There were so many secrets when I was growing up

TV PRESENTER FERN BRITTON TALKS ABOUT THE INSPIRATION BEHIND HER NEW NOVEL AND FORGING A NEW LIFE IN CORNWALL. BY LARA OWEN

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FERN Britton is best known for her years on daytime television, but over the past decade she's built a quieter career as a novelist down in Cornwall.

In her latest book, A Cornish Legacy, Fern, 67, explores themes of divorce, inheritance and the emotional weight of old houses.

"It started with this idea of a house - not a particular one," Fern says, "but that kind of romantic, magical mystery stuff of Cornwall. You know, where the air is a thin veil to the next world."

It's an atmospheric setting that lets her dig into themes of loss, identity and starting again, drawn in part from her own life and observations of changing rural communities.

"Friendship is everything," she says. "Nobody has a lot of friends - that's silly - but I've got maybe about seven or eight really good women. They're just like those best naughty friends you had at school."

Fern is speaking from Cornwall, where she's lived full-time for the past few years - though her connection to the place goes much further back.

"We always came down here - my mum, my sister, my grandmother... it was our family nucleus," she says. "That magic in me - it was there from then. When I was old enough to know that Cornwall wasn't just a place for holidays, I was determined to live here."

It's this enduring attachment that underpins much of her writing. Her latest novel centres on Delia, a woman who unexpectedly inherits a faded estate in the county. But, as with most of Fern's fiction, the deeper story lies in the complex relationships of her characters.