Biography
Rosemary Laird signing copies of A Woman of Fortitude
Rosemary Phillips trained as a teacher, Rosemary Calvert reinvented herself as a professional photographer, achieving 12,000 images for sale on the Getty Images website, and now, as Rosemary Laird author, she has published her second book, A Woman of Fortitude. Rosemary has had a varied life, travelled the world and feels lucky to be enjoying life with her second husband. Her life illustrates well the saying variety is the spice of life.
She grew up as one of five in a family of girls, a sensitive, yet exuberant child, full of life and ideas. Her father called her Sunshine and Showers. As a child she learnt long poems while attending elocution classes which she recited to anyone willing to listen. At school she wasn't a star pupil, but she did win a national essay competition with an essay about things left behind by the tide on the beach and was awarded a prize presented by the Duke of Edinburgh, much to everyone's surprise.
Rosemary uses life as her inspiration for writing. She started by writing letters to magazines. Seeing them published gave her a thrill and the £5 she received in payment was a bonus. When she moved to Holland she wrote humorous observations on expatriate life which were published in the monthly British Women's Magazine and on returning home to live in England she wrote technical articles for Practical Photography.
It wasn't until the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic that she was moved to write anything longer than an article. When lockdown was announced she felt a momentous event was about to unfold, so in March 2020 she started to record the weekly progress of the pandemic in rhyming couplets. In January 2022 she completed her records and in April 2022 published her first book Covid Chronicles in Rhyme.
A desire to start writing her second book A Woman of Fortitude came during a holiday in the Maldives in February 2024 when it was too rough to swim. She couldn't spend hours in the water with her much-loved iridescent fish and delicate corals, so she decided to fill her time by starting to write her life story. She's had a varied life; full of fun and excitement at times, sadly interrupted by a period of betrayal and heart break. But Rosemary hasn't allowed this to colour her life. Instead she has used positivity to help her make a remarkable recovery and to flourish. She hopes readers will find A Woman of Fortitude inspirational and a good read.
Rosemary is already making notes for her next book Bring Fun, Joy and Kindness to Life.
