For Jacqueline Halsey, growing up in post-war London meant walking to school past numerous bombsites and listening to her mother's stories about food rationing and air raids. Consequently, she always admired the courage of women and children coping with the tasks of everyday life in wartime situations. This courage inspired Peggy's Letters, Jacqueline's first book. After High School she went to art college in Worthing, Sussex and then much later obtained a BA degree at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, which she attended as a mature student. Jacqueline loves traveling and has visited many countries, including South Africa where she lived in a sugar mill village for four years. She currently works in the Alderney Gate library in Halifax. Her days are filled with books, rhymes, puppets and lots of children to share them with. Jacqueline lives with her husband Ray, her granddaughter Ashlee, two cats and a very old goldfish in a house by a lake in Nova Scotia - a very different place from Peggy's war torn neighborhood.