I was born in 1947, the youngest of four children. Since our parents, who married in 1940, only lived together for one or two years, I’ve always thought that rather remarkable.

In my childhood, I read a great deal, but I also wrote essays and epistles, and doodled. English Comprehension, as we called it then, helped me to gain a place at a technical high school where, apart from English and sport, I was way out of my depth. Coming from a naval family I left school early to join my brothers in the Royal Navy, and while in the Far-East (beyond the Indian continent) for four out of my six years in service, I wrote travelogues for an aunt in Australia. Before then, I had learned my way around the world by studying mother’s stamp collection, which she gathered from correspondence with penfriends, and grandfather’s foreign coins, collected during his long career in the navy. A then-world map on the kitchen wall made it all the more interesting.

We had very little else and I wanted to go and look for myself.

And now I want to take my readers with me. Fictional tales laced with local knowledge and historical facts enable me to do that.

In 2020, I retired earlier than I wanted to because my hand tremors stopped me from ‘proper’ writing – an essential part of my role.

So what to do with myself, other than to get under the wife’s feet? It’s ironic that I now write books.

My naval experiences influenced my initial foray into fictional story writing. It was fun to see story outlines that I had crafted forty-odd years before, finally making it into print.
The Lodge Looks Back series tells the story of Stephen Lodge, who grows to become a ship’s captain as well as being a member of an MoD Special Task Force.

Mrs Hilda Smith, whom I knew from church in 1980, encouraged me to set a story in the countryside she had enjoyed as a child. She told me all about her husband, Albert, who had long since passed over, and wanted me to ‘paint a picture of home life.’ Hilda features fictionally in two of my Lodge books and then in a journalised extract of her own, greatly enriched as I came to understand the countryside she loved so much.

There have been other books, notably, comedic stories from my neighbours who could write their own but got me to do so instead, and two story-based colouring books at the request of young grandchildren.

My next four novels, though, have taken me out of myself into what several readers have come to call ‘Lily’s World’, representing what they think is my best work to date. There is a demand for more of the same.

So have I found my niche?

I suppose I always have had a strong imagination. My stories are fiction, but they are rooted in the factual world as I understand it. Over time, I have grown from a poor student into someone who notices more and enjoys the research. Each story explores people facing difficult choices and questions of loyalty, justice, and compassion. If a reader finishes one of my books seeing or understanding the world a little differently, I have done well.

People often ask why Keith Salter became Keith Salter Ford – or K.S. Ford as, in context, I should be better known. The answer lies with my birth father whom I never knew and who remained a mystery until recent years when I uncovered fragments of his story. One day I shall tell it fully. It is not a happy one, but it is part of who I am.

Ford is the family name of my stepfather, the only Dad I ever knew, and I am proud to wear it.