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 published a humorous paperback called 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 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 said: “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 painted in watercolours and oils, and some of her paintings can be previewed online. Scroll down for more.

Naughty in Norway
A Saucy Saga of the North

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

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

• 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 & other rather nasty stories
(2nd edition)

With their shocking twists, the nine stories in this expanded edition are reminiscent of TV’s Tales of the Unexpected.

In the grisly tale of The Mincer, and in other stories, events don’t turn out as planned.

The enterprising Spare Child dares to defy the cruel laws of a future age of baby cloning. In Take Fright Alison finds herself being chased breathlessly through Surrey woodland after taking her dog for a walk at a fairground. And in The Time of Her Life, bored housewife Rita dreams of a happy new life, as does little Susie in A Sting in the Tale.

But their dreams inexorably become nightmares . . .

• Preview the book online FREE
• Norwegian, French and German book translations in progress . . .

• Buy a hand-coloured, printed copy

While Others Sleep

27 poems – some nostalgic, tragic or reflective; others whimsical and light-hearted. The poet mourns for the death of loved ones, and revels in the splendour of Nature at her then Dartmoor home.

This new expanded edition includes the first ever publication of two moving poems about loss: The Weights of Grief, and Die Liebeslampe, which was written by Barbara in German. Then there are two translations from the German of poems by Goethe and Heine.

With hand-coloured drawings by the author.

• Preview the book online
• Buy a printed copy

Also on this website

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