The one-woman whirlwind

DENISE Robertson is back. Not that she's ever really been away. As agony aunt, broadcaster, journalist and patron of 30 charities, she's phenomenally busy and very much in the public eye. But although she is still one of our most popular novelists - her books are among the most frequently borrowed from public libraries - it is many years since she has written anything new. Until now.

In a sudden flurry of activity, she has written a biography, a novel, is republishing her popular trilogy and is planning a fourth volume to the set.

"Some years ago the urge to write just left me," she says. "Partly it was because I was doing so much television and partly because I was disenchanted with the world of publishing."

It might also have been partly because of her new husband. Seven years ago Denise, twice widowed, married Bryan Thubron, an old boyfriend from her teens whom she hadn't seen for more than 40 years. They now live just outside Sunderland in a large house full of dogs, her collection of china and masses of family photos.

"I am so lucky," she says. "I have five sons, eight grandchildren and a wonderful husband who has just fitted in with them all. When I hear my son and husband together and their laughter fills the house, I feel really blessed."

Not that it's been easy. One of the reasons that people instinctively warm to Denise is probably because we know she's not had an easy life. She always says that the drive to write came from the need to support herself and her son after the death of her first husband.

Even when she married again, to Jack, a widower with four sons, she found success difficult when she started her television career.

"I hate Newcastle railway station," she says, vehemently, "because I used to go down to London and have to leave my family at home. I hated that and only did it because we needed the money. But I would get to the station and cry. I could imagine all sorts of things going wrong when I wasn't there. Oh yes," she says, laughing at herself, "believe me, I've imagined the worst so often I've even planned the funerals.'

When Jack died, Denise was back on television within two weeks.

"Work and children are the greatest balm," she says, her eyes still filling with tears. "I had to get back to work, though I wasn't sure if I could do it. My legs felt as though they were going to fold underneath me. But it worked for me and the amazing thing was that it helped other people too.

"The greatest use I am is that I'm still here. I've survived. You think when someone close to you dies that you'll never live again, never want to live or do anything. But I did. And people watching me knew that so it gave them some hope too.'

Despite the cheeriness, the easy welcoming manner - a bit like visiting a favourite no-nonsense auntie - there are always shadows in Denise's life. She has spoken in the past about low self-esteem, of the difficulties of being a second wife, of the feelings of desolation when her children left home.

And, she reveals, she's no good on her own. Hates it.

Family is still overwhelmingly important. As well as the brilliantly supportive Bryan, she sees a lot of her sons and her grandchildren and delights in their company. But maybe those low points in her life have been part of the secret of her skill as an agony aunt and novelist.

When she started writing again, it wasn't a novel, but a biography of Sir Tom Cowie, a personal friend "and the most remarkable man".

"When I was asked to do it, I really wanted to write about him for the sake of the people of Sunderland. He has given the city so much, a marvellous benefactor, sometimes with lots of publicity but much more often with nobody knowing at all, and I wanted people to know. Also it's an amazing story, real rags-to-riches stuff."

Writing his life story helped Denise realise that she hadn't lost the knack and she was soon back in the swing. Now she's written a novel, The Bad Sister.

"One of the places that Bryan has introduced me to is the west of Scotland, which I now love. So The Bad Sister is set there, London, Rome and, of course, Durham. I can't write anything without a bit of Durham in it."

At the same time, her Beloved People trilogy has been reprinted and is being reissued at two monthly intervals. It was published 14 years ago and has been in constant demand ever since. It deals with two families in the North-East, a miner and a coal owner, linked by accident and geography. It starts in the 1920s and ends in the 1960s.

Now Denise is writing a fourth in the series. "I don't want to kill off any characters though," she says, being a bit of a softie. And now she's got the writing bug again, she hopes to continue on her old programme of a book a year.

For a grandmother of eight, Denise shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Quite the reverse. She seems to be energised and enthused and charging headlong into an even more productive time of life. As well as the newly rediscovered writing, her television career is busier than ever. There are her serious, helpful contributions, of course, but she relishes the fun of it, the occasional daftness. And there is also the chance to publicise wider concerns.

Next month she's off to Africa for the charity World Vision, to remind the world of the devastation brought by AIDS.

"A whole middle section of society, the sexually active, has been wiped out. You're left with the very young and the very old. I know I'll be meeting a grandmother whose children have all died and she is left to care for 21 grandchildren. Or a man who is the only adult left alive in his street and who has accepted responsibility for all the children. There are heart rending stories. It's a huge problem but there is so much else going on in the world, it is easy to forget it.'

But they are stories Denise is determined to tell.

Her energy, enthusiasm and anger - don't forget the power of anger in a good cause - are as strong as ever. She can only do it all, she says, because of her supportive family and the brilliant Doris, who's been running the house for her for 25 years.

"I don't do housework. Once, when Doris was off, I wanted to do the Hoovering and I couldn't even get the handle to move so I had to ring her and ask her. That's how much I know."

Denise also hates shopping. Most of her clothes are bought by mail order, because it's quicker and easier, though she's just discovered Raspberry Bazaar in Tynemouth. "Why didn't someone tell me before? A brilliant shop". And when she was sent to New York - New York! - by the television company, not only did she not do any shopping, she didn't even think about it.

"My niece was horrified," says Denise. "She's the only one who ever gets me to any shops." And being a good aunt, as well as wife, mother and grandmother, she dutifully goes along...

If all this weren't enough, Denise also runs a website, offering help and advice. "But I have someone to help me with that and also it's developed into its own little community. The people who write in help each other," she says.

But Denise is still there, often at one in the morning, writing, replying, helping strangers.

In many ways, life would be easier if she moved down to London, something she considered briefly when she was widowed the second time, as two of her sons live down south. But then she met Bryan and although he was living in North Yorkshire, he's an East Boldon lad so here she is, still living near Sunderland.

"Apart from anything else, I have to live near the sea and I don't think I could leave here now," she says. "Going up and down to London for This Morning takes up a lot of time, but it doesn't b other me. I don't use Newcastle station anymore but when I come in to Durham and I see the Castle and the cathedral, I still get a thrill, every time. It's a great place to be."

*l The Beloved People by Denise Robertson (Little Books, £6.99). The other two in the trilogy, Strength for the Morning and Towards Jerusalem, will be out later in the autumn.