Ex many occupations, from the respectable career ladder to disreputable "somebody's-got-to- do-it". All a good way of seeing someone else's point of view. Best job, apart from writing, was dispatch riding on a motorcycle in the 1970s, though I've also enjoyed teaching, librarianship, counselling and helping to run a community centre. Worst job—you really don't want to know, but it was in a processed food manufacturer's factory—put me off bacon, sausages and quiches for a long time, and made me look at pet food in a new way.
I've been writing since I was eight, when I penned a story about a desert island and attempted to compile a dictionary—as Clarissa does in 'The Moon Is Out Tonight'. I've written for magazines under a variety of pen names, ghostwritten a couple of biographies and had a column in a local newspaper. I used to concentrate on non-fiction of an informative, how-to-do-it, instructional nature, as I'm a firm believer in the dissemination of knowledge to enable people to do things for themselves. Knowledge is power, and in these troubled times of economic recession and increased intrusion into our lives by government agencies it's vital to know how to get through. My fictional stories also show people coping and finding ways to survive.
I'm based in a Celtic nation, the county of Cornwall or Kernow. I've been here for thirty years, and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad—in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the USA.