About Me

CHARLOTTE HARDY – A BRIEF LIFE

First of all a confession. Charlotte Hardy is a pen name. I am in fact a man in my sixties now, called Laurence Carter. The pen name was my publisher’s idea. They believed that the reader would be more comfortable thinking the books were written by a woman. I have no problem with this. I hope you don’t.

I was born in London where my parents had lived before the war. My mother had been briefly an actress and had lived in the late thirties in Fitzrovia. Her sister was a painter. Their father was an army officer in the engineers and my mother was actually born in Peshawar. All of which gave them a certain glamour.

In 1940 my parents moved to the lovely and historic village of Poynings just outside Brighton where we lived for seven years. It lies in the lee of the South Downs just below the Devil’s Dyke and from our back window we had a view of Chanctonbury Ring. My father was in the forces and I saw almost nothing of him for the first six years of my life. Until he returned I lived what I still regard as a childhood idyll, just my mother, my brother and me. Life was perfect. All my memories are of orchards, streams, wild cress, and my brother and I roaming through the woods that ran along the foot of the Downs.

When my father did return - when this stranger intruded into my blissful life - an adjustment was required which I never quite achieved and until he died, though we got on well enough together, there was never the close intimacy which I enjoyed with my mother.

I wonder whether others of my generation recognise this scenario?

 I was at a grammar school from 1951-58 and though I had no idea what I intended to do with my life, I did know from my first term what I wanted to do at the school – sitting at a performance of Henry IV Part One, I knew that come what may I was going to be part of this. Four years later I was in the Merchant of Venice, then Coriolanus and The Comedy of Errors. During those years of the mid-fifties an inspired English teacher Brian Stone took a small group of us to Stratford for a week under canvas behind Sir Fordham Flower’s mansion. The Flower family, brewers, had virtually created the Shakespeare memorial Theatre. We spent our days roaming the town and drinking in the pubs (at 15) and in the evening went to the theatre. I saw Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Macbeth and Twelfth Night and I wish I could remember more of them! Even so it did not cross my mind that I might make a living at it, and I studied science and eventually went on from the school to Brighton Technical College to read physics for three years, and gain their Diploma in Applied Physics – which I hope is equivalent to a degree. It certainly felt like it at the time. Although I have no aptitude for science I actually enjoyed these three years.

 However a very brief period as a trainee computer programmer for Leo Computers (This was in the days when a computer was the size of a large room) clarified my thinking. I had a room in Paddington, to be near Leo and within weeks of moving to London I did an audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company and though I did not get in I knew from that day what I was going to do. A few weeks later I gave up my computing job and got a job in weekly summer rep in Devon for £7 a week, exactly half what Leo had paid. My first paid job as an actor was as the boatman in Rebecca; I also hauled up the curtain, brought up the lights and was responsible for the sound effects. That same autumn 1962 I went to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to train as an actor. I was lucky enough to win their one and only scholarship and for two years lived on five pounds a week. I still wonder at my brazen cheek at the interview. I had arrived hours late, having hitch-hiked from London and been unable for some time to find the school. Upon leaving I coolly informed them that unless they gave me the scholarship I wouldn’t be able to come – and please could they let me know by Tuesday because I had to let another school know whether I wanted their scholarship! Bristol led to a job at Nottingham Playhouse, which in those days was perhaps the most prestigious theatre outside London. I acted with Judy Dench, in the days when she was a ravishing beauty and have the photos to prove it!

Thenceforth for the next thirteen years I worked as an actor in theatre, television and films. Perhaps Far from the Madding Crowd was my lucky break; this was another example of cheek. I talked my way into a part in this film in just 48 hours, and went off to Weymouth for twenty weeks on location in Dorset playing a yokel. After that I acted at the Edinburgh festival and in the West end (The Cherry Orchard) and did a lot of television – stuff that’s dated now – Z cars, Softly Softly, and so on.

The career rather ground to a halt however, or my attention was wandering - or my cheek had worn off - because in 1975 I enrolled at Reading to study Italian. I had begun to work as a London tour guide and found the language useful. I changed course after two terms, however, turned to Latin and Greek, and in 1978 I got a first in Classics. I went on to University College London to read for a PhD and this was awarded in 1982. The thesis - a study of politics in fifth century Athens - was published as a book in 1986 under the title The Quiet Athenian.

In the meantime I had got married and was supporting my family working part time as a London tour guide – the chap at the front of the coach with a microphone - and after the thesis was finished this turned willy-nilly into a full time job. From 1982 up till the present day I have worked during the summer months as a tour guide taking Americans on tours of the British Isles, and sometimes too to Italy and France. For a time too I worked as a guide taking Brits on tours of the west coast USA, and over the years I have taken tourists to Russia, China, Greece, Scandinavia and elsewhere.

The books get written during the winter months. In 1989 a passing acquaintance with Ken Follett (we had both belonged to the Farnham Labour party at one time) inspired me to try my hand at writing novels. These turned out to be historical romances and I’ve had four published under the pen name Charlotte Hardy. The pen name has led to endless amused smiles and predictable comments: Do you do a book-signing in drag? Or do you write in pink ink? Anyone interested can find the books in the public library. I make no claims for them; they’re simply stories with a happy ending, but they’ve earned me a bit of money, and the Public Lending Right gives me a tiny glow – somebody out there is reading what I’ve written. Book Five, Sarah, came out in May 2007 and a year later was followed by Meg, and a year after that by The Road Home in early 2009, and were in your local public library soon after.

Most recently I have become a lecturer on cruise ships giving talks on ancient history, Antony and Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, the Phoenicians, and many more.