SANDY
KEALTY
ABOUT SANDY
Why, after all these years ….. ?
Well, the events of 2020 turned me to technology and lo, with a great deal of help from Harley Kealty (stepdaughter and extraordinary dance teacher), the website is born.
She asked me why I do the things I do. Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!
I love words, I love the rhythmical flow of them. I like a good story and, having grown up in the fifties, devoured the sixties, disco danced the seventies away, worn those shoulder pads in the eighties and survived until now, I have a few to tell. Writing is fun and, as I have remarked elsewhere, it would be silly not to.
I first appeared on the stage as a singer and dancer at the age of four. Circumstances have prevailed against this tendency at times, but nobody has actually hoiked me offstage with a hooky stick, so I will continue to do so.
I also love the smell of a new book, so have added to the perfume of the world by writing a couple … The Mermaid is Unimpressed and The Mermaid Rides Again .. see book page!
WHO IS SANDY KEALTY?
She writes, she sings, she used to dance. Hails from Whitstable, moving to the Isle of Wight in 2003 to start a new life. The singing is going on another page, the dancing will be mentioned in passing. The writing developed through performance and she has appeared at many Island and mainland venues. Even stretched to California a couple of times. Retirement has given her the opportunity to refine the product and go into print.
After a few years in teaching, she needed a 9 to 5 job, so joined the Civil Service, a temporary job that lasted over 30 years. Much admired as the one who wrote the ode on those occasions demanding celebration and cake. You were allowed to do such things in the olden days. Watch out for a collaboration with a fellow escapee when we are all allowed out again. “The Unofficial Secrets Act” is the proposed moniker.
But she still feels that her best work was as a Whitstable Fish Slapper; dancing, drumming, singing, choreographing and driving the bus. Her much enlarged photograph graced Whitstable Station for two years, encouraging the tourists.
Her first published work was in a prestigious childrens’ magazine, The Young Elizabethan. She was twelve and earned half a crown. It went a very long way in those days.