Keith Bradbrook

Keith Bradbrook is a former journalist and communications head for a major UK children's charity. Potential is his first full work of fiction.

'Everyone has the capacity to be great or influential at something, but so often the tragedy is they never find out or recognise what that is. I wanted to explore how people, especially children and young people, could discover their potential, in this case through art.'

'It's always fascinated me how one work of art, perhaps a painting or sculpture, can make such an impression on you but another piece leave you cold. And what if an artist had the ability to make that connection every time?'

Much of Potential revolves around the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and its famous Meridian Line. For Keith, growing up on London's Isle of Dogs, the well-known vista looking up to the Observatory from the River Thames was a constant theme.

'Greenwich as the home of time and the Meridian Line running around the world are so evocative. I always knew my first novel would explore this special place with its important global impact.'

'Greenwich, art, the National Gallery, football, the Lake District, which is another very special place for me, all intermingle in a story that looks at potential in various ways - through the loss and discovery of a creative force, in love and in tragedy.'

Keith and his wife, Daryle, live by the Thames in Kent not far from their two sons, Elliot and Tom, and their families. He has completed his second novel - about movies.