About the Author

About the Author

This is a recent picture of me in my cowboy outfit, I was into dressing up in those days. I also had a Native American outfit with full chief's head dress and a Red Ray suit complete with ray gun. Now for those of you scratching your heads about the latter character, he was a comic book character from pre-historic days when radios still had valves and the only thing in colour on television was the tuning knob. I don't dress up anymore - no, not even at weekends - but I can confess to having a Star Trek Next Generation tunic complete with Captain's pips, a communicator and a phaser. This garb appears only rarely, and wearing pointy rubber ears with ridged nose and forehead prosthetics is definitely out. My wife would have me committed if I indulged in such activity, there are limits even for someone with my sense of humour.

Life has moved on since my cowboy suit days - if you want to see more from the family album click here - and now I just work for cowboy outfits. Firing toy guns has given way to firing real people - though thankfully only rarely - and my waist line has expanded a little....okay a lot. Having had all the usual boyhood career ambitions I finally became a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry which was both challenging and occasionally fun, with foreign travel forming a large part of my daily schedule. After ten years of parking cars and pumping gas - hmm, that would make a good song lyric - I discovered computers and defected into information technology, working for a large computer company in Berkshire. This occasioned a family move from an end of terrace three bedroomed house into a four bedroom detached house in a large village thanks to the difference in property prices between the two locations. Though in a different industry I still travelled from time to time and was able to take my family with me to Europe, the USA and the Middle East. I am still in the information technology industry, mostly eCommerce, with a side order of promoting ICT in education to facilitate international projects between schools. I find the education side more fulfilling than industry, but until academia pays more sensible wages I will have to continue to support schools in my own time. The author as a grown up

Writing has always been a significant part of my life, both business and recreational as you can see from this web site, and so does foreign travel which my wife and I both still enjoy. As an example of our wanderings, and by way of a contrast against how I used to look, the picture on the right was taken by my wife when we visited New York, USA. As you can see I have changed a little, my beard is more in evidence, my voice has broken, and I still wear waistcoats, albeit they no longer have little silver stars on them saying 'sheriff'. My long suffering family is also grown up now, both children graduated and doing well for themselves. One of them is married the other lives away from home so it is now just myself and my wife. Well, I expect that over time I will add to this page, but for now I think that I have cured enough insomnia so I will leave you in peace to enjoy the rest of the site.



	This is a recent picture of me in my cowboy outfit, I was into dressing up in those days. I also had a Native American outfit with full chief's head dress and a Red Ray suit complete with ray gun. Now for those of you scratching your heads about the latter character, he was a comic book character from pre-historic days when radios still had valves and the only thing in colour on television was the tuning knob. I don't dress up anymore - no, not even at weekends - but I can confess to having a Star Trek Next Generation tunic complete with Captain's pips, a communicator and a phaser. This garb appears only rarely, and wearing pointy rubber ears with ridged nose and forehead prosthetics is definitely out. My wife would have me committed if I indulged in such activity, there are limits even for someone with my sense of humour. Life has moved on since my cowboy suit days - if you want to see more from the family album click here - and now I just work for cowboy outfits. Firing toy guns has given way to firing real people - though thankfully only rarely - and my waist line has expanded a little....okay a lot. Having had all the usual boyhood career ambitions I finally became a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry which was both challenging and occasionally fun, with foreign travel forming a large part of my daily schedule. After ten years of parking cars and pumping gas - hmm, that would make a good song lyric - I discovered computers and defected into information technology, working for a large computer company in Berkshire. This occasioned a family move from an end of terrace three bedroomed house into a four bedroom detached house in a large village thanks to the difference in property prices between the two locations. Though in a different industry I still travelled from time to time and was able to take my family with me to Europe, the USA and the Middle East. I am still in the information technology industry, mostly eCommerce, with a side order of promoting ICT in education to facilitate international projects between schools. I find the education side more fulfilling than industry, but until academia pays more sensible wages I will have to continue to support schools in my own time. Writing has always been a significant part of my life, both business and recreational as you can see from this web site, and so does foreign travel which my wife and I both still enjoy. As an example of our wanderings, and by way of a contrast against how I used to look, the picture on the right was taken by my wife when we visited New York, USA. As you can see I have changed a little, my beard is more in evidence, my voice has broken, and I still wear waistcoats, albeit they no longer have little silver stars on them saying 'sheriff'. My long suffering family is also grown up now, both children graduated and doing well for themselves. One of them is married the other lives away from home so it is now just myself and my wife. Well, I expect that over time I will add to this page, but for now I think that I have cured enough insomnia so I will leave you in peace to enjoy the rest of the site.