I kept asking my mother to teach me, and eventually she did when I was 13. I was awarded the diploma of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (DFAstrolS) and joined the Astrological Association when I was 19, and I have been practising ever since. In 1995 I took an intensive course in horary astrology, a specialised and very precise branch of astrology, and became a Qualified Horary Practitioner (QHP). Horary is a branch of astrology that deals with finding the answer to very specific questions such as ‘Will I get the job?’, ‘Is this the right house for me?’ or ‘Will I marry my boyfriend?’ In 2005 I became a fellow of The Association of Professional Astrologers International (APAI).

When I started my astrological career, I did some counselling, but I also did individual written analyses of people’s horoscopes, based on the position of the planets at the time, date, and place of birth. These were popular but time-consuming to prepare – there were no computers to do the calculations then.

As I became busier with my cookery writing, my waiting list for astrological reports got longer and longer. When it was a year long, in the early 1980s, my husband Robert said it was ridiculous and we must do something about it – we must get computerised. I was reluctant at first, but we agreed that we would only offer computer horoscopes to the public if we could make them as good as personally written individual ones, so I thought we’d give it a try.

It took us two years of hard work. Robert wrote computer programs that could look at a birth chart in the way that I did, and go through all the stages needed to make a thorough analysis of it. At the same time, I wrote literally millions of words of text to cover every astrological possibility that might occur. We were pleased with the results, and in 1983 Rose Elliot Horoscopes was born, to make the computer horoscopes available to everyone.  Unfortunately the illness of my husband in 2012 through dementia and his death in 2015 means that the computer horoscopes are no longer running.  Whilst I hope to be able to recommence them at some time, at present they are not available.

Knowing the wealth of information found in an individual birth chart, I hesitated in 1985 when I was invited to write the weekly horoscopes for Woman’s Realm magazine, based of course just on star (sun) signs. Then I figured that the star page would continue, whether I wrote it or not, and that it was best that it were written by a qualified astrologer, so I took it on and continued for about 5 years. I have also written star pages for Here’s Health and She magazines.