When a girls' school in Sheffield was looking around for authors to talk about books during its Literary Week, it couldn't have reached for a higher star.

Their special guest on Saturday night was Barbara Taylor-Bradford, author of one of the top ten best selling books of all-time.

With 25th novels to her name and now a multi-millionairess, Leeds-born Barbara is as much a woman of substance as her own creation, Emma Harte. Inspirational proof indeed for Ashdell Prep schoolgirls that writing novels can get you places.

It just so happened that Ashdell School's request to her publishers coincided with a special, home-coming tour of Yorkshire for Barbara.

She was back in the county to celebrate the 30th birthday of her record-breaking debut novel, A Woman of Substance - and she would love to meet the Ashdell girls and their mothers.

"We were absolutely thrilled when we heard she had accepted our invitation," says head Anne Camm, a fan of BTB from her student days.

"It was such a coup for the school. Barbara is one of Britain's most successful women writers and the character she created in A Woman Of Substance was an inspirational figure, who became a success through determination and hard work. That is very much the ethos of our school."

Talking with the no-fuss grand dame of British romantic fiction

She might be the grand dame of British romantic fiction, but there were no airs and graces when Barbara Taylor Bradford went back to school.

Barbara could easily have passed for one of the pupils' well-heeled grandmas. She didn't sweep into the head-mistress's sitting room, she simply appeared in our midst, one elegantly-manicured hand outstretched in greeting as she smiled warmly.

Save her request for an austere dining chair instead of the comfortable armchair she felt she might sink a little too far into and never be able to get out of, there was absolutely no fuss.

As the Star's cameraman moved in for a close-up, she patted her lightly-back-combed, honey-blonde bob and straightened the mother-of-pearl buttons on her black trouser suit. And as smiled into the lens I seized the opportunity to sneak a close look at her face. Incredibly, this woman of 76 looks two decades younger.

She was lightly made-up (she may write novels and be called Barbara, but she's no Cartland clone) and her skin looked as plump as soft as a peach. And just as natural. If she's had any work done, there must be wealthy New Yorkers queueing for the name of her surgeon.

She had come straight from a hectic day of book signings and meet and greets in her home city of Leeds, a week into her promotional tour in the county, and was in need of a quick break before stepping up to the speaker's podium at Ashdell's literary mothers' and daughters' evening to inspire a new generation of girls to believe in their dreams.

But a consummate pro and a former journalist, she took the briefest sip of water and launched straight into our interview.

The story of Barbara's success isn't quite rags to riches, but it's as good as any of her heroine's tales - and just as fascinating. She must have told it a million times in interviews the world over, but is too well-mannered to say as she recants it one more time.

She became a published author at 10 - the same age as the shy schoolgirls on the sofa next to her.

"I used to love writing stories and one day my mother asked me to copy out one of them out very neatly. She wanted to enter it into a competition in a magazine," she recalls.

"I was excited but nothing happened for weeks and I was quite crest-fallen. But eventually a letter arrived... containing a postal order for 7s6d, a lot of money to me. Then I saw my name, Barbara Taylor in the magazine. It felt like my destiny was sealed."

The little girl didn't sit around and wait for fate, though; she made her own destiny: "I wanted to be a writer, but was sensible and practical enough to realise you don't just sit down and write a book and make your living from it. So I told my parents I'd decided to become a journalist to earn money from my writing," she recalls. "They were supportive, as always."

Becoming a reporter back in 1948 was no easy task, though. So at 15 she got herself a job in the typing pool at the Yorkshire Evening Post and learned the job from the inside.

Her big chance came when she was walking home from work one night: "There was a fair in Leeds and I saw an accident. I got all the details, wrote the story and left it, neatly typed, on the sub-editor's desk." She had figured out how to construct the story from her days spent typing out the ones reporters would phone in with.

"They used my article and I set out to find more. They had no idea I was behind them. One day they realised they ought to pay this Barbara Taylor.

"They thought perhaps I was a stringer in Sheffield or Doncaster, but when they checked their records the only one on the staff was the girl in the typing pool.

"The editor was into encouraging talent and he sent for me. He asked if I wanted to be a journalist. Talk about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread; I told him: "I do - and I'm going to be, sir."

She got the job on a salary of £5 a week, moved up to women's editor and within four years was on Fleet Street at the age of 20. She became the fashion editor of Woman's Own, met husband Bob Bradford, a wealthy American film producer, moved to New York in 1964 and 15 years later, landed a publishing deal for her first novel, A Woman of Substance.

Today, the book is one of the top 10 best-selling novels of all-time, having sold more than 31 million copies, and has been translated into over 40 languages.

Not half bad for the girl from the typing pool.

As she talks, there's the occasional trace of a Yorkshire accent. "I know," she smiles. "Being back here brings it out."

This is a working visit - her home is still in New York, an apartment on the East River worth about $30million with Henry Kissinger downstairs. But there usually six or seven trips a year back to visit friends in Yorkshire and London.

Her latest book, Breaking The Rules, is her 25th and a story of love and redemption which flits from London and Paris to Istanbul and Hong Kong. She tells me about its heroine, M, a new woman of substance set to win a new era of readers' hearts. In keeping with these celebrity-obsessed times, M is a supermodel who falls in love with a movie star.

"At the pinnacle of her success it all starts to go wrong.. M's past catches up with her, the lives of those she loves are threatened and there's nothing she won't do to protect them," she says, pale blue eyes sparkling.

Will husband Bob, taking the early evening air in the school car-park, be making a movie of this one? "He's hoping to," she says. "But everyone wants reality shows."

Understandably, the queen of fiction and skilled creator of a make-believe world, is not a fan.

"People seem to want to watch other people having a difficult time. But maybe that's on the wane. I've heard one show is being axed..." she means Big Brother, though I doubt she's seen it.

Just four years off 80, she refuses to hang up her pen. She still spends up to 12 hours a day, every day, in her office, starting work at 6.30am. "I'm not writing for all that time," she says, mostly down-playing the effort she puts in.

With more success and riches than a modern day wanna-be woman of substance could ever hope to attain, isn't it time she took things easy?

"No," she says, emphatically.

"If I didn't write, what would I do with myself? I have tried taking time out but I got so bored. I love writing. It's creative and I love challenge. The mountain is there, so why not climb it?"

"The secret of my success?
"I'm a good liar," says Taylor Bradford with a twinkle.
"A novel is an absolute lie, with an absolute ring of truth. You have to invent people who have never lived doing things that have never happened."
Her career as a journalist helped too, she says.
"It developed my insight into people and why they do what they do - which is vital when you're creating characters readers can identify with.
" If Emma Harte had been a wimpy character, no one would have wanted to read about her."
Those early days on the Yorkshire Evening Post also trained her to write under the pressure of deadlines and taught her the importance of factual detail in her work.
But it's life itself which taught her that no novel should be without one all-important ingredient... Romance.
"Without it, a book wouldn't be true to life," she says. "After all, without love and sex, where are we all?"

Your chance to meet Barbara Taylor Bradford....

Barbara will be at WH Smith's, Meadowhall on Saturday from 2pm-3.30pm to sign copies of Breaking The Rules, (Harper Collins £14.99) and a 30th anniversary edition of A Woman of Substance.