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Sheila Coleman
Sheila Coleman (nee Richmond) was born in town of Stirling in Scotland in 1942. Known as the Gateway to the Highlands in Scotland. She was largely schooled in the London area where...view moreSheila Coleman (nee Richmond) was born in town of Stirling in Scotland in 1942. Known as the Gateway to the Highlands in Scotland. She was largely schooled in the London area where she grew up, and Cheshire in the midlands of England for her senior years of school.
She attended St. Godric’s College in London after school for further education and secretarial training.
She worked in London for a short while in a music publishing business before she moved to the Manchester area in the North of England, where she worked for an international pharmaceutical and chemical company. It was during this time that she met her husband and immigrated to South Africa in 1963, where they were married and had two daughters.
Sheila ran her own catering business from home for ten years after qualifying from the Cordon Bleu International School of Cookery run by Jan Krishandel at their Johannesburg facility in South Africa.
In around 1985, she helped her husband start their own business, which was distributing and marketing an international brand of specialist flooring products from which she retired in around 2008, to start writing novels.
These were set in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, an area also known as the Karroo, which she came to love and where she and her husband have a home on the coast just outside the small town of Port Alfred, which is situated midway between the cities of Port Elizabeth and East London on South Africa’s southeast coast.
The Karroo is largely inland and has a harsh semidesert climate with little rainfall but has rich soil, which, if you have water, will grow many crops and plants, but is mainly known for sheep and goat farming, providing much of the world’s wool and mohair. The central and main town, known as the Gem of the Karroo, is Graaff-Reinet central to the area well-known for its history, culture, Cape Dutch–type architecture and healthy climate, which is both hot in summer and cold in winter, also where her husband grew up and hence their love for the area. The Karroo has its own desolate, stark beauty similar to that of Namibia, one of South Africa’s neighbours.
This region has a diverse culture and landscape and an abundance of wildlife that has been reintroduced in very large wildlife reserves, such as the famous Addo Elephant Park, and many others, such as Shamwari, where Tiger Woods was engaged. They mostly have the so-called big five (African lion, African elephant, Cape Buffalo, African Leopard, and Rhinoceros) and has an additional benefit that it is malaria-free and is close to the coast, which is very unique when compared with much of South Africa’s traditional wildlife reserves that are situated further inland.view less