THERE are six children who are very proud of a new novel which has just been published by the Harvester Press.

          It is an extremely adult book entitled, "Get Down There and Die" by authoress Jennifer Lash, but she has dedicated the book to her six children because they not only insisted that she went back to the writing career which was disrupted when she started her family, but they actively arranged for her to have three free hours a day in which to write.

          Jennifer Lash is the daughter of Mrs. Joan Lash, of Bridge End, Churt, who is well known throughout the county for her work with the Women's Institute, of which she is a past Surrey county chairman and past national vice-chairman.

          Jennifer spent most of her childhood in the area, and was a student for a short time at the Farnham College of Art.  She also worked at Edgeborough School before her marriage to Mark Fiennes, a professional photographer.

          Her new book has been praised by the literary critics.  Peter Tinnis Wood of The Times writes:  "--one of the strangest and most intriguing novels to have come my way in a very long time."  The Sunday Times comments:  "The writing is distinguished."

           The book is a study in fear -- though it is not a thriller in the conventional sense.  A young man sees an expression of intense terror on the face of a man standing on the crowded platform of a tube station.  He tries to reach him, but is prevented by the crowd, and can only follow him at a distance.

           He becomes obsessed with the idea of finding the man and follows a trail which eventually leads him to Ireland, where he changes from pursuer to pursued, the quarry of the man he wanted to help.

          Jennifer Lash uses the present tense in writing the novel, as she did in her first two books, "The Burial" and "The Climate of Belief."  She says:  "I think it demands more attention and involvement from the reader.  I just naturally feel easier writing in the present tense."

          She thinks it is appropriate for the present day reader, who is used to getting information from the media as events are happening, and reading the book one does get a sense of reality about the events, a greater sense of the story unfolding as you read, in spite of the unreality of some of the situations which go to make up the plot.

           Her descriptive writing is vivid, whether the scene is set in the lodging house of a respectable London landlady or the Irish peasant's home.

           Jennifer and her husband run a photography business called Insight Cards.  They produce and sell a series of postcards in black and white which capture the character of places and people.

            They spent four years in Ireland when the children were younger, and travelled the country taking photographs and writing articles on Ireland.  They have become known as authorities on the subject and are often approached by magazines and other publications for materials on Ireland.

            With the photography and the family, Jennifer gave up for a time all aspirations of writing as a career, but as the children grew older they began to persuade their mother to write another book, and came up with the suggestion of the three hours a day "writing time."

             The children are Ralph 15, Martha 14, Magnus 12, Sophie 11, and seven-year-old twins Jacob and Joseph.  The older ones bundled their mother into a room with a typewriter each day at 2 p.m. and took the younger ones out of the way.  At five they brought her a cup of tea, and family life was resumed.

             "I didn't really think it would work out," she says, "I thought I might just get a few articles written -- but the result was the book."

             The family has now moved back to Wiltshire and she is well back into her stride as a writer.  She has complete a further novel, "The Dust Collector" to be published next year, which is set in Ireland and is now working on a play set in a Government office, which deals with the loss of personality and identity which many people experience when encompassed by officialdom.

              She says the continuation of her career has been made possible by an Arts Council Grant, which has enabled her to have domestic help while she works an eight hour day at her writing.  Previously she had reared her family with no help at all, as well as working at the photography business.

              "It has been a life of tremendous pressure," she says, "but my husband is marvellous.  He helps me a lot, and the children are very self sufficient.  I enjoy the fact that they see me as a person, with ideas and interests of my own, and not just a mum who makes the meals and finds their socks."