Hello and welcome to my world!
I’m Tracy, and I write historical fiction, mostly set along the east coast of England where I was born and spent my early years. I’m originally from Lincolnshire but have lived in Dorset for over 30 years. I share the house with my husband, Mr B & two dogs, Betsy and Harry – and believe me, the dogs are less trouble & make less mess.
I write two series, The Seaside Girls & The Dockyard Girls.
The Seaside Girls follows a group of entertainers during WW2. It was inspired by my love of theatre and variety entertainment. When I was eight, my parents became the managers of the Pier Hotel in Cleethorpes, which sat directly opposite the pier. Oh, what an adventure my sisters and I were hurled into. The beach was on our doorstep, and we had access to all the delights of the seaside that accompanied it. It was the most wonderful childhood, and we had enormous freedom back then.
As a teenager, I worked in gift shops and bingo arcades in the summer holidays, and when I was sixteen, I started working backstage on a summer show. Tony Christie and Cannon & Ball topped the bill. It was here that my passion for variety entertainers was ignited. I devoured every book I could find on the old stars – George Formby, Gracie Fields, Jack Benny and George Burns – whatever the local library had to offer. I’m a huge fan of libraries!
These books and my own experiences were the inspiration for The Variety Girls and Christmas with the Variety Girls, which were published by Ebury Press/Penguin in 2020. My debut, The Variety Girls, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists Saga Award 2020.
The series has been rebranded as the Seaside Girls and is now published by Boldwood. I hugely admire the men and women who kept Britain smiling through the darkest of times. It wasn’t all stardust and sequins, quite the contrary.
The Dockyard Girls is inspired by my own family heritage and the stories my grandmother shared with me. Set in the dockyards of Grimsby & Lowestoft, it follows the fortunes of the Hardy family as they move up the east coast to make a better life for themselves.
My grandmother told me that she had two great shocks in her life. The first was when her elder brother drowned when his trawler was lost with all hands off the Old Man of Hoy in the Orkneys. The second was to follow only three years later, when her husband was killed while returning to his minesweeper in WW2. She was left a widow at 25 with two small children to care for. Life was hard, but family and friends gathered around to support those they loved and held dear. It made life more bearable.
My grandmother was concerned that all the stories of hardship and everyday life would be lost forever if someone didn’t write them down. I made a promise to her that I would.
It took me a long time to get started. Do I tell the truth? All the truth? How much detail did I need to put in, or leave out?
It seemed overwhelming to put together 90,000 plus words to tell a story, so I started small. I began with articles and then short stories. In doing so, I found my own voice, my own way of describing the world and how it appears through my eyes. Since then, I’ve managed to find a way to share a way of life that has almost disappeared from existence. I’m happiest when I’m working on a book and trying to share what my grandmother feared would be lost.
I devour stories of any kind, the personal snippets and anecdotes people share about fathers & mothers, grandparents and siblings feed my curiosity. I truly believe we are united by our shared past.
I am inspired by strong women, ordinary women who held the community together with kindness, warmth, humour and a clip around the ear when it was called for. These are the women I was surrounded by when I was a child. They deserve to be remembered – and celebrated. We shall not see their like again.
TRACY BAINES
Tracy Baines writes about friendship, family, and finding your inner strength when life gets tough. Her stories celebrate strong women and the importance of community spirit. Tracy’s bestselling historical sagas are inspired by her love of the seaside and its contrast with the gritty industrial fishing ports on the east coast of England, where she was born.
Tracy’s short stories and articles have been published in magazines such as Woman’s Weekly, My Weekly, Best, Take A Break, The People’s Friend, Candis and The Weekly News as well as many other titles in the UK, ROI, South Africa, Scandinavia, and Australia.
Tracy taught creative writing at Bournemouth and Poole College and has given talks and workshops at festivals and libraries, on radio, online and in person, in coffee shops, theatres and in village halls. She is a WI-approved speaker and judged the Yeovil Literary Prize short story competition in 2010.
When she’s not writing, Tracy is either gardening, rummaging in antique shops, or finding a host of other lovely ways to procrastinate. Coffee and cake are usually involved.
Click the image below to get a high-res photograph. Photo credit: Sasfi Hope Ross
