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Sylvia Farley aka Amelia May Kingston - Paul Smith

From researching light in the Arctic to building palaces on the equator; from night-club singer to landlady providing bed, breakfast and evening meals for lorry drivers: for the lady who writes and performs as Amelia May Kingston, life has never been dull. In spite of having Multiple Sclerosis since her teens, she has raised a family of three and, on her old Yorkshire doctor’s advice, said “No!" to "nowt”. Amelia, formerly a landscape gardener , later a librarian, information officer for a sales company, beekeeper, florist and artist, later an executive officer for a national charity and and now a qualified psychologist, has a self-esteem website, which is free and can be found at http://www.youareunique.co.uk

Dedicated to life-long learning, she has studied religions, botany, alternative medicine and several languages, including French, Finnish and Swedish . She has published in several countries, academic studies, fiction, poetry, news and journal articles, and lectured and performed live and on radio and tv.

As Sylvia Farley, she has recognised qualifications in botany, horticulture, information science, management and psychology, and has won many scholarships and awards as well as prizes for art, music, poetry and short-story writing.

She has also been an active campaigner and fundraiser on behalf of disabled and disadvantaged people, competing in deep-sea sail races, borrowing Castles, Youth Hostels and Night Clubs for spectacular "happenings", maintaining several websites and networking with idealists world-wide to create "a world fit for butterflies".

As she advances on her 7th decade, she is researching alternative sexuality for a PhD in Social Research .

For fun, she sails, swims, walks seashores and forests, makes mosaics, sings , acts, reads and writes novels and poetry , loves her garden and is an obsessive puzzler. Her motto is "It 's never too late to have a happy childhood."