Children's author Jacqueline Wilson has revealed to the public that she is gay. 

The 74 year-old, who wrote the best-selling Tracey Beaker series, has been living 'very happil' with her long-term partner Trish for the last 18 years.

She told The Guardian: "I’ve never really been in any kind of closet. It would be such old news for anybody that has ever known anything much about me.

"Even the vaguest acquaintance knows perfectly well that we are a couple."

And Wilson said the only person who was 'appalled' at her relationship was her mother. 

But 'that wasn’t too devastating for me because my mum cordially hated my ex-husband; she didn’t really approve of any of my friends'.

And in her 111th book, called Love Frankie, which is due to come out in August, she does in fact tackle the topic after not previously having written about gay characters.

She said she wanted to write 'a truthful, honest book about a girl falling in love with another girl. It’s certainly not aimed at young gay teenagers, it’s aimed at all teenagers who have ever worried because they haven’t fallen in love, or they have fallen in love'.