‘I wrote poems to comfort my dying mother who set fire to our home – now I’ve found my dream job as an author in my 50s’

A daughter who wrote poems to comfort her dying mother who set fire to their family home has said it took 50 years to land her “dream” job as an author as she swaps working in criminal justice for gritty crime novel writing.

Tina Payne, 57, an author who lives on the Wirral, Merseyside, lost her “beautiful” mother Marion to a brain tumour in March 1979 when she was just 12 years old – and even now, she still “misses her every day”.

At the time of her diagnosis, Tina said she did not realise “it was eventually going to kill her” as Marion made the best of every situation – but over the following months, her physical and mental deterioration was evident.

In January 1978, Marion set fire to the house while Tina and her sister were sleeping – and, looking back now, Tina believes she did this purposefully as she wanted them to die together.

“It was that night that my sister and I looked at each other and went, ‘I think she’s done it on purpose, I think she wanted us all to go together’,” Tina told PA Real Life.

All three survived the fire before Marion died in March 1979, aged 33 – and over the following years, Tina worked as a court dock officer in London, before becoming a case investigator in the Domestic Violence Unit at Norfolk Police.

It was not until later in life that Tina made “a pact” with herself to write a book before she turned 40 – and although she is “late to the party”, she has now written her first crime novel called ‘Long Time Dead’.

Tina said the novel, which will be the first of a three-book series, was picked as an Amazon First Reads for the month of March – and in its first week it reached number five in the whole of the Amazon Kindle store and hit number #1 bestseller in the following categories: Crime Thriller Mysteries, Police Procedurals, English Crime, Women Sleuths, and Suspense.

Tina never thought she would become a writer, especially not in her 50s, or that she would secure a three-book publishing deal with Thomas & Mercer, but she wants to encourage others to “never give up on your dreams” as you “only live once”.

She said: “It’s never too late. I should be, at my age, looking at retirement – and yet I’m literally just starting out on my career.

“People say to me: ‘How many books have you got in you? Will you ever run out of stories?’ And I say: ‘I won’t run out of stories, I’ll just run out of life.’

“Life’s going to catch up with me and I probably won’t be able to write for 20, 30 years because I won’t probably be here in 30 years’ time, but I think the message is: ‘You never know where life’s going to take you’.

“We literally do get one shot at this life, and if you do have a dream, if you do have something you want to do, and you can realistically do it, just give it a go, try it.”

Tina described her childhood as “tough” but said her mother Marion was “crazy” and “wonderful fun”, always joking and making others laugh.

Even in 1977, when Marion was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour and told she only had six months to live, she was able to make her children smile.

“I remember her words exactly. She said: ‘Right, mum’s going to heaven,'” Tina said.

“It was like my world came crashing down, and my sister’s as well, and then she went: ‘However, the good news is, when I get up to heaven, me and Elvis are going to hook up’.

“She was beautiful enough to be with Elvis Presley, but one second she was telling us this horror story, and then the next minute she was joking about being with Elvis.”

She added: “I love talking about her because she was an incredible person, and she was so strong – she had a tough childhood herself – but she did the best that she could for us in the short time that she had.”

While Marion was undergoing surgeries and treatment for the brain tumour, Tina would write short poems and stories for her mother before she went to school.

Tina said she wanted to put a smile on her mother’s face, adding: “She was way too young for this to be happening, but she was making the best of it and being positive about it, and that rubbed off on me.”

Although Marion was “positive about her illness”, in January 1978, she set fire to the house while Tina and her sister were sleeping.

“I woke up and I couldn’t see anything in front of my face,” Tina said.

“I went downstairs and looked down the hallway into the kitchen, and flames were literally sweeping across the wall… and since we had no fire escape or anything, the only way out was to go through the fire.

“You hear horror stories of women who take their kids with them when they die, or fathers that jump off a cliff or something with their children, and I always feel that people will judge that person.

“I never wanted my mum to ever be labelled as someone like that. She was very, very ill, she was not rational, she wasn’t thinking straight.”

Tina’s mother then passed away in March 1979, aged 33 – and over the following years, Tina moved “from pillar to post”, living in 26 different homes, including friends’ houses and bed and breakfasts.

Despite writing poems and stories in her youth and having an “overactive” imagination, Tina never thought about becoming a writer.

Instead, she wanted to be a police officer, an actress, or a palaeontologist – and she went on to pursue careers in the criminal justice system, working with “dangerous” prisoners in courts and domestic abuse victims.

She has sat in on “hundreds of trials in magistrate and crown courts” with defendants as a court dock officer in London, watching “every move they made, every reaction to the evidence”.

She said: “I was assaulted in that role more times than you can shake a stick at. I’ve been handcuffed to rapists, murderers, first timers to the prison system and those who will never be released.”

Tina then spent 14 years as a case investigator in the Domestic Violence Unit at Norfolk Police, where she heard “a thousand stories of horror and abuse”.

“The evil that people do to each other, believe me when I say, it stays with you… but I was very passionate about my job and genuinely wanted to make a difference,” she said.

It was only when Tina took a break from Norfolk Police and moved to the Wirral, becoming an “adopted Scouser”, that she started to “find (her) feet” – and, during the Covid pandemic, she began writing her first novel.

With her vivid imagination and background in criminal justice, Tina has now written the first instalment in her thrilling DI Sheridan Holler series called ‘Long Time Dead’.

A synopsis reads: “DI Sheridan Holler is used to solving crimes on Liverpool’s streets, but after a decayed corpse turns up in a cemetery, she finds herself reopening not one but two cold cases.”

With Tina’s knowledge of prisons and courts, she has been able to be “authentic” in her writing, but there is humour littered in there as well – something that she learned from her mother.

While Tina has enjoyed her various careers, she said she is “too old to be rolling around the floor with prisoners” and feels lucky to have found her “dream” job in her 50s.

“In adulthood, I thought, I’ve got some stories in my head, I’ve got this imagination and I want to use it,” Tina said.

“I made a pact with myself that I would write a book before I was 40, and I know I’m late to the party, but 17 years on, I’ve finally done it.

“Now it’s the dream, now I’m lucky enough to have landed the agent I’ve got, the book deal, and I feel very blessed.”

‘Long Time Dead’ is available on Amazon First Reads for the month of March, with the official publication date on April 1.

To find out more about Tina, search @Tinap66Payne on X (formerly Twitter) and @tmpayneauthor on Instagram.