I’m married to Sandra, (a Mumbles, Swansea girl) and am a father and a grandfather.
I was born too many years ago in Ripon, Yorkshire. My father served in the RAF and so I had a rather nomadic childhood, moving every 2-3 years. Which undoubtedly had a significant impact on my personality and not all of it good.
I ended up working for a national bank for thirty-nine years and had some great experiences. It’s not as boring a career as people imagine, especially as I finished up in an investigator/inspection role.
My banking career also involved several relocations until I arrived in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, where I’ve lived for over thirty years.
When did you start writing?
I think I’ve always had an interest in reading, writing and history. I didn’t do as well in my A-levels as I should have done because I became diverted by the desire to write an epic sci-fi novel. It took preference over study and revision but that’s what happens when the writing bug strikes. I dabbled in writing short pieces over the years, always wishing I could find that story that is said to be inside all of us. Where was mine?
Shortly after retiring I revived my lifelong passion for writing by attending local Creative Writing classes. The result has been a book of short stories, plays and poems for family and friends, and Gertie’s War.
What made you write Gertie’s War?
I had no choice, she became a real pest, nagging for her story to be told. Out of nowhere, the inspiration for Gertie’s War came from a creative writing class exercise which triggered a series of “what if?” questions that I had to investigate. In addition, several things that I read about around that time, lead and fed the story’s direction. Telling her story became a definite obsession. It took me about a year to write, edit and re-edit several times.
