The legendary Dick Francis talks about horse racing, writing, the Queen Mother and his beloved wife...

First attempts

iVillage: You used to be a jockey before a fall caused you to leave horse racing and start writing. Had you ever written before that - as a child or as an adult?

Dick Francis: I never wrote. In fact, I tried not to go to school! I was always interested in horses and ponies. But an unusual thing happened to me when I was a jockey. The Queen Mother's horse collapsed with me on it when I was 25 yards from the winning post in the Grand National. I was winning the race. Soon after that, an author's agent whose mother knew my mother had tea with both of them. He saw photographs of me in my mother's apartment and said: 'Has he ever thought about writing his autobiography?' My mother said, 'I don't suppose he has. But I can give you his address.'

So he got in touch with me and he suggested that this Grand National episode - it was in 1936 - was a good peg on which to hang an autobiography, and why didn't I do it? I didn't think I could, but Mary, my wife, said, 'Go on. Write as if you're writing to your uncle.' I used to write to my uncle a lot to tell him how the races were run or what the horses were like that I rode. So that's how it started.

In the meantime, after announcing my retirement, Sir John Junor, who was the editor of the London Sunday Express, asked me to lunch with him one day and said, 'Will you write half a dozen articles for my newspaper on the current racing scene?' So I said yes. I wrote for the Sunday Express on the racing scene every week for 16 years. Working for the newspaper is what taught me to write. I was essentially self-taught. After about five years with the Sunday Express, Mary said to me, 'You always said you were going to write a novel. Now's the time.'

Sharing the load

iVillage: What have you enjoyed most about your writing career?

Dick Francis: Well, I don't really like writing, but I love doing research. My books are all about different things - photography, pharmacology, computers, painting. I try to get a different subject into every novel. But it's hard work writing. I don't use many superfluous words. The newspaper taught me that. That's how I learned to make the books tightly written. I try to make every word count.

iVillage: Your wife helps you research your books. How do you work together?

Dick Francis: We talk about the books a lot while I'm writing. It's a joint affair. There are passages about the females in them and how females think, and Mary's always a great help with that.

The royal connection

iVillage: ShatteredShattered was dedicated to the Queen Mother. How did you come to meet her?

Dick Francis: Originally it was because of my riding. I was her jockey, you might say. I won quite a few races for her and it was her horse that collapsed with me on it. We were friends ever since. She was always the first recipient of every book I ever wrote.

iVillage: Why do you choose not to use a series character in most of your novels?

Dick Francis: I don't usually like using the same character again because I feel I'm not a born writer and building the characters throughout the story helps me to fill the novel up. And I like to get into a different character. I'm not an Ian Fleming, where he has James Bond time and time again.

iVillage: Do you have a favourite out of all the books you have written?

Dick Francis: I've written 41 books in my time. My own autobiography was the first one, and I wrote Lester Piggott's biography and 39 novels, although one of the novels was a group of short stories, Field of Thirteen. I've been asked which one was my favourite many times, and the one you've just written is always your most favourite. When people ask you, it's with you right at that time. From a lot of my earlier books, I can mostly remember the main characters, but you can't remember every character in every book.