Born and raised ‘A Shropshire Lad’, I have lived in and around Coventry for over 25 years. I trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with a major international firm of Accountants but decided that the world of education would be much more rewarding (though no way in a financial sense!). I have since spent forty plus years in Further and Higher Education, both in teaching and in management roles. I still teach to this day, with several of my adult students’ children being the testing beds for the stories!

I stumbled into writing by accident; I had been jotting bits of poetry and keeping them in a loose file in an obscure drawer for years, when less than two years ago I read a couple of poems to a work colleague. She then, unbeknown to me, contacted her friend who works in the writing world. Her friend asked to meet me with the result that I published my first book in October 2023, ‘Perfect Poetry or Worthless Words’. I would not be writing at all if it were not for the encouragement (and nagging) of Donna Edwards, to whom I am hugely indebted.