Years active 1986–present | Name Julia Jones | |
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Occupation editor, publisher, writer, classic yacht owner Website golden-duck.co.uk/julia-jones/ | ||
Julia Jones, formerly also known as Julia Thorogood, is an English writer, editor, book publisher, aged-care advocate and classic yacht owner.
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Early life
Julia Jones was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk in 1954. When she was 3 years old, her father George Jones bought the wooden sailing ketch Peter Duck, a yacht originally commissioned and owned by children's novelist Arthur Ransome and named for a character in one of his novels. This nautical connection with Ransome, along with numerous pony books, helped to shape a lifelong enthusiasm for books.
Writer and publisher
Jones opened a bookshop in Ingatestone, Essex, which she then developed into a small-scale local publishing business, reissuing a Second World War autobiography by crime writer Margery Allingham. Jones's interest in the Allingham family grew; she researched Margery Allingham's life and wrote a biography published in 1991. Jones has also studied the fiction writing of Margery Allingham's father, Herbert Allingham.
In 2006, while working on a PhD on Herbert Allingham, Jones decided to become a writer of adventure stories like the Swallows and Amazons series of Arthur Ransome she had read as a child. The Salt-Stained Book, the first part of a planned sailing adventure trilogy, was released in June 2011. Jones hoped the trilogy would inspire a new generation of children to mess about in boats.
Aged-care advocacy
In November 2014, Jones and co-founder Nicci Gerrard set up an aged-care advocacy group, John's Campaign, to promote extended visiting rights for family carers of patients with dementia in hospitals in the United Kingdom.
Personal life
Jones has five children; she lives with Francis Wheen, a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is deputy editor of Private Eye.