I learned a liitle while ago that one of my favourite authors - Diana Norman - had died. I suppose my shock was linked to the idea that - although she didn't know me from Adam - she and I were somehow connected, and I feel I should have been told, personally, of her death.
I remember feeling something similar when I heard of the death of Robertson Davies, whose intricate, clever, sometimes labyrinthine novels had kept me so entertained while I was in my thirties. It was a sense of loss, of disappointment, of something unfinished.
And so it was with Diana Norman. As an author she had enthralled me, seduced me with a heroine who was sharp, clever, brave, who said witty things and did stupid things. Much indeed, like a big chuck of humanity. When I last read of Adelia, she was - I hope - about to save her lover from the wounds of a fight he had just fought. I hoped all would be well, and that he would continue to irritate her through further novels.
And then - nothing. No further book releases. When I finally put her name into Google and came cross the notice of her death from cancer, I felt bereft. Not only because I had lost a source of great pleasure, but because I felt I had lost a friend, a confidante. And I never had the chance to tell her that I loved her work, because I never managed to get round to it.
While this is completely academic and of no use at all to Barry Norman, her husband, it taught me a valuable lesson. It is never too soon to tell someone how much you value them, or their work. It is always urgent.
It has also made me think about the impact I might have on people. If an author I've never met can evoke such feelings of warmth, perhaps I - in other ways, maybe - should make the effort to do the same to people I do know?
Diana Norman, who wrote under the pen name Ariana Franklin died in January 2011.
