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The author grew up in the North East of England and went to
Westoe Comprehensive School in South Shields, which was next
to Westoe coal pit. The school attracted children who had
missed the opportunity to go to grammar school and were
predominantly from working class backgrounds, with a high
percentage of parents being unemployed. It was a time when
special needs in schools were not identified. He left school
barely being able to write because of being dyslexic.
Through no fault of his mother's, his father raised him,
exposing him to the worst type of childhood any child could
have. He joined the army at the age of 16. The military was
not an ideal career path but it gave him three good meals a
day and an education of a sort. He became a diver/combat
engineer in an amphibious unit based on the south coast of
England but was deployed all over the world. He was 19 years
old whilst serving in the Falkland Islands. After nearly
nine years of military service he left the armed forces.
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He drifted around the world, recorded a music-album project
and worked as an actor and extra in Hollywood. He started up
his own film production company developing a number of film
scripts/media projects as well as producing and directing a
number of small film projects. He then went on to complete a
Geography degree at Newcastle University whilst teaching
drama at Northumbria University Students' Union. He also
gained a national certificate in Photography. He has strong
environmental views. As a part of his degree he went to live
with rainforest Aborigines in Queensland to create an
interactive CD-ROM for education. For nearly five years, out
of choice, he has worked in some of the toughest schools in
London (October 2001 - July 2006). He has worked with
children whose behaviour and socioeconomic backgrounds have,
on many occasions, been appalling. Although being dyslexic
himself he has managed to inspire young adults to achieve
fantastic results in Science and a range of humanities,
including Geography. During this period he created a
substantial musical ethos at a tough boys' school by setting
up and running a blues club five days a week. It was at this
time that he wrote Book Three to 'A Mighty Fine Way to Live
and Die', completed his first collection of poems and
recorded a demo of an original blues album. He is a blues
enthusiast and can often be found at the blues jam on
Charing Cross Road in Soho, London, singing covers and his
own material.
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