The soundtrack to my youth was provided by the singer-songwriters of the sixties and seventies. Their thought-provoking lyrics and melancholic rhythms struck a chord that has never quietened. There was fantasy in all things Tolkien and darkness in the depths of a Denis Wheatley novel. All were an escape from a working-class environment, with those dark, satanic mills, equally as grim to a teenager as any fantastical creature. Life in the alleys taught me much, about community, about looking out for the less fortunate. A lesson that has stayed with me throughout.
That sense of injustice was the catalyst for putting pen to paper. It led to a writing career spanning over three decades, with much of the early years spent penning educational texts and academic books. I have spent the last few years writing an opinion column for the local paper. This has taught me much in respect of being succinct and to make every word count. Even with non-fiction, I seek the new angle.
My aim is to evoke, to provoke. I write to stimulate emotion, in myself and in the reader. Writing is my drug of choice and I am addicted. The creativity, the research, the development of a sentence, a paragraph, a book. Letting your imagination run away with you is like flying. It is in this journey that I find true happiness.