Becoming Butterfly

A Love Once Chosen, A Life Finally Claimed

In the winter of 1966, sixteen-year-old Jane is drawn into a first love within the tightly bound world of Westbridge’s Quaker community. Peter Greenway, thoughtful and devout, seems the ideal partner—until the revolutionary spirit of sixties Britain stirs something deeper in Jane: a hunger for autonomy, identity, and truth.

As student protests flare and new ideas take root, Jane’s world shifts. A fateful peace rally introduces her to Tom Harrison, a hardened yet principled activist who challenges everything she’s accepted about love and loyalty. Their bond, at once impossible and undeniable, begins to unravel the future she thought she wanted.

Decades later, one unexpected meeting forces Jane to confront the echoes of a love abandoned, the consequences of compromise, and the possibility of transformation—still.

A sweeping historical saga of personal awakening, Becoming Butterfly explores the tension between belonging and becoming, and the courage it takes to start anew—at any age.

Begin the journey of Becoming Butterfly today.

Excerpt from the book

December 1966

Inside their small and unadorned Meeting House close to the centre of town, Westbridge Quakers congregated for a Christmas gathering. The word ‘party’ with its connotations of alcohol and uninhibited fun, would not have occurred to the mostly middle-aged committee in charge of organising the evening, and if it had, no doubt would have been deemed inappropriate.

Thirty-odd adults clustered around a square room furnished with metal and vinyl upright chairs and several wooden benches set against bare walls, while a small group of children played boards games on the faded carpet. Three trestle tables, each covered with a white cloth had been erected in the centre of the room, each one embellished by plates of food positioned according to their sweet or savoury content. A few sprigs of holly and mistletoe arranged in mismatched vases, completed the decoration.

Most of the few adolescent Quakers – known as Young Friends – had already escaped to the small room normally used for committee meetings, where a parent had thoughtfully installed a portable record player complete with a stack of contemporary LPs, on the low table beneath the room’s single window. The exception – Jane Simmons, sixteen but small for her age – stood outside in the corridor facing the closed door, her slender fingers resting on the handle as though she was unsure what to do next. Sea-green eyes flickered in a face devoid of make-up and her free hand tugged at the hem of her new black mini-skirt as she plucked up the courage to enter the room.

Once inside, her spirits sank when she realised that best friend Linda Fry wasn’t among the group standing around the record player. Standing by the door, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other, Jane debated whether to stay or beat a hasty retreat. She had almost decided to join the group when Eric Brown, a skinny eighteen-year-old prone to making rude remarks about the braces on her top teeth, looked her way. His subsequent greeting – more a sneer than a smile – destroyed her modicum of confidence, triggering an immediate departure to safe territory. Flushed with embarrassment, she hurried back down the corridor to the social room.

After what seemed an eternity, Linda appeared, announcing the reason for her late arrival in a shrill voice guaranteed to annoy her already flustered mother. Mislaid car keys had entailed a search of the entire house – they were discovered hanging on a tap in the downstairs toilet. A few paces behind Linda, short plump Beryl Fry attempted to make an unobtrusive entrance but was hampered by the large strawberry and cream double sponge held at arm’s length to avoid contact with her ample bosom.

Seated on a bench between two elderly Friends, Jane bit her lip to stifle a giggle and took a sudden interest in her black patent shoes. Fleshy legs, clad in tight tartan, approached, prompting unkind thoughts about her friend’s fashion sense, quickly dismissed when Linda asked if Jane was the only Young Friend present. ‘No, they’re all listening to records in the committee room.’

‘Then why haven’t you joined them?’

‘Eric,’ Jane replied in a small voice.

‘He won’t bite you know.’

Forgetting the hated braces, Jane looked up and smiled.

‘I need a drink after all that key-searching.’ Linda pulled Jane to her feet and propelled her towards the old-fashioned kitchen, separated from the social room by a doorway and an open hatch where a middle-aged woman was setting out cups and saucers on the adjacent tiled surface.