Hold the Dream
Emma Harte is now eighty years old and ready to hand over the reins of the vast business empire she has created.
To her favourite grandchild, Paula McGill Fairley, Emma bequeaths her mighty retailing empire with these heartfelt words: ‘I charge you to hold my dream.’
A towering international success, this is the powerfully moving tale of one woman’s determination to ‘hold the dream’ which was entrusted to her, and in so doing find the happiness and passion which is her legacy.
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born and raised in Leeds. She left school at 15 for the typing pool at the Yorkshire Evening Post.
At 16, she became a reporter on the paper and, at 18, its first Woman’s Editor. Aged 20, she moved to London and became a columnist and editor on Fleet Street.
Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, is one of the bestselling novels of all time and Barbara’s books have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide. In 2007, Barbara was appointed an OBE by the Queen for her services to literature.
Barbara was married to her beloved husband, television and film producer Robert Bradford, for 55 years until he died in 2019. She continued to live in New York and write novels, her last entitled The Wonder of It All, until she died in November 2024.