Veronica Henry was asked to leave the Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army. She was then asked to leave the University of Bristol, where she was studying Classics, because she was spending too much time running a post-punk nightclub to do her conjugations. Happily, she wasn't asked to leave the BBC when she secured a job on The Archers.

From there she went to Central Television to script-edit such broadcasting legends as Crossroads and Boon. She then left and became a scriptwri...