I’m delighted to share this Facebook post from August 2022. Katherine Langrish is the author of the Troll Fell trilogy of novels, From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my Nine-Year-Old Self and Seven Steel Miles of Thistles. Meet her over at http://www.katherinelangrish.co.uk

I’m on a Jan Mark spree, and enjoying her work so much. Last four titles I’ve read: They Do Things Differently There – astonishingly brilliant – Stratford Boys, which wittily imagines Shakespeare’s first ever dramatic effort – Turbulence, about a new, emotionally needy neighbour who sets local families at odds, and The Sighting, about a family feud triggered by a UFO ‘sighting’. She was such a wonderful writer, and here’s a story about her.

I’d been reading her books for years, but I had never met her until the publication of my own second title, Troll Mill, for which my publisher HarperCollins arranged an event at Oxford’s QI club. Jan, I may say, had reviewed my debut novel Troll Fell for the Guardian and had some criticisms (though she liked my little Norse house spirit, the Nis). Anyway, I turned up at the QI club accompanied by my then teenage daughter, where the HarperCollins team (lovely people) were standing by to introduce me to Oxford’s brilliant and best.

However I failed to catch the name of a slim woman with dark, curly hair, so I turned to her and said: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, was it Mary?’

To which she replied, ‘No, I’m Jan Mark, but you can call me Mary if you like.’ 

I think my jaw dropped. I went, ‘Oh my God, I’m so glad I asked! I love your books! Especially…’ 

The upshot was that she spent a fair bit of the evening chatting to my daughter, who had also read some of her books and who shares the same name as her daughter – and she and I ended the evening singing together some ridiculous song we’d both learned at school. 

The last time I saw her was at a school event where I was able to tell her how much I’d enjoyed her most recent book, Riding Tycho. I’m glad I did, because she died very suddenly not long after and I felt, perhaps too boldly, that I’d been robbed of a friend. She was, aptly I think, described to me once as a prickly rose. And she was and is the most amazing, intelligent and interesting of writers.