We set up a meeting at her house and we immediately clicked. She happily agreed to do a photo shoot for us wearing LFF makeup and also agreed that I would interview her for the start of what (hopefully) will become a series of interviews that I will conduct with Fabulous Forever Women€™ like her.

Our third Ambassador is inspirational in a very different way.

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Sandra€™'s life reads like something from a novel.

At 18 years of age she became a top model under the name Sandra Paul and was quickly successful. She was photographed by all the leading photographers of the age - David Bailey, Norman Parkinson and Terence Donovan - for many fashion shoots and was twice on the cover of American Vogue. Sandra married very young and her first husband was invited to write an autobiography of Frank Sinatra. She was invited to accompany him to Hollywood where they spent three months as guests of Sinatra meeting the likes of Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald.

Through the British ambassador she was also invited to spend the weekend with President Kennedy and his wife Jackie.

In 1975 she married Michael Howard who subsequently became Tory party leader so Sandra then played the role of a high profile political wife. In 2005 she became a published author of novels for the first time. To date she has written 5 books and a sixth is due for publication in early 2017. Here, in Sandra€™s words, are all the things she loves about discovering such an absorbing passion at the age of 65.

"€œI can’€™t tell you the excitement of finding a whole new career, well into my sixties.”

“I thought I’€™d had my share of passions, but now, writing novels, I can have them all over again. And a published novel lead to talks at literary festivals, articles for the press, talks on cruises, it€™s been a revelation. My first few books were pure fiction, but my most recent one, Tell the Girl, draws heavily on my life in the Sixties. I€™d had some unique experiences and wild old times that had cried out to be told, but what had always put me off was the thought of writing an autobiography. It felt too self-serving and embarrassing by half.”

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“I’€™d have felt very inhibited, trailing out my whole life for inspection, and left out all the juiciest bits, which would have made for a much drearier read.”

“So I decided to write my excitements of the sixties as fiction. Tell the Girl draws on personal experiences, real people are mentioned, some historical events and true situations too, but the principal characters are fictional. Susannah Forbes, my heroine, relives her past, her Sixties heydays that in many ways mirror my own, but she isn’€™t me. She€™’s a whole lot more successful for one thing, more glamorous, better looking, better legs€ need I go on?”

“Writing fiction gives you the freedom to think outside the box, unleash private feelings and let rip.”

“I love getting to know my characters, watching them grow and develop, often in ways I€™’d never have anticipated. I love the way they take me over and rule my life, how they lead me by the hand down unexpected paths; writing fiction is always a roller-coaster ride of surprises. Tell The Girl is set both in the sixties and the present day with Susannah as a girl in her twenties and as a much older woman. And with Daisy, the other principal character, a woman in her late thirties, I had the chance to write about three ages of women, their innermost fears and longings, where they were at different stages of their lives.”

“Researching the Sixties was a revelation too, how it reawakened old memories and brought back the wildness of the times, the racy fun and whacky goings on, the excesses of smoking and boozing, all the liberties taken… The ad-men of Madison Avenue were straight out of MadMen, pouncing almost before you were in the door. But they were never as drop-dead gorgeous and sexy as Don Draper, no such luck.”

“Writing novels is addictive."

“There are worse ways to spend a cold wet Monday morning than writing a sexy love scene, but I€™’m lured up to my stuffy little study at the top of the house on the sunniest of days as well. I love nothing better than to be alone with my characters, no one about, no calls or callers, it€™s bliss. I urge anyone to have a go!€”

© Simon Songhurst

Fabulous Forever Women - in conversation with Sandra Howard