JUNE FRANCIS was born in Blackpool in 1941 after the local materity hospital in Liverpool was bombed during the blitz. In no time at all her mother took June back to Liverpool to meet her two brothers. Eighteen months later a sister Irene completed the family. In 1946 father Stan returned from the war and it was he who introduced June to the joys of storytelling and taught her the alphabet from a signwriter's book until she could recite her letters backwards and forwards.
Brought up in a terraced house in Everton with a lavatory down the yard, no hot running water, meals cooked on the fire and only gas for light there was no money to spare for books. Even so June was an avid reader and by the time she was seven was walking the two mile return journey to the nearest library twice a week.
In 1953 June won a scholarship to Liverpool Girl's College Her only claim to fame at grammar school was that she fell off a wall and fractured her spine and skull. She lost a whole term's schooling and would like to blame that for only obtaining two passes at 0 level G.C.E in English Lit and History but probably the truth was that she met John just after her Mocks and didn't put in the work.
June wanted to be a writer but didn't believe working class girls could attain to such heights. Instead she went to work as a cash clerk for Littlewoods where she learnt to type properly, a skill for which she is eternally grateful. In 1964 she married John, passed her English Language 0 level and bought a secondhand typewriter.
In 1980 when the youngest of June's three sons was three her beloved Dad died and she suffered from nervous anxiety for a couple of years and lost all her confidence. A vicar's wife who had done some broadcasting on Radio Merseyside and was interested in writing encouraged June to have a go. First time in print was the church magazine and soon June was its editor and had joined Crosby Writers Group. Encouraged by husband John who bought her a secondhand desk and provided the paper she began the hard slog to get published.
My Weekly accepted her first article in December 1982 CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS AROUND THE WORLD. Information gained courtesy of her local library. She went on to write similar kinds of articles as well as personal experiences of a humorous kind. But her first love had always been books and after coming second in a Novel Opening Competition for her club she decided to have a go at an historical romance set in the Middle Ages.
Research started in the Children's Library with the LIVING IN A CASTLE kind of book. After lots of research, several rejections and loads of rewriting she eventually made it with Mills & Boon and wrote another four historicals before trying her hand at a Liverpool based family saga. Another hard slog and after gaining an agent and a word processor Piatkus Books accepted A SPARROW DOESN'T FALL for hardback.
June has since had ten novels set in her home city published. She is amongst the top most borrowed authors from the libraries in the country.
When not writing she prefers to walk, swim, read, listen to music, talk to people and go out for meals rather than do the housework that she fits in when the dust makes her feel guilty.
