Linda Green 
Linda Green is the author of I DID A BAD THING, 10 REASONS NOT TO FALL IN LOVE and THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN. Her first publication came at age thirteen when her ‘Ode to Gary Mabbutt’ won second prize in the Tottenham Weekly Herald's ‘My Favourite Player’ competition. She went on to become an award-winning journalist and has written for the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and The Big Issue. Linda lives in West Yorkshire, is married to a sports photographer for a national newspaper and has a five-year-old son.
I worked as a waitress in the Little Chef between school and college. One day some young Spurs footballers who I knew from my visits to the training ground came in. I spent over an hour walking in a crab-like fashion between tables so they didn’t see me in the hideous uniform.
I wanted to be an author from the age of about eight when I wrote my first novella ‘The Time Machine’ - a pony-based time-travel thriller (unfortunately the genre never really took off!). Had to wait 29 years to see my first published novel but it was so worth it.
Gary Mabbutt, the Spurs and England footballer. I had a mis-spent youth at the Spurs training ground and he took the time and trouble to talk to me earning my utter devotion. He was a perfect gentleman and a marvellous ambassador for the game – today’s footballers take note.
Quit worrying. You will actually live the life you’ve dreamed of. It will just take a while for it to all come together. Oh and get rid of that awful flick!
Fresh pasta with roasted red peppers, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, pine nuts and pesto sauce. I could probably eat my body-weight in red peppers.
I go to a NIA dance class once a week where I get lost in the music and indulge my teenage fantasy of being in Fame. I can’t dance but no one cares and I always emerge feeling miles better than when I went in.
My son being the wonderfully individual little person he is.
The i-pod containing my 40th birthday top 40 compilation, my husband to show me how to use it and my son (whose batteries never run out) as a constant source of entertainment.
Over the Rainbow on BBC1. My son is obsessed with the Wizard of Oz which is why I started watching it but I am now disturbingly bothered about who wins!
Life in a Northern Town by Dream Academy. I fell in love with Yorkshire as a teenager, am so glad I ended up here and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones for not leaving the people she loved.
Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird for standing up for what was right.
Telling Jeremy Paxman what questions to ask while watching Newsnight.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Original, imaginative and extraordinarily good.
At my computer, in my ‘office’ at home, draughty, leaking leaded windows looking out onto a house where Patrick Bronte once resided, with the sound of children at my son’s school playing outside as background noise.
Carpe Diem. Life is too short to do anything but seize the day.
Autumn. Scrunchy leaves, glorious colours in the valley where I live and the chance to wear my Earth boots for six months.
Sadly, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club 1983-86. See mis-spent youth above.
The best holiday I ever had was trekking after wild orang-utans in the tropical rainforests of Borneo. Basic amenities, mud, sweat, giant creepy crawlies but the most amazing experience of gazing into the eyes of a young orang-utan above me in a tree.
Had it recently for my 40th birthday; surrounded by family and friends, meal at my favourite restaurant, Relish in Hebden Bridge, and listening to my top 40 songs from last 40 years, Joni Mitchell to Florence and the Machine via Blondie!
George Clooney – big time. Seem to have a bit of a George thing going on, liked George Michael as a teenager and also have a sneaking regard for George Alagiah on BBC news!
Nelson Mandela, Caroline Aherne, Barack Obama, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Fry, Julie Walters, George Clooney, Ellen McArthur, Jeremy Paxman. Would have Caroline Aherne chairing the ‘heated debate’ as Mrs Merton.
Photos of son and husband, mobile so I can let people know I’m running late and Mr Men books to keep son entertained.
Idealistic, passionate, determined, unconventional, green, veggie, purple-loving mum and author who never fits into boxes on questionnaires.
Giving birth to my son in a birthing pool at home without any drugs. Have a photo of me taken by my husband a few seconds later – the expression on my face says it all.
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