radio and television series comprised three seasons, with the radio se ...

'' was adapted as a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

, and subsequently made the transition to

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

television. For Radio 4, she has written a number of comedy series (which pay unusual attention to music and sound-effects): ''The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere'' (a pastiche of the poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

and his circle at Grasmere, two series), ''The Sit Crom'' (set in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

), ''Four Joneses and a Jenkins'' (a reference to ''

Four Weddings and a Funeral ''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It is the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant, and follows the adventures of Charles (Grant) and his circle ...

''); ''Alison and Maud''; and most recently ''

Gloomsbury ''Gloomsbury'' is a BBC Radio 4 comedy sitcom which gently parodies the lives, loves and works of the Bloomsbury Group. It is written by Sue Limb and five series have been produced, in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. Cast The character names ar ...

'', "a rhapsody about bohemians", about members of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...

and starring

Miriam Margolyes Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Tora ...

and

Alison Steadman Alison Steadman (born 26 August 1946) is an English actress. She received the 1991 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film '' Life Is Sweet'' and the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Ma ...

. Other works include ''Growing Pains'' (a documentary about ageing), ''

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...

'', ''Cities'' (six programmes of literary anthology). and the introduction to her Newnham contemporary

Valerie Grosvenor Myer Valerie Winifred Grosvenor Myer (April 13, 1935 – August 9, 2007) was a British writer, university teacher, and editor. Early life Valerie Winifred Grosvenor Godwin was born in Lower Soudley in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England ...

's biography of

Harriette Wilson Harriette Wilson (2 February 1786 – 10 March 1845) was the author of ''The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson: Written by Herself'' (1825). Wilson was a famed British Regency courtesan who became the mistress of William, Lord Craven, at the age of ...

. Under the name Dulcie Domum, Limb wrote ''Bad Housekeeping'', a humorous weekly column in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

s ''Weekend'' section between 1988 and 2001. Collections of the columns, a feminist novelist's diaries of a rural idyll gone wrong, were published in book form. The books, reissued by Solidus Press in 2002, are listed below. In 1989, as Domum, Limb coined the term "bonkbuster", a play on "blockbuster" and the verb " to bonk",

British slang British slang is English-language slang originating from and used in the United Kingdom and also used to a limited extent in Anglophone countries such as Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, especially by British expatriates ...

for

sexual intercourse Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal penetrat ...

. In 2002 the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'' recognized this

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words''Sydney Morning Herald'', 19 June 2002
Accessed 2007-11-11.

Personal life

She was briefly married in 1970, being the first of the five wives of the historian, Professor

Roy Porter Roy Sydney Porter, FBA (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 from the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College L ...

. She lives on an organic farm near

Wotton-under-Edge Wotton-under-Edge is a market town within the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England. Located near the southern fringe of the Cotswolds, the Cotswold Way long-distance footpath passes through the town. Standing on the B4058, Wotton is ab ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

Works

*''Captain Oates, Soldier and Explorer'' (with Patrick Cordingley), Batsford, 1982, *''

'', Transworld, 1984, *''Love Forty'', Transworld, 1986 *''The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere'', Bantam, 1987, *''Chicken Mission'', Orchard, 1988, *''Tree Trouble'', Orchard, 1988, *''Love's Labours'', Transworld, 1989, *''Me Jane'', Orchard, 1989, *''Big Trouble'', Orchard, 1990, *''Dulcie Domum's Bad Housekeeping'', Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1990, *''Sheep's Eyes and Hogwash'', Heinemann, 1992, *''More Bad Housekeeping'', Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1992, *''Come Back, Grandma'', Red Fox, 1993, *''Dulcie Dishes the Dirt'', Fourth Estate (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1994, *''Passion Fruit'', Heinemann, 1995, *''Enlightenment'', Heinemann, 1997, *''Dulcie Goes Native'', Severn House (reissued by Solidus Press 2002), 1998, *''Big and Little (novel), Big and Little'', Orchard, 1999, *''You At The Back Stop Laughing'', Beaver Books, 1999, *''China Lee'' (reissued as ''You're Amazing, Mr Jupiter''), Orchard, 2004, *''Girl, 15, Charming But Insane'', Bloomsbury, 2004, *''Girl (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture'', Bloomsbury, 2005, *''Girl 16: Pants on Fire'', Bloomsbury, 2006, *''Ruby Rogers is a Waste of Space'', Bloomsbury, 2006, *''Ruby Rogers: Yeah Whatever...'', Bloomsbury, 2006, *''Girl, 15, Flirting for England'', Bloomsbury, 2007, *''Zoe and Chloe: On the Prowl'', Bloomsbury, 2007, *''Ruby Rogers is a Walking Legend'', Bloomsbury, 2007, *''Girl, 16, Five-Star Fiasco'', Bloomsbury, 2010 *''Chocolate SOS'', Bloomsbury, 2012

References

External links

Sue Limb's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Limb, Sue 1946 births Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Date of birth missing (living people) English women writers Living people People from Hitchin