WHEN Margaret Sherlock's niece died of breast cancer in 2004 it sparked a series of events that would change the direction of her life forever.

A trip of a lifetime to Australia with her six sisters propelled her through a personal journey of self-discovery and prompted her to write her first novel.

Now the Blackburn-born-and-raised author hopes to follow in the footsteps of the town's most famous writer, Josephine Cox, with a novel about growing up in Lancashire.

Margaret Sherlock told us her real-life story of sibling conflict, family tension and how ultimately the ties that bond families are unbreakable.

AFTER a nightmare 24-hour flight with far too much luggage, the trials and tribulations of low-budget accommodation, followed by several days of jetlag, the last thing Margaret Sherlock needed was to have her first night of quality sleep disturbed.

But, hearing a loud thud, Margaret turned on her bedside lamp to see her older sister Alice huddled on the floor bleeding and confused after falling out of an unfamiliar bed.

After tending to her sister, Margaret returned to bed, by now wide awake, and realised that the only way anybody would believe the ups and downs she and her five sisters had experienced on this trip to Australia, to see their seventh sister, would be if she wrote it all down.

And that decision was to change Margaret's life. For, at an age when most people are thinking about retiring, Margaret has set up her own publishing company and got her first novel about the trip, Seven Sisters Down Under, into print.

“The intention to write a book wasn't there, but on the third night in Australia we were all suffering from jetlag, stressed out by the cramped accommodation and tired from the full itinerary that our sister Lilian had planned for us," explained 60-year-old Margaret.

“It was 3am and I lay in bed wide awake thinking to myself 'This has to be written down' so from then I started keeping a journal and when I came back to England I wrote my diary into a book.”

Margaret, who now splits her time between Torquay and Lanzarote, left Blackburn in her teens, seeking a better quality of life. The book sees her coming to terms with a sense of guilt about abandoning her large family and also dips in and out of memories of her childhood in Blackburn.

One passage reads: “Growing up, we wouldn't even risk saying ‘bloody’ or 'bugger' in front of mum, even when we were old enough to bring in a wage.

“As a child, if ever there was a row at home and the forbidden F-word was frustratingly shouted from dad's lips, I immediately made myself scarce.

“Depending on the time of day, I would either scurry off to bed, go for a long walk or hide in the coal shed where I would nervously munch my way through a lump of nutty slack. Using that forbidden word would fire up mum's temper and everyone in the vicinity would suffer for it. Both parents have been dead for some time now but I still refuse to use that word.”

Back home, Margaret's daughter Emma Jane read the book and persuaded her mother that her work was good enough to share with the world. So earlier this year Margaret set up Shorelines Publishing and published it herself.

The book is dedicated to Margaret's niece Penny Lewis, who died of breast cancer in 2004. The dedication is apt since it was Penny's death that prompted the trip to Australia.

Now Margaret, a former jewellery designer, has been bitten by the literary bug and intends to follow in the footsteps of Blackburn's most famous author, Josephine Cox, by writing about growing up in Lancashire as one of a family of 13 siblings with little money to spare.

“I was born in Smither Street and then we moved up to Larkhill Terrace. When I was five we moved to Pilmuir Road and stayed there for 10 years. I suppose because there were so many of us I always felt that I was just one of a crowd. Money was short and there was never enough to buy the school uniform, I remember. There was a lot of poverty.”

But Margaret admitted she has many happy memories of Blackburn too, including entering a beauty pageant at King George's Hall, aged 17, to find Miss Industrial 1965.

“I was working in Newman's footwear factory and was picked as one of the finalists,” she remembered.

“My eldest sister Alice helped me make my baby blue dress to wear for the competition. I didn't win but I remember it all being very exciting and I was in the local paper.”

Margaret’s siblings have all been supportive of her newest book and she has even distributed questionnaires so they can record their own memories and thoughts about their childhood to be included.

Margaret admitted that the trip to Australia and the subsequent writing of Seven Sisters Down Under had helped her realise her childhood in Blackburn and her family are more important than ever.

“The place you're from moulds you into the person you are,” she said. “Although I don't live in Blackburn any more,my family are only a phone call away and when we get together things are exactly the same as ever. I wouldn't change that for the world.”

l Seven Sisters Down Under, by Margaret Sherlock, is on sale at Badger Books, Burnley, KD Books, Clitheroe, and you can order copies through WH Smith, Blackburn.