- 2007:‘Black Pencil Woman’ is an inter-textual memoir set in the years between 1950 and 1967 in a ‘constructed’ colliery village on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne.
- 1999: The Millennium celebrations: the author compares New Year’s Eve 1999/2000 to that of 1959/60 as the new century triggers a search for the truth
- 1959-60: New Year’s Eve, attempted suicide and filicide: The ‘Black Pencil Woman’ the author’s grief stricken and traumatized mother who, on New Year’s Eve plans to commit suicide and filicide telling her children that she intends to ‘end all our suffering’
- 1914-2007: Trans-generational effects of two world wars: the core of the book is the trans-generational effects of two world wars and the rural and industrial environment (landscape) on the psychological development of one particular family
- 1st -21st Century: Landscape and memory: inter-textually the beautiful Northumberland and Tyneside landscape lies at the heart of the book: a rich and powerful cultural, historical and political inheritance
- 1800-1997: Six extraordinary eccentric women and three widowed sisters: the author’s maternal great-grandmother and grandmother were skilled entrepreneurs; her paternal Nana a spiritualist medium and abortionist; her mother’s elder sister and the author’s mother were widowed in their early thirties each raising two young children; their other sister was widowed suddenly; these feisty, independent women were wage earning long before feminism existed ensuring their own and their families’ survival
- 1800-1967: Rich descriptions of every day life; working in the mines; miners’ wives and family, shopping, village life; politics, religion, education, rules and mores; hard and happy times, family fun, travelling, seaside visits and holidays contrasting with illness, suffering and grief
- 1950-1959: Visiting Ward 7: Dunston Hill Military Pension’s Hospital: The sights and sounds of the victims of two world wars leave lasting impressions as the child (author) observes their aftermath. She grieves for her father after his death in 1959 with signs of trauma after New Year’s Eve 1959
- July 26th 1959: The Ministry of Pensions stops the young war widow’s pension after the author’s father’s death from cancer. The British Legion supports her mother throughout the tribunal but her war widow’s pension is not re-instated.
- 1960: Aunt is knocked down by a hit and run driver, on a zebra crossing, in Blackpool: critically injured she survives and fights for compensation. She has reconstructive surgery yet never loses her sense of humour and fun
- 1967: Courting and re-marriage: mayhem reigns
- 1967: Cousin murdered in her own home on an army camp in Hanover, Germany: Monica remains one of only two army wives murdered on a British Military Camp.
- 2003: The family and the army agree a joint a memorial after the author writes to the General Chief of Staff asking for the full facts of the case and for an apology to the family.
