Biographical note

Jenny Martin is married with two adult children and three grandchildren, and lives in Cheshire. Born in Lancaster in 1938, she grew up mainly in the Cumbrian mining town of Whitehaven, which knew the sorrows of war and the pits. She became a specialist in a diagnostic branch of medicine, chemical pathology, which includes blood tests such as cholesterol, diabetes management and thyroid disorders. Since 2008 she has been a member of Bollington Library Writing Group run by author Nik Perring. Jenny's childhood ended in 1953 when her cousin, also aged fifteen, fell down a pit shaft soon after starting work, a credible explanation for the tragedy being unforthcoming. Fifty-odd years later, when researching her first book, SilverWood's Mining Memories, her experience with literature searches (for expert reports and academic papers) came in useful: she unearthed a National Archives file where the then Chief Inspector of Mines had described the accident as 'shocking, deplorable'. To her eternal surprise, after informing Nik Perring that she was 'no good at poetry at school' but feeling she should give it a try, this poetry collection proved as successful as several earlier poems. The proceeds from her books go to appropriate charities.