There are teachers, and there are teachers. There are those who simply teach you history or geography or maths or whatever. And there are teachers who go that bit further. That’s what Mrs Cox did. And, in her own way, also Miss Simpson.

I started out at Christ Church CofE Primary School, in the suburb of Leeds I grew up in. Many, many years later, I was getting my honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Leeds at the same time as Alan Bennett. At the ceremony, we were being interviewed. Suddenly the interviewer said: “By the way, aside from being writers, you’ve got something else in common. You both went to Christ Church School.”

Alan Bennett turned to me and said, “Do you remember me?” I said, “I’m sorry, no.”

He said, “Well, I don’t remember you, either.”

Then, when I was about 10, I went to Northcote School - a private school, with a green uniform and a green and yellow tie, and a panama hat in summer. The teacher I remember there was Mrs Cox. I only know her surname - as a little girl, you don’t know the first name. Or you didn’t in those days.

Mrs Cox was rather - well, she was the sort of person who really took an interest in children. When I’d just started at Northcote, I’d written a story about a little girl who wanted a pony, and eventually she got a pony. The story was very short. My mother sent it to a children’s magazine, and they liked it and said they’d use it. And they even sent me a postal order for 10 shillings.

Mrs Cox was very congratulatory to me. She decided then that she must really encourage this writing bug, and went to great pains to make sure I paid attention in English classes. She encouraged me to read the classics: I loved the Brontës. And she knew I liked history, so she gave me history books to read.

My mother always told me that I could do anything I wanted, if I worked at it. And I got that same message from Mrs Cox. She wasn’t singling me out - she was that kind of teacher who tried to give encouragement to all the girls. But I might have been more dedicated to the idea of not just learning and then getting a job and then getting married, but of having a career.

I wanted to work on a newspaper, and Mrs Cox encouraged that ambition. I think you’re born with drive and ambition: you don’t learn either of those things. But people can encourage those traits in you.

At Northcote, I could also take a shorthand and typing course if I wanted. I’m very practical; I’ve got a lot of common sense. So I wanted to learn typing, because I thought it would be useful when I became a journalist.

The typing and shorthand teacher came three times a week, in the afternoons. Her name was Dorothy Simpson.

I was always asking questions, and I was very curious. Of course, you have to ask questions if you want to be a journalist. Miss Simpson seemed to be well-informed about lots of things, so I asked how I could get a job as a journalist.

About six months before I left Northcote, when I was 16, she said, “Do you really want to be a journalist?” I said, “I want to write books one day. But my mother says I can’t write about life until I’ve lived it.”

Miss Simpson had a friend on the Yorkshire Evening Post. She made an appointment for me to go and see her at the end of the school day. My mother said, “I’m going with you.”

I said, “I’m going for a job interview. You can’t take your mother on a job interview.”

I met Miss Simpson’s friend, and I was offered a job on a very meagre salary.

A mere two years later, at 18 years old, I became the women’s editor of the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Barbara Taylor Bradford was speaking to Adi Bloom. Bradford is judging The Write Stuff, a short-story competition for girls aged between 11 and 16