About the author

Richard Underwood

<p>Richard Underwood has a wide range of experience and interests.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>He joined the medical branch of the Royal Air Force straight from school, and served in hospital and medical centres at home and abroad. After leaving the air force he worked firstly as a mental health nurse and then a police officer in Greater Manchester.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>He subsequently became a minister of religion for twenty-years, being ordained and commissioned as a Salvation Army Officer and later becoming an Industrial Chaplain to the Fishing Industry as a Superintendent with the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. During this period he also obtained a BSc(Hons) in Social Science and a diploma in counselling.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On leaving the ministry he became a civil servant at a Government Office in Leeds where he specialised in Technology and Innovation, and became the Company Secretary of a Regional Technology Network before becoming a staff counsellor for the West Yorkshire Ambulance Service, and Chief Executive of a national counselling charity.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>He spent two periods as a welfare rights officer, one with Bolton Social Services and one with Salford Social Services, both in Greater Manchester, providing training and advice, and representing clients at Social Security appeal tribunals.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In his late fifties he moved to Suffolk where he became a sheltered housing manager until his retirement.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>After retirement he returned to nursing, working on general wards and acute mental health wards at Bury and Ipswich hospitals in Suffolk for several years until his seventieth birthday when he moved back to Droylsden, Manchester where he lives with his wife and from where he is engaged in writing and research.</p>