Rosamunde Pilcher could be the heroine of her own books. The 1.70 m tall vigorous and lively lady does not mind being called “The Queen of Kitsch” by her critics. To describe herself she finds more elegant words, “I am writing easy reading for intelligent ladies.” She loves the adaptations for German television but does not influence the work on the set. She does not speak German either!
Rosamunde Pilcher was born Rosamunde Scott on 22nd September 1924 in Lelant, 3 miles from St Ives. She was the daughter of a marine officer and had a five year older sister, Lalage (prounounced Lalagee). In WWII she joined the Women Royal Naval Service and then worked in the Foreign Ministry. She was stationed in India from where she sent home her first short story. This was published in a magazine and she earnt her first 15 Guineas by writing. On return from India she met the young Scottish Officer Graham Pilcher on a village feast, who was recovering from an injury with relatives in Cornwall. They got married in December 1946 in the parish church of Lelant and moved to Scotland, where Graham ran the family company, a hemp factory. They had four children together: Robin, who is a writer himself and whose stories have just been adapted by German television; Fiona, Philippa and Mark, who lives in Zennor. Rosmunde Pilcher comes back to Cornwall to see him every year.
Whilst bringing up her four children (she has 14 grandchildren now as well), she wrote hundreds of short stories and 13 novels, mostly at her kitchen table. She first published under the name of Jane Fraser. The first novel under her own name is “A Secret to Tell”, published in 1955 was adapted for television 50 years later. Although the author has written since the age of 15, she achieved her international break-through at the age of 63 for the autobiographical novel “The Shell Seekers” which sold 5 ½ million times and topped the New York Times bestseller list in 1990, kicking Tom Wolfe off the lead. In the US and the UK The Shell Seekers became the most sold paperback of the decade. As author of the Year, Pilcher was awarded the Golden Feather in 1992. Altogether she sold more than 60 million boods which made her a millionaire 45 times over. When her adapted romances are shown on German television, she draws in average 6 million viewers every week.
The German TV series is so successful, that Mrs Pilcher war awarded the Golden Camera in 1998 and an OBE. Nowadays the novelist has moved with her husband and their two dogs out of the castlelike home into a smaller bungalow and enjoys her well deserved retirement. However, she still writes and just after she first retired in 2000, "Winter Solstice" was published and her last short story was "Tea with Professor Gilbert" in 2004.
The secret of her success, she told several interviewers, was “being lucky”. She does not write great literature, but she believes she has got a good style. This is an opinion shared by her German niece, Princess Marissa zu Bentheim-Tecklenburg, who lives in castle Rheda in Eastwestphalia. She invited her famous aunt to stay in May 2004 where she went and took part in a naming of a new rose. The rose was called: Rosamunde Pilcher, what else……?
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