Julia Jones (writer)

Julia Jones was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk in 1954.[2] When she was three years old, her father George Jones bought the wooden sailing ketch Peter Duck, a yacht originally commissioned and owned by children's novelist Arthur Ransome and named for a character in one of his novels.[3] This nautical connection with Ransome, along with numerous pony books, helped to shape a lifelong enthusiasm for books.

Jones opened a bookshop in Ingatestone, Essex, which she then developed into a small-scale local publishing business, reissuing a Second World War autobiography by crime writer Margery Allingham.[2] Jones's interest in the Allingham family grew; she researched Margery Allingham's life and wrote a biography published in 1991. Jones has also studied the fiction writing of Margery Allingham's father, Herbert Allingham.[2]

In 2006, while working on a PhD on Herbert Allingham, Jones decided to become a writer of adventure stories like the Swallows and Amazons series of Arthur Ransome she had read as a child.[2][3] The Salt-Stained Book, the first part of a planned sailing adventure trilogy, was released in June 2011.[4] Jones hoped the trilogy would inspire a new generation of children to mess about in boats.[3]

In November 2014, Jones and co-founder Nicci Gerrard set up an aged-care advocacy group, John's Campaign, to promote extended visiting rights for family carers of patients with dementia in hospitals in the United Kingdom.[5]

Jones has five children.[6] She was previously married to Chris Thorogood; in 2019 she married Francis Wheen, a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is deputy editor of Private Eye.[7]

Books by Julia Jones:[8]

• Uncommon Courage: The yachtsmen volunteers of World War Two ISBN 978-1472987105 1 January 2021
• (edited/published) The Cruise of Naromis: August in the Baltic 1939 by G. A. Jones ISBN 978-1899262335 5 January 2017
• Margery Allingham & Julia Jones Beloved Old Age and What To Do About It: Margery Allingham's 'The Relay' handed on to Julia Jones ISBN 978-1899262298, 30 June 2016
• Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory: The working life of Herbert Allingham ISBN 978-1899262076 19 September 2012
• Strong Winds series:
  • The Salt-Stained Book (Strong Winds vol. 1) ISBN 978-1899262045 16 June 2011
  • A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds vol. 2) ISBN 978-1899262052 1 November 2011
  • Ghosting Home (Strong Winds vol. 3) ISBN 978-1899262069 2 July 2012
  • The Lion of Sole Bay (Strong Winds vol. 4) ISBN 978-1899262182 7 October 2013
  • Black Waters (Strong Winds vol. 5) ISBN 978-1899262267 2 July 2015
  • Pebble (Strong Winds vol. 6) ISBN 978-1899262397 15 November 2018
• (edited/published) Cheapjack. Being the True History of a Young Man's Adventures as a Fortune Teller, Grafter, Knocker-Worker, and Mounted Pitcher on the Market-Places and Fair-grounds of a Modern But Still Romantic England by Philip Allingham, ISBN 978-1899262021 republished 1 July 2010
• The Adventures of Margery Allingham ISBN 978-1899262014 2 March 2009
• (writing as Julia Thorogood) Margery Allingham: A Biography, ISBN 978-0434779062 14 October 1991
• (published) The Oaken Heart: The Story of an English Village at War, by Margery Allingham, ISBN 978-1899262038 re-issued 1988 and 3 March 2011
• (edited/published, as Julia Thorogood) Yesterday's Heroes, by June Jones, 1 January 1986

• Author's website