There is a timeless quality to Nabb’s depiction of Josie Smith. You were a special person.’ At a reading there a few years ago Magda found the children were ‘the same, the same names, the grandchildren now’ of the children she remembered. They didn’t tread on children’s imaginations. The books are set in the mill village of Ramsbottom where Magda herself grew up and Josie goes to the school that Magda attended: ‘I loved that school. In the early books Josie is 5¾ but ‘she can’t not grow up as her experience accumulates’. There are now eight Josie Smith books and three more planned. We agree they ‘trickle through’ very satisfactorily and Magda is full of praise for HarperCollins designer Mike Watts’s ‘care and thought’. Attention to every detail concerning her books matters intensely to Magda, whether it be who will attend the launch dinner for Josie Smith in Winter or whether I think the illustrations (by Karen Donnelly) interact well with the text. Stylish in a crisply white designer shirt and with her long hair immaculate, the imperious Magda I remember well from my days as her editor is much in evidence as she checks the arrangements for the day with the HarperCollins Publicity Manager. She has a beautiful horse, Quirino, named after the Roman god of war, Quirinus. A stick is needed to help with walking but she tells me she is now able to ride again – one of her great passions. Magda is recovering from a stroke and the fingers of her left hand curl inwards. She is here to promote her latest Josie Smith book. Ten years on I meet Magdalen Nabb in a London hotel room. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I could not have prevailed upon a more heroic and ardent rescuer than Magdalen Nabb for whom the undefended child is the genesis of all her writing for children. A year later, and by then a fluent Italian speaker, Catherine was still living with Magda in her safe haven. Would she rush round at once and find out what was going on?Īn hour later Catherine and her luggage were in Magda’s elegant flat in Piazza Piatellina with its view of the duomo, rescued from a family who had been cold and unpleasant.

The only person I knew who lived in Florence was Magda. I had phoned her there and she sounded terribly unhappy.

My daughter had gone to Florence to work as an au pair while studying Italian at the British Institute. I met Magdalen Nabb for the first time ten years ago when I became an Editorial Director at HarperCollins and she became one of my authors.

The enchanted horse by magdalen nabb