With a new book in bookshops, NATALYA WILSON chats to author and Gazette book reviewer, Bill Spence, and finds out about the man behind Jessica Blair

BILL Spence’s imagination is always in overdrive.

“I’ve been working on an idea for another book only this morning,”

said the author, whose 67th tome hit the shelves of bookshops last week.

Now in his 90th year, Bill has been writing books for nearly 60 years; his first, Dark Hell, having been published when he was 30.

Since then, he has penned not only fiction – including no fewer than 36 westerns – but also factual books, as well as dramatic historical novels.

But if you scan the bookshelves looking for his name, you won’t readily find it.

In fact, if you were to search for any of his 22 historical novels, you wouldn’t be looking for a man’s name at all.

Bill writes under the pen name of Jessica Blair, a persona created by his publishers because they pointed out that more women than men read and buy books, and they felt that a woman’s name as an author would be better for marketing purposes.

They weren’t wrong, and in her relatively short lifetime, Jessica has been prolific in her output, and now produces a new novel every nine months – something of which Bill never seems to tire.

“I catch up on a few other things when I finish a book – but then my mind will start buzzing and I just want to write,” quipped the author, who submitted another manuscript to his publisher in January.

Jessica’s novels were born out of research that Bill did on Whitby’s whaling industry.

“I got interested in the history of Whitby’s whaling as a hobby,” he said.

“I eventually gathered enough material for a non-fiction book on whaling, which came out in 1980, but I found that I had all that information I had to use in another way.

“My publishers, Piatkus, liked the idea of me using it as a background for writing a novel and that was the birth of Jessica Blair.”

Using thoroughly-researched historical fact and weaving a fictional tale around it is the method that Bill uses as Jessica, and Whitby and the town’s various industries, including alum, fishing, jet and smuggling, as well as whaling, have provided much of the material for Jessica’s writings.

Released in hardback last year, and in paperback on February 2, The Road Beneath Me is set in 19th century Whitby, Shetland and Nova Scotia, against the background of the Highland Clearances.

Meanwhile, Jessica’s latest novel, In The Silence of the Snow, which was released in hardback on February 7, is set against the backdrop of the First and Second World Wars and tells of three families whose lives are affected by these two catastrophic events.

“Two of the families are from Yorkshire and the other is French,”

said Bill.

The action takes place in the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War, while the Second World War action features the Land Army, RAF and agents who parachuted into France during the war.

As well as his thorough research of events, Bill, who moved to Ampleforth after the war with his late wife, Joan, draws on his own experiences, having been in the RAF, serving as a Bomb Aimer in the Lancasters of 44 Squadron Bomber Command.

It was also after the war that he began his long association with the Gazette & Herald, writing reports and articles, before starting his book review column, which he has been writing for nearly 50 years.

“I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember what it was,”

said Middlesbrough-born Bill, of the first book he reviewed for the paper.

“I was very friendly with Peter Walker, as we were both writing at the same time. He had a detective novel coming out and I thought it would be a good idea to interview Peter, and also do a review.

“I enjoyed it so much that I went to the Gazette offices and suggested to the editor that I did a regular review column. He said yes and that was the start of it.”

Half a century on, Bill says he has reviewed thousands of books and for the last five or six years, has enlisted the help of his twin daughters, who, he adds, are both very good reviewers.

“I love books – I have a large library – but they are not all review copies, by all means,” he laughed.

And he adds that, when it comes to writing, he will never stop, saying: “Writing keeps you young in mind and young at heart.”

• The Road Beneath Me is published by Piatkus and costs £7.99 (paperback); In the Silence of the Snow is also published by Piatkus and costs £19.99 (hardback). Bill will be signing copies on Saturday, 1pm-3pm, at The Whitby Bookshop, Church Street, Whitby.