Tell us a little about yourself… Writer, occasional actor, teacher of LAMDA and Public Speaking, I live in Hawkhurst with my wife Julie (another teacher and glass artist) and any or all of our six children/stepchildren, depending upon the season. When not lurking in coffee shops, I am enslaved both to the garden and our ever-changing fourteen-mile view over the Weald.

What were you doing before you decided to take up writing – have you always been creative? Some have suggested I’m a bit of a Renaissance Man. The less charitable view is that I can’t settle to anything that earns real money. Careers so far have included bookselling/publishing, humorous book illustration, music teaching, accountancy (payroll clerk at the Palace Theatre – I ask you!), the acting lark (www.timbartholomew.co.uk), drama/voice teaching at Buckswood School, individual French lessons and, most recently, novel-writing.

Why did you pick up a pen? Because of my instinct to show off and entertain: to make people laugh or cry – or both. As an actor, to entertain is fleeting, but a writer can immortalise absurd and outrageous situations as well as mad, irritating or delightful characters. Also, writing can be therapeutic: some of the incidents in my book Lessons in Humiliation are taken from life and needed to be shared – especially the story of finding my birth mother.

Why did you decide to attend drama school rather later in life, has it helped your new career? In 1993, I ‘performed’ Mrs Crusoe in a Benenden Players spectacular, deciding that a) this was the best fun since school and b) to attend drama college. Much of my novel is devoted to thespian misadventure.

What’s next? The sequel is nearly finished and Agent P (my theatrical representative on Earth, he who so heavily features in the book) is making noises vis approaching a screenwriter. After all, Hollywood loves an eccentric comedy set in the British middle-classes. The pigs, however, are still on the runway.

Lessons in Humiliation is available for £8.99 in paperback from Waterstones, and online from Troubador Books and Amazon. There’s also a Kindle version. Contact Tim directly for signed copies, talks to book clubs, illustration work, public speaking or French conversation lessons – or anything else ­– via his website: www.timothyedwardauthor.co.uk.