Steven Hooper, Male Model

Steven Hooper, model and actor

I had a great weekend – research with a male model on Friday and then York Festival of Writing on Saturday and Sunday. I’ll make them separate posts.

Chatting to Steven Hooper, model and actor, on Friday evening, was incredibly interesting. What a personable and sensible guy! With bags of intelligence and the push he needs to succeed in a competitive field. He’s also tall, gorgeous and very comfortable in his own skin. (And, believe it or not, he has an identical twin brother in Formula 1 who lives near me!) He was able to give me loads of information and to tell me stuff that I didn’t know that I didn’t know (if you see what I mean). So I’ve warmed a lot to the idea of making Martyn, the hero of The New Book, a male glamour model, which is not sleazy-ish as some people perceive a career as a female glamour model to be.

You have to think of the Calvin Klein guy …

Male glamour models do underwear, swimwear, drink and aftershave etc. Male models are hunks. They have presence and charisma, play loads of sport and are continually active.

It will be  a lot of fun to have one as a hero, I think.

Steven lives about 1000 feet up in the foothills of the Pennines.

Up in the hills

And the track up there! Argh! I wish I’d heeded warnings that sat nav is next to useless in that locality, evidenced by a sign: This is a private road – say no to your sat nav! Then it tried to send me up a cliff. I reversed out of that horrible disaster waiting to happen but when I found the real road up … It’s a good job I’m a brave girl. Most of the time, all I could see was car bonnet and sky.

But the trip was worth it for the fantastic hospitality of the family and the gorgeous walking weather. Steven’s Mum is Sarah Mallory and Melinda Hammond, so once Steve had bombed off to watch a local band play (he plays in a rock band, too), we had a chance to demolish a bottle of wine and kick back.

On Saturday morning, before I set out for York, we walked up above the world for half-an-hour. The weather was fabulous and it felt a nice long way from civilisation, even though we could see farms and villages below us.

England was at its best for us.

Advertisement