Barbara on path Barbara Godfrey was born at Teddington, London, on St Valentine’s Day. She graduated at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, in Modern Languages and then made journalism her career, working as a reporter on the Esher News in Surrey until moving to Hampshire with her husband Robert, a Fleet Street journalist, and their three young sons.

In their new seaside home, in 1973, they founded the Hayling Islander, a popular free monthly newspaper delivered by volunteers to every house on the island. They later sold the paper to the Portsmouth News group and it continues to flourish.

Robert and Barbara moved to Dartmoor in 1983 before eventually realising their dream of living in the tiny Channel Island of Alderney. There they launched the Alderney Magazine, which continued until Robert’s death in 1994.

Barbara, who still lives in Alderney, has published a humorous paperback, Naughty in Norway, inspired by her experiences as an au pair in Oslo in 1953, which were the subject of a talk she gave on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio. She has also published a volume of poetry, While Others Sleep, and a book of short stories, The Spare Child & Other Rather Nasty Stories. Her love of poetry started at school when she studied the great German lyric poets, and she wrote her first poems in German.

She says: “My first book was Naughty; my second Nasty; and now I’m working on a really Nice book, A Treeful of Peacocks, set in the five-acre paradise which was our home for five years.”

Barbara also paints in watercolours and oils, and some of her paintings can be previewed online. Scroll down for more.

Books by Barbara Godfrey 

Naughty in Norway Naughty in Norway

A light-hearted tale of the hilarious escapades of two British girls who took jobs as housemaids near Oslo in 1953.

The book makes good-natured fun of the girls and their male conquests during their adventures in the Norwegian capital, the western fjords and the Land of the Midnight Sun, where they had to climb hundreds of steps in the sheer cliff face of the North Cape to reach the isolated plateau. Highlights of the trip to the frozen north included seeing the wreck of the sunken German battleship Tirpitz being dismantled in the Tromsøfjord; watching a small boat sailing across the infamous Maelstrøm whirlpool; and gaining an insight into the offbeat nature of the folk whose lives are dominated for weeks on end by perpetual sunlight and then by endless night.

Besides its accounts of their often farcical skirmishes with frisky Norwegian men, the book is packed with information about this fascinating country, past and present.


“A lovely book ... I thoroughly enjoyed it. My Norwegian friends all feel the same.” – Sten Adeler, Norwegian Consul for the Channel Islands

188pp paperback 

• More information about this enjoyable book, including an excerpt and more reviews, can be found here

• Buy a copy for £4.95


The Spare Child The Spare Child & other rather nasty stories

9 short stories laced with black humour:
The Spare Child, The Time of Her Life, The Mincer, The Postman’s Secret, A Voice from the Grave, What’s the Point?, Treble Chance, A Sting in the Tale, Take Fright

• Preview the book online
• Buy a hand-coloured printed copy


While Others SleepWhile Others Sleep

25 poems with illustrations by the author

• Preview the book online
• Buy a hand-coloured printed copy

 

Also on this website

Oil Paintings – striking and colourful paintings (some for sale) can be viewed online.

Painting 1 Painting 2 Painting 3 Painting 4 Painting 5

Visit Barbara’s own website for lots more



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