I was at the Dartington Festival in the very early 1990s with Esther Freud and Elspeth Barker, whose first novels I had published at Hamish Hamilton. We knew that Barbara Trapido was appearing and we filed into the Great Hall and sat at the back, giggling at the school-like atmosphere. Barbara walked on to the stage, sat down and in a throaty voice began to read from the beginning of what was to become her fourth novel, Juggling (1994). We stopped giggling and leaned forward, trying to catch every word, transported – as if we’d been led through the wardrobe and into a new land. We were in the hands of a magician, a spinner of spells, and afterwards we crowded up to her. We knew we wanted her in our lives.