Sue Millard
I was born and went to school in Cheshire. I took a 4 year honours degree, 2.1 in English Literature and Education, at Chester College (now the University of Chester). I moved to Cumbria in 1975 and since then I've lived up here with my husband (see Pearl Wedding) in "a very small hamlet at the end of the world". We have a grown-up daughter and son, and a grand-daughter.
I've designed embroidery canvases, painted murals and built websites. For 14 years I made competition driving harness for horses and ponies, and farmed at Daw Bank. I was a regular contributor to Carriage Driving Magazine, was a cartoonist and wrote for the pony magazine Going Native until its closure in 1995 and still contribute occasionally to its successor Native Pony.
I appeared on the BBC TV quiz "Mastermind" in 1984 while it was still being fronted by the late, great Magnus Magnusson; in 2005 I was responsible for the poet Ian Macmillan having to walk up High Street (the mountain) instead of High Street (Barnsley) while discussing the history of trotting races alongside two Fell ponies who were sure he could go faster than THAT, couldn't he? However, neither I nor his producer was responsible for the fact that he had to do it in a howling gale and rain. Dylan Winter was made of sterner stuff when recording Rare Steeds, and thoroughly enjoyed driving out with Ruby and me on a frosty January morning in 2006. I have not, however, assisted J K Rowling with tricky bits of the "Hallows", nor been invited to devise a new formula for Celebrity Masterchef.
I have had three books published so far, One Fell Swoop, Against the Odds and Hoofprints in Eden (a 2-year project published by Hayloft). Pearl Wedding is self published, as is the second edition of One Fell Swoop. Others are in the pipeline or with publishers, and I'll brag about them in due course when I get the chance. The next project that's been brewing for more than ten years is probably going to be a historical novel.
I am a panel judge for the Fell Pony Society, though currently not judging due to knee problems. I serve on the FPS Council and its Overseas Sub-Committee. At various times I've been Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of the North West Driving Club and still serve on its committee. I own a laid-back black Fell pony known to his friends as Mr T who is on loan to fellow writer Jackie Moffatt, and a clever bay mare called Ruby. Somehow I also achieved "with distinction" the degree of MSc in Multimedia Computing, and I work in Carlisle as a Computing lecturer at the NEW University of Cumbria. All that training to teach must have stuck in spite of me.
My web designs have included the Fell Pony and Countryside Museums at Dalemain; Cumbria in Bloom; Greenholme Fell Pony Stud; the North West Driving Club; the Fell Pony Society and Conservancy of the Americas; and the Equus Survival Trust. (Some of these are now handled by their owners, others I still look after.) Recently I've also been doing a good deal of editing and proofing work for other writers, running various web forums on equestrian and literary subjects, and helping to start up a local rural writers' group.