SARAH JANE DOUGLAS
The author, hill-walker and cancer survivor tells Lynne Hackles how all the strands of her life came together in her memoir
Sarah Jane Douglas decided to write Just Another Mountain in 2014, after a trip to Mt Nuptse, Nepal, where she scattered her mother’s ashes.
‘Writing it began as a personal project,’ she says. ‘If I’m missing Mum, or my grandparents, I open up the pages of my book and there they are. The book’s also for my two sons who never knew their grandmother or my grandparents. Then in 2017, when I was faced with my own cancer diagnosis, passing the story to my sons took on even greater significance.
‘I gave up my job as a teacher, becoming a self-employed gardener, to free up time to write. Gardening meant less money but I was master of my own hours, and while I was pruning or digging I was thinking about my story and how to resolve the latest issue related to my writing. If I didn’t have paper and pen handy to scribble down ideas I’d send myself a text message, and every lunch hour I’d take my laptop from my bag and write. Evenings and all of my spare time was spent writing, only broken by going for a 10km run or disappearing off for a hillwalk. I cleaned the bathroom once a week, but otherwise rarely did housework.