“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

-Joan Chitty “70 years of my history”

I’m Joan and I’m the J in JDK. I was one of twelve children, I was born in London and grew up during the war. Obviosuly, during those years it wasn’t possible to have a normal childhood. I didn’t know what it was to play in the street, or go to the park, or have a birthday party. I didn’t know what it was to sleep in my own bed until the latter part of the war. Our nights were spent huddled together with my Mum and my brothers and sisters in a tiny shelter at the end of the yard, listening to the bombs explode around and praying for them to stop. My Dad was fighting in North Africa, so I didn’t know what a Daddy was, he was just a man in a picture that everyone called Daddy, but to me, he wasn’t real. Now I’m an old lady of 86 who was happpily married for sixty years. I still enjoy writing and knitting. I have four children, sixteen grandchildren and twenty-nine great grandchildren, with number thirty due in April.

My daughter Deirdre (Dee) is the D in JDK.  She was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, which is about 50 miles from where I was born in London. She is happily married, with a family of six wonderful children.

Kelsey is the K in JDK, She’s Dee’s daughter, my granddaughter.  She’s also happily married with two adorable little girls.

So basically, I write the books,  then Dee and Kelsey do everything else, and without them, JDK wouldn’t exist.

I wrote my first book when I was 13.  My Mum had just died, and I wasn’t coping with life. I didn’t want to be around people . So I’d shut myself in my bedroom and write and I’ve been writing books ever since.  To me, it’s just a hobby.  I never showed my books to anybody, I never let anybody read them. I’ve never thought of myself as an author, it was just a hobby.  Then came Kelsey, who was constantly telling me that she had to read one of my books, I finally let her read THE PARROT WON’T TALK’.  Then she started again, telling me again and again that I should get the book published, so once again, for the sake of my sanity, I began to publish my books, and here we are.  The first book I wrote was ‘THERE AIN’T NO GLORY’ about growing up in the war, this is part fact and part fiction.  This was the book that started it all and I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve written over the years. I don’t write any particular genre, I just write whatever comes into my head at the time.  Over the years, I’ve written murder mysteries, spy novels, science fiction, children’s books. Some I write under the name of Joanna Hawkins, but most I write under my own name Joan Walker Chitty.

One thing, within each of my books, there will always be one actual fact of my life. It may be a name, a street name, a country or a situation, but whatever it may be, it’s always there in every book I write.  Why do I do it? I honestly don’t know, perhaps in a way, it’s my signature in every book I write.