WRITER Carole Solazzo is now a member of the prestigious writing team for the world's longest running soap -- Radio 4's The Archers.

Her personal journey from Bacup to Ambridge began two years after making the decision to follow her childhood ambition to write full time. Carole now has a number of promising projects on the go, and this week attended her first script meeting for The Archers.

Carole, 43, of Meadow Way, Bacup, wrote in to express interest last April and went through a number of stages for selection, including having to submit 15,000 words of trial material.

She said: "There were long waits at each step of the way where I'd think, 'It's not going to get any further,' then I'd hear something else.

"This time, it had been a while since I'd submitted trial scripts they'd asked for, then I suddenly got a phone call from the producer: 'we'd like you to join the team -- can you come to the script meeting on Monday?'."

Carole's theatre company, EnTrance, set up with husband Sergio and actor Phil Matthews got off to a fine start earlier this month when their debut show, Two by Jim Cartwright, played to sell-out audiences at the Colne Little Theatre. Their next play, Strinberg's Miss Julie is already in production.

Carole has also written plays, including Mirror Image, which is being considered for radio broadcast, and she will attend a workshop for potential Coronation Street writers later this month. Her move to full-time writing began when she was trying to establish herself as a stress management consultant. She said: "I started to write a book on stress management, to promote my name in that field, in the hope that it would bring me more work.

"A number of the publishers were so encouraging about my writing ability, that I decided to concentrate on the writing I'd always wanted to do. Their reaction gave me the confidence to go for it"

It was another accidental development which made Carole choose drama rather than novels or short stories.

"My daughter, Madeleine needed a play to put on as part of her performing arts course, and asked me if I could write one for her, I did, and realised this was what I wanted to do," she said.