Who Is Kate Clarke

I met Kate when I was fifteen. I was a gangly, socially awkward boy who, growing up in a working class scheme in Glasgow during the seventies and eighties, had developed an unfortunate love of books. Kate was a transfer student from Skye, whose family had moved to Glasgow because her father had been offered a job.

On her first day, I was in my usual place in the school canteen, sat on my own with my nose in a book, Kate approached me, for reasons I don’t understand to this day, checked the title of the book in my hand, and asked the name of my favourite Bennet sister.

That was it for me. She stole my heart in an instant, and I never once wanted it back. The first time I kissed her, two weeks later, was also the first time I’d ever kissed anyone. Forty five years later I can still feel the ghost of that kiss on my lips.

We had five amazing years together, until a wet January night in 1986 when our car was wrecked by a drunk driver and I lost the love of my life. Kate died instantly at the scene and I spent three months in hospital recovering.

I still think of her every day. I still miss her. There’s no-one else left alive who will remember her. She was an only child and her parents are long gone. And so, I wrote Beachcomber, and adopted Kate’s name as the author, so she can be remembered. I write love stories about destiny, because I was lucky enough to have my love at first sight, even if only for a short while.