Alice supports an international charity helping abused women to become independent and self-supporting and to stand up for their rights and urges others to support them too.
She has worked as a cleaner for two house-sharing old ladies while their lady was having an operation, but the old ladies didn’t want to trouble Alice, so Alice vacuumed pristinely clean carpets, scrubbed already sparkling bathroom fitments and washed the spotless kitchen floor twice each visit, never before knowing time could pass so slowly.
Six year old Alice required her parents and grandparents to listen to her reading them her early writings including a murder mystery involving a character gasping, “It’s human blood!”
Alice had a one-day job as an extra in a TV advert for a national newspaper’s weekend magazine – she’s the third from the left behind highland cattle on a Scottish hillside, aka Tilford Army ranges, Surrey. Grrreat fun – her one-fifteenth of a second of fame.
Alice picked up an Australian guy in a nightclub by pulling on his ankle as he and a mate danced on a higher level, one foot kicking a metal bar near her head - next thing she knows, he leaps over the bar and starts dancing with her (she later realises he’s at least ten years younger than her but she doesn’t let on and, well, the rest is another story).
Alice worked as a table clearer in a canteen from which time onwards she’s always made a point of thanking waitresses (and waiters) who clear tables in cafes and restaurants.
Alice has original clothes from the ’70s, waiting for fashions to come round again to outrageous bellbottoms, plunging square necklines and long flowing skirts – and for her waistline to make wearing them possible!
Alice came home from a girls’ night out where waiters had danced on tables to disco music and she declared to her husband, “I was the dancing queen but I wasn’t only seventeen,” hiccupped and passed out across the width of the bed (her husband took refuge in the spare room and Alice remembers very little of the next day).
Alice has drawn inspiration from her parents’ and grandparents wartime reminiscences, weaving elements with her imagination, her own experiences and historical research in writing her book The Keeping of Secrets, a coming of age story of love, jealousy, hidden agendas, heartbreak and secret war work set against the dramatic background of the Second World War.
She loves research! During the writing of her novel her detective skills took her to the sleepy village of Frinton-on-Sea, the former Lowercroft army camp’s site in Lancashire, and brought her in contact with many kind and helpful people including the Old Girls’Association of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
About the author: Born and raised in the Home Counties, Alice Graysharp has enjoyed a varied working life from hospitality to office work and retail. She currently lives in Surrey. This is her first novel, and the first title in a two book series, she is also already working on a seventeenth century trilogy. Published in the anniversary month of the outbreak of the Second World War and the Battle of Britain, The Keeping of Secrets (published by Clink Street Publishing 5th September 2017, RRP £9.99 paperback and £3.99 ebook) is available to buy online from retailers including amazon.co.uk and can be ordered from all good bookstores.
