Author Mavis Cheek with her daughter, Bella
    © Woman&Home 2010

Mavis Cheek

Biography:

Mavis Cheek was born and grew up in Wimbledon.  Her education at state schools was basic and unambitious.  She failed her eleven plus twice and was put in the B stream of a secondary modern school, where she tried, completely unsuccessfully, to learn to become a good and dutiful secretary.  She left school at sixteen with no academic qualifications, an ability to type very badly and the looks of a perfect dolly bird.  She began her working life as a receptionist for the contemporary art publishers, Editions Alecto, where she began to learn about modern art.  London was lively, creative and exciting and eventually she went to Editions Alecto’s contemporary gallery in Albemarle Street working with such artists as David Hockney, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield, Gillian Ayres, Bridget Riley - which she enjoyed tremendously.

After twelve happy years Mavis left Alecto and went to Hillcroft College for Women from where she graduated in Arts with distinction.  Shortly after this her daughter Bella was born and she began her writing career in earnest. Journalism and travel writing at first, then short stories, and eventually, in 1988, her novel Pause Between Acts was published by Bodley Head and won the She/John Menzies First Novel Prize.  Her fifteenth novel, The Lovers of Pound Hill, comes out on May 5th 2011.

Nowadays, and somewhat bemusedly since she is a Londoner born and bred, she lives and works in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside.  But London is never far from her heart…

Mavis currently chairs the committee of the Marlborough LitFest 2011 which launched its first annual literature festival in September 2010.