About the Author

After a brief period of being an apprentice welder and a "nearly time-served" electrician, I decided to go labouring for the extra money needed.

Having an electronics background as a hobby, I thought it was only natural that I should persue this and when I was 21, I joined the Army, got married, had two wonderful girls and travelled throughout Cyprus, Germany, England, Gibraltar and Ireland, for the subsequent 15 years I was in the Army providing telecommunications.

Started a group whilst in the Army called Penny Farthing, a folk group and travelled all over Europe with the group. (Well, Belgium, Holland Germany) Played G banjo and Tenor Banjo, Guitar, Cittern, Bouzouki, Mandolin, Bass, Tin Whistle, Dulcimer and sitar. Keyboards figured well into my life as I learned to play the piano at an early age, materialising as keyboards in a band when I left the Army. I wrote many comedy songs.

During the course of my writing career, I have written many thousands of pages of stuff for other people and their companies, many hundreds of CV's for people looking for work. Once I had got my first computer, which was the ZX Spectrum, and the very strange ZX Thermal printer, I started to program in BASIC whilst I was still in the Army. I still had the Spectrum when I left. So, in effect, my writing has literally helped me through the hard times when I was out of work.

I went to work for an Alarm company when I came out of the Army, lasted a year in that job and went back to Telecommunications with a local company. It was there I got my first PC.

I left that company and got a job as a contractor at the North Pole in London for British Rail. Got a bigger computer and progressed from there up. I have always used computers in the normal course of my work for IBM, Lucent etc but never used it for personal gain until I fell off a ladder and severed my cruciate ligament. That gave me plenty of time to write CV's and other stories for those who wanted them. The computer was even then, quite new and really out of reach to the average guy in the street.

I have written many thousands of pieces, industry specific articles, spoof reports, comedy sketches and newsletters for every company I have worked for.

Now, alongside my main computer, I have a complete recording studio set up with a Spirit Folio 16 Mixer, Yamaha SW1000XG sound card, Keyboard, Digitech voice harmoniser, Digitech Vocalist harmoniser and Spririt Absolute Zero studio monitors. I write and compose music, lyrics to any style and have a couple of recordings made for my previous companies. It is here I can escape to a different world either writing books or articles, or just composing music for TV or radio advertisements, or specific pieces for my own personal pleasure, just because I can.

I design and make the fabulous Faberge style eggs out of real goose eggs, decorated with semi-precious stones, lots of diamante, silver and gold wire and braids. It also works well with Rhea eggs, though they are a little more expensive than the goose eggs. I also carve out Ostrich eggs by hand. This takes a little time and patience, but it's well worth the 80 hours work or so.

My partner and I go into the forests that abound the area where I live and collect tree roots to carve and make some items for the home such as plant stands. Stained and polished they look absolutely gorgeous - but beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

So, that's basically my life in a nutshell. I now live in Holland with my partner Tanja for the last 10 years. Have a job during the day - trading in electronics and computer parts now.

Any ex colleagues are welcome to get in touch with me, as is anyone else wanting to share any experiences - strange or otherwise on the next page.