I was born in the village of Haughton, nr Stafford, England in the early fifties. My father was very working class, he played football, went fishing and had a drink or two. Actually, he probably passed enough liquid through his body to put out the great fire of London.
The house we lived in was a slum, but when I was four years old my parents were allocated a brand new council house about five miles away in Seighford, and there I grew up with my two brothers and three sisters. Money was tight, especially as most of it went up the wall in the boozer, but growing up in the English countryside was great.
However, the good times couldn’t last forever; when I was sixteen, my father came home from work one night and declared England was finished and that we were emigrating to Australia. I’d found a job with a small painting and decorating firm and was just at the point of being allowed to do some glossing when I gave up the brush and boarded the plane to Melbourne. Sixteen is a funny age to be labled a £10 pom and dragged halfway around the world.
Anyway, I wasn’t much for Australia, too many poisonous critters for me, so when I was eighteen I came back to England without my parents. The experience was good, and the pay I got in the wool sorting shed was great, but it was nice to be back where I started.
Once back in England, I found work in a garage and after that trained to be a motorcycle mechanic. The job was okay, but the pay sucked, so I finished up working in a factory that made electricity meters. I worked hard, did some courses and promotion came easily which was good because I was now married with a wife and 2 boys to support. I never planned to have a career in management but I finished up in that role. I was responsible for 200 workers , £2million of output per month, went to meetings in the boardroom and helped shape the company’s strategic plan. If you’ve ever heard a song by Harry Chapin, called “I Don’t Want To Be President,” that just about summed up my position.
I worked in that factory for thirty years and when an opportunity for change danced in front of me, I grabbed it with both hands and waltzed off in a different direction. I became a freelance writer so that I could work from home and hours that suited me. I wrote articles and advertising copy and all was well with the world, that was, except for suffering a near fatal heart attack. I had two stents fitted and took so many tablets that I rattled whenever I stood up, but found I’d developed a desire to write fiction. I entered a few short story competitions and on my fifth attempt I won first prize. I was hooked and from that moment on I decided to concentrate on books.
I now have 4 books published, have one in the proofreading stage and I am currently writing the sixth.
When I’m not writing I am fishing and managed to win my local angling championship for two years in succession. In recent years, I have taken up painting and have enjoyed many mediums from watercolours to pastels. I am now exploiting the art of pryrography which I find most enjoyable and something I can do whilst working on the plot for my next book.
If you would like to find out more about my books Click here or to look at my pyrographyPlease click here.
