Maisie Glazebrook

"I was born in London in 1984, the youngest of four; Gus, my eldest brother, is ten years older than me, then there's my sister Olivia, my brother Harry and then me - we come in gaps of roughly three years.

My father, Philip, grew up mainly in London and my mother, Clare, is from Leicestershire. My father was a writer and after they married they lived in a few different places but then came to Dorset on the advice of friends, to the house my mother still lives in outside Salway Ash.

My father wrote novels and later travel books, so he would sometimes leave home for exciting places. He would be away for what seemed like 100 years but I now realise was probably only a few weeks. When he came home he'd work on his typewriter - there was always a familiar sounding tap, tap, tap and the sense of not being able to disturb him, though I often did!

I was mostly with my brother Harry - who now lives in Finland with his family - we had a typical country childhood. We would go out in the morning and spend the whole day running around, being covered in mud, pushing each other in streams. We would find old abandoned cars and sit in them for hours pretending to drive to exciting places. Not many kids get that experience these days.

I went to Salway Ash Primary School, where I was given time out of class to write my first 'book'! Although I've always been a keen writer, it's my sister Olivia whose book The Trouble With Alice has been published first. My (as yet unpublished) first novel,  was about a little girl who wakes up on Christmas morning to find her mother has been spirited away by an evil witch. The story is about her journey on her pony to Arabia to rescue her mother. It's not exactly Harry Potter, but if anyone's interested I've still got the manuscript somewhere...

After Salway Ash I went to boarding school at Knighton House in Blandford and then Leweston in Sherborne. I have mixed feelings about my time at boarding school; all the Enid Blyton stuff about dorms and midnight feasts was true, but I still couldn't say if it's the right thing to do for a child. I do have a lot of happy memories and close friends from that time, but I was cripplingly homesick.

After school I took a gap year and went to Florence to learn Italian. I'd like to say because it would have been useful with the Latin for the Classical Civilisation degree I did later on, but really I wanted an excuse to live in Italy for a bit, to experience life in a big Italian city. Stupidly, I haven't really kept it up, but it does come back a bit when I go there; I wowed my sister in Sicily last year with phrases like "can we have all the food at the same time?" dredged up from somewhere.

After Florence I spent three months in Ireland at the cookery school in County Cork, Ballymaloe, run by Darina Allen. I think I can blame my friend Lucy Bowditch for kindling my interest in cooking as we were growing up. I'd go round to her house after school, where her parents gave her free reign in the kitchen: we'd make rice krispie cakes and peppermint creams, and at the age of about seven she made the best cheesecake I'd ever had. Cookery school was not quite the same; at times it was surreal, getting up and putting on chef's whites every day, something I never got used to. In some ways it was a mini university experience - 40 people all living together, absolutely no interruption from the outside world, nothing but cooking, eating, gossip and walking on the beautiful County Cork cliffs at the weekends. I didn't even have a car. I guess really it was the first time - even though I had been to Florence - I was in that sort of environment, just having a really fun time. And eating amazing food all day every day!

From there I went to Warwick University to study Classical Civilisation, which is not a terribly useful degree, but it was fascinating and I loved it. I felt I flourished at Warwick, especially in making the most of the social life! I found I thrived on the studying and enjoyed having so many different people around me. After boarding school it felt good to be there through choice, not because I had to be.

After university I moved to London and through a friend, began helping out in the accounts department of an actors' agency, where I still work occasionally. The agency represents some big names, and it's really fun to feel even a tiny bit attached to the film world, right in the centre of Soho. It's a family run business with my friend, his mum, dad and aunt working there, so there's a lovely atmosphere. Although I don't think I'd want to represent actors, I do sometimes consider becoming a literary agent.

I also began working part-time as an editorial assistant at Private Eye magazine, where I fill-in when one of the three other assistants is off. The magazine employs very few full-time staff so I am sometimes there for a week, sometimes for a few weeks at a time, depending on how long they need me. It's such a unique place to work - exactly as you'd expect it to be; ramshackle and brimming with great wit and intellect. Things are whirring there constantly. There's a piano upstairs and sometimes half-way through a meeting you'll hear someone strike up a song. I wish I could be doing it more regularly but there just isn't a full-time post. Again, the people I work with are so brilliant; I absolutely love it.

So I combine my work in London with time spent here in Dorset. My father died in 2007  - he was 70 and had had poor health for some years -  so I took the decision to come home to Dorset for a while, to take stock.

It was after being home for a while that I began regularly sea-swimming. My wonderful mother, who among other things was chairman of the Bridport Film Society for 27 years, had always been a keen swimmer. She took my brother Harry and I to piano lessons in West Bay and she would always go for a swim while we had our lesson.

I remember the day I borrowed £7.99 from my sister and bought a copy of Waterlog by Roger Deakin - a  beautiful book I'd recommend to anyone, about swimming in open water -and it was enough to ignite my own passion for swimming. I began swimming at West Bay and along with my equally swimming- dedicated friend, Steven Will, we eventually set up a blog, The Swimmer As Hero (www.theswimmerashero.blogspot.com) -  named after another great book on swimming by Charles Sprawson. A friend of mine in Norfolk adds to the blog; she has swum in the North Sea   nearly every month, so there's plenty of diversity.

We started during the Summer and the season got longer and longer by the year until this last year, we went through the whole Winter, swimming - or at times just bathe-ing - a few times every month. Obviously it gets very cold, down to about 5 degrees, and getting in is hell, but I'm convinced cold is a state of mind and I find the getting in is not really much worse in the Summer than it is in January! Having the blog motivates us to do it too - often we'll dread getting in but force ourselves so as not to disappoint on the blog! It's pretty mad really, but sea swimming is definitely addictive, you get a cold water high that makes you feel fantastic. There's also the camaraderie; there can be a few of us and we spend a lot of time giggling and drinking hot chocolate on cold windy deserted beaches. However you feel when you go in, when you come out you feel brilliant, on top of the world.

I had an amazing swim in early May this year, during the spring heatwave when everything was at it's best. Westbay is in shadow in the mornings till the sun rises above the cliffs, so I always go to Burton for early swims - but on this one day I went to Westbay at about 7am and it was all in shadow apart from one little drop of sunlight far along, where the cliff dips down. I walked all the way there on the totally empty beach and swam alone and miles out in this one drop of sunshine. Absolutely unforgettable. Overall though, I'd always choose Westbay just as the light is going, sun setting over the sea and Golden Cap, cliffs bathed in dying sun, just a few barbequers and departing families.... that's the best.

When I'm not swimming I'm involved in a number of projects here, including the Bridport Literary Festival (www.bridlit.com), which is coming up in November (we're very excited about Alan Titchmarsh!) and From Page To Screen (www.frompagetoscreen.org.uk), Bridport's film festival. I really enjoy the sense of everyone working together to make something happen. I was lucky enough to work with the author Jonathan Coe when he guest curated last year's From Page To Screen, which was a real pleasure. The thing about festivals is you slave away at the coal face - working out money, trying desperately to find sponsorship, struggling to meetings in the snow and then gradually you see it all starting to come together until you have guests, you have a programme, you're reading about it in the Bridport News, then you're sitting at a packed event listening to the applause and knowing you have had a part in bringing it all together. It's the working as a united team and the incredible buzz and frenetic energy of the festival itself that I thrive on; madly busy and exhausting, but everyone in the same boat and coping with disasters, triumphs, gossip and comedy together. I guess my job is really meeting the guests and making sure they see the best of in this case, Bridport, and have the best possible festival experience. It was so great to work with Jonathan last year because he really cared about the unique concept of the festival and is terrifyingly knowledgeable about film. We're already working on the 2012 event, with lots of exciting ideas in the pipeline. I also worked at the Hay Literary Festival, and the Brecon Jazz festival this Summer.

Although I enjoy working away it's always good to come home. I love Dorset and feel it will always be my real home. Coming back to live here as an adult and being involved in the community is a completely different experience to being a child, always on the periphery. There is such a great arts scene here now, especially with the Electric Palace and the Arts Centre doing so well with such exciting and interesting programmes, and of course I feel a great attachment to the landscape. In fact my main occupation is wandering around with my dog Liffey on Lewesdon Hill, which I think is just about the most beautiful place in the world".