About
Sylvia Vetta was born in Luton, in 1945. After ‘A ‘levels, at Luton High School , she was the first in her family to receive higher education. Whilst teaching immigrant children English, as a CSV volunteer in the industrial town of Smethwick, she met her future husband Indian born, Atam Vetta ,so she also knows that chance encounters can change lives.
Three children later and following a sabbatical in Illinois,(1980) where she worked on the bi-lingual programme at Urbana High School, the family returned to an Oxfordshire where new teaching posts were non existent. After a few years supply teaching, Sylvia and business partner, Gill Hedge, started the first monthly Antique Fairs in Oxford. They went on to run a twice weekly antiques market in George Street calling it ‘Oxford Antiques Omnibus’ and finally opened Oxford’s first antiques centre in the former Coopers Oxford Marmalade Factory opposite the station, affectionately known as ‘The Jam Factory’. When the 10 year lease ended, Sylvia and her academic husband opened Didcot Antiques Centre. (Atam had taken early retirement from Oxford Brookes)
Sylvia took up freelance writing and broadcasting on antiques in 1998, when she began writing features for the award winning magazine of the Oxford Times, ‘Limited Edition’. She went on to write for three magazines on art, history, fashion and science related events as well as antiques. Her profile features have included Sharmi Chakrabarti, Bettany Hughes and Colin Dexter, many gallery and museum directors, the Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, an Air Commodore, the last British District Officer in Nigeria, the last Officer in the British Indian Army, Sister Francis, the founder of the first children’s hospice, Ray Foulk, the founder of the Isle of Wight Festival and Michael Smith, the defence correspondent of the Sunday Times author of SIX - A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service .
She met the last two on John Ballam’s screen writing course. She is currently a student on the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford as she is working on two novels one set in Oxford and India and the other in China and the USA.
Sylvia has been involved in Kennington Overseas Aid for over thirty years, fourteen of them as chairman and she organises the programme for The Kennington Free Literary Festival. A recent member of the Oxford Writers Group, she had her first short story in their anthology The Bodleian Murders and other Oxford Stories , (OXPENS)available in most Oxfordshire book shops and on Amazon.