AS a little girl Margaret Murphy used to get called Dolly Daydream.
One of nine children and originally from Wavertree, she loved nothing more than to retreat into a world of books and fantasy, often making up her own stories to keep her little sister entertained.
Now the former teacher has turned her daydreaming into a successful writing career and is in the top 2% of authors borrowed from the nation's libraries.
She also recently made the shortlist for the 2006 Crime Writers' Association's Dagger in the Library Award, voted on by readers.
"It was a huge ambition of mine as a child to write - I started my first novel at the age of 10, all five pages of it - and now I'm doing it for real.
"It's fabulous." Having written all through her childhood, Margaret, who lives with her husband Murf in Barnston, Wirral, stopped putting pen to paper at the age of 18 to concentrate on her studies and building a teaching career.
She only returned to her first love at the age of 30 - and it took a serious illness for her to do so.
"I have a condition called lupus, an auto-immune problem, which can have regular flare-ups. In one, I suffered lesions to the brain, which gave me poor co-ordination and problems with articulation.
"I knew what I wanted to say and I could even describe the object, but I just couldn't think of the word. It was so frustrating.
"Fortunately, I got better, but it made me realise that I was letting something pass by. I wondered what would happen if I hadn't got better and this love I had for words might be lost to me forever.
