Michelle Williams
Michelle was born in Cheltenham in 1973, where she has lived all her life - and continues to do so. She had a solid upbringing and was educated at local state schools.
Michelle started working for the NHS when she was twenty years old, two years as a Health Care Assistant and then eight years as a Senior Health Care Assistant for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour in Community Homes.
At the age of thirty - ten years on - Michelle was lucky enough to land the role of Anatomical Pathology Technician at Cheltenham General Hospital. Now - five years on from that - she holds the title of Mortuary Manager at Cheltenham General Hospital.
Michelle studied and successfully sat the Certificate and Diploma exams from the Royal Institute of Public Health in Anatomical Pathology Technology, this allowing Michelle to use the the letters CAPT and DAPT after her name.
The idea for the book came to Michelle about two years ago as she was working in the Mortuary. She mentioned to a colleague that she could write a book about her time as a Mortuary Technician, her colleague - himself a published author - encouraged Michelle to write a few pages and submit them to him.
He liked what he saw and recommended Michelle to a Publisher, who subsequently commissioned Michelle to finish it. Hence the first book was written - and two years later - on sale.
“I have to admit I was annoyed. Not physically annoyed, but inside annoyed. That helpless feeling you have when you know you should not be angry because you have to consider how other people are feeling or accept them for what they are, and that it is not your place to say anything. But annoyed because you have not been considered in the whole picture, you are there and that is that. Apologies begin to mean nothing at that point and frustration takes over.”
“I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.”