PPL Trustees

Mr Peter Howarth: President

Mr Robert Turner: Vice President

Mrs Susan Bartlett: Hon. Secretary

Mr Peter Smerdon: Hon. Treasurer

Mr James Bridgewater

Rev. Tim Buckley

Father Gregory Carpenter

Mr Roger Howe

Mr Paul McCoy

Mr Mani Mdebele

Mr Adrian Warley

PPL Patron - Babs Horton

In July 2022 we welcomed the award-winning novelist Babs Horton as a Patron of the Plymouth Proprietary Library. She is a long-standing supporter and member of the PPL.

Babs was born in Tredegar, South Wales, and brought up in London. She attended seven different schools, eventually moving to Plymouth where she graduated from the College of St Mark and St John. For ten years she taught English in an Adolescent unit for students with mental health problems.

Babs has taught in many Plymouth secondary schools including Plymouth Hospital School where she worked as a teacher at the Young People’s Centre. She took up a Royal Literary Writing Fellowship at Plymouth University in September 2007.

Her first book A Jarful of Angels (2003) won the Pendleton May prize and was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club first novel award. Other works include Dandelion Soup (2004), Wildcat Moon in (2006), Recipes for Cherubs (2008), The Emporium of Dreams (2016), Winter Swallows (2020) and Holy Mackerel (2021). Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies worldwide.

PPL Patron - Laura Horton

Laura Horton is a multi-award-winning writer and was the first playwright Laureate of Plymouth from 2020-23. Her debut play Labyrinth Diet was an OFFCOMM winner in 2021. Her follow-up Breathless was awarded the Pleasance Regional Partnership. It won a Fringe First, was a finalist for the Popcorn Award and was shortlisted for other prestigious prizes. The show enjoyed runs at Soho Theatre and 59e59 Off-Broadway in 2023, where it was New York Times critic’s pick. She has written several short plays. Her first short film, A Summer of Birds, was Toast of the Fringe winner in 2021. 

An associate of The Space, Laura launched digital projects Hidden by Things and Theatre Stories, for which she was in The Stage100. On commission at Theatre Royal Plymouth, she is also developing dark comedy, Life Underwater, which received a reading at the Criterion Theatre in late 2023. She is adapting Life Underwater and Breathless for television. Laura was on BBC Voices South in 2023. Laura also runs Bad Sex Writing workshops and shows. She is represented by United Agents.  

PPL Patron - Judy Leigh

Judy Leigh worked as a teacher of theatre in several areas of the UK and briefly in China. She took a Masters in Professional Writing at Falmouth University in 2015. Her first novel A Grand Old Time was published by HarperCollins in Spring 2018.

In 2020, Judy joined Boldwood Books and has currently written twenty novels that have sold over a million copies. All of her novels celebrate friendship, the ups and downs of life, relationships, the power of laughter and the belief that everyone should have a second chance at happiness, whatever their age. 

Judy has a cosy crime series, the first of which is called Foul Play at Seal Bay. She also writes dual timeline historical stories under the name of Elena Collins (her grandmother's name).

PPL Patron - Chris Robinson

Chris Robinson is a third generation Plymothian who is passionate about his home city. He has dedicated his life to drawing Plymouth and its environs, writing about its rich history as well as capturing more recent eras in a series of nostalgic publications and films. 

In 1982 he began a weekly local history column for the Plymouth Herald that is still ongoing in a different format today. These articles and the drawings that accompanied them were to become the subject of his first two publications Plymouth: As Time Draws On I & II.

Books are his main focus and Chris has undertaken a wide variety of commissions for different business and organisations as well as penning several biographies. Currently there are five or six books at various stages in the pipeline.