Biography of Deborah Lake

DEBORAH LAKE grew up in Cornwall and Cambridge. After a conventional, classical education at a boarding school in the Home Counties, she joined the Forces, serving, amongst other places, in what she prefers to call the Levant, a phrase that disguises the fact that her postings were usually hot, often dusty and occasionally unfriendly. After seventeen years in the Royal Air Force, which included spells at major headquarters, she resisted the temptation to go to Whitehall and became a freelance writer. She eventually moved to Europe with her partner where chance gave her a minor television career. Highlights included shampoo and lottery advertisements and a part in a film in which she was the only character not to appear nude, something that avoided severe trauma amongst the audience. Her short stories and non-fiction articles have been published in many magazines and newspapers under a variety of names as have her books. A lavish use of pseudonyms - often masculine- in a response to Dark Age editors who did not accept that women writers could tackle anything other than flowers, fairy-cakes and furnishings, occasionally led to fierce confusion. A penchant for combining forenames and surnames of second cousins sometimes produced a combination that was later honestly used by a real person. Apologies therefore go to, amongst others, Max Boughton, Vanessa Shaw, David Lomas, Jason Winter, Dale Langham, Yvonne Hadley, John Day and Jane Saville Shaw. Her own given name also creates some confusion amongst those with a penchant for internet search engines. Deborah does not own any Fengully Tonks cats although her life is complicated by a large and enthusiastic Turkish tom. Neither is she a minister of religion nor a make-up artist. Dental surgery she knows only from the receiving end and she emphatically denies assaulting a police officer in the American mid-West. She is now contemplating the possible existence of a Lawksamussy Hammurabi. If every check known to mankind proves negative, it may become her definitive nom-de-plume. Her historical work deals essentially with the First World War which she finds rather more interesting than Anglo-Saxon taxation systems or the effects of the Corn Laws upon remote villages. Her latest book, 'Smoke and Mirrors', published by Sutton in December 2006, deals with the First Battle of the Atlantic 1915-18. Her new book, 'Tartan Air Force', for Birlinn covers a century of military flying in Scotland. This will appear in October 2007. A novel, under a careful pseudonym, is also likely to appear during the same year, the first part of a trilogy. A member of the Society of Authors as well as several other professional and historical societies, she currently lives in Northumberland with her partner and several helpful cats (not Fengully Tonks).