I occasionally get comments that there are not many strong male characters in my Saltbury books. Well the series is the story of two lesbians, Hazel and Tina, and Hazel is herself the child of a lesbian couple. We also first meet them when they are still at an all girls school, so it’s inevitable that women loom large in their lives. But even so, I actually don’t agree.
Tina adores her father, Desmond and longs for the day she can join him in his law firm. Her athlete girlfriend, Carol has a similar mutual appreciation society with her own father, Gordon, who is also her coach. Both men fully accept their daughter’s sexuality, where their mothers have more trouble with it. Carol’s older brother Garry, meanwhile, has similar taste in women to his sister and the two spar constantly. Hazel and her friend Brenda both have serious artistic talent and their art teacher, Dennis Granby is a hugely nurturing influence. The girls are friends with sports mad gay sweethearts, Mark and Brendan, and even Hazel enjoys seeing them get covered in mud with increasingly torn shirts when playing Rugby.
Then there is Hazel’s beloved godfather, Rock drummer Charlie Hides who was the first to take her own aspirations as a drummer seriously and has taught her ever since. There is Debbie Stewart’s manager and oldest friend, Johnny Sherwin, and, of course, in the new book, ‘Rachel’ we finally meet Hazel’s father. Finally, there are other men who we never actually meet, but who have had a huge influence for good or ill on our heroines’ lives. There is Debbie Stewart’s long dead husband, Nicky, her controlling father Joseph, Rosie Drymen’s violently homophobic father Luke, or Yvonne Wright’s father, who abandoned her and her mother when she was little more than an infant. Oh, and don’t forget Sir Jeremiah Prodnoze, the aristocratic Victorian philanthropist who founded many of Saltbury’s cherished institutions.