More about the author

My first real attempt at creating fiction happened  when I was still a pupil at senior school. My English teacher, Mr Robinson, asked the class to write a short story, and I wrote about a lazy boy who never went out to play. 

One day, his legs became so annoyed by his lack of activity that they decided to leave him sitting in his chair and went out in search of adventure. 

The right leg went to the shops. 

The left leg went to the beach. 

Both legs quickly realised that they couldn't cope alone, causing them to return home. Once both legs were back in place, the lazy boy promised them that he would never to be lazy again. 

The story was well received by my teacher and I was asked/forced to read it at the morning assembly, in front of the entire school.

In later years, whilst reading bedtime stories to my two young daughters, I found it increasingly difficult to stick to the words written in the book. Very often, I would replace the words with my own or worse still, read them something completely made up: That's when I first realised my love of storytelling. 

Many years later, I enrolled in a comprehensive writing course with The Writers Bureau. However, due to work and home commitments, I never finished the syllabus, instead it was boxed up and put in the attic.

Several years passed, and my interest in the writing course rekindled. So I retrieved the dusty blue box from the attic and began submitting work to have it marked. But, just like before, I didn't give it my full attention, and soon the blue box was back up in the attic. 

In 2019, after getting the box down yet again, I entered the Writers Bureau student short story competition. The remit was to write the first few lines of a short story and I ended up winning with my story called The Italian Cat Sitter. You can read it here on my website. Just click on the link for short stories. 

They even published it on their student's blog and, for the first time in my writing career, I felt as if I was a published author. I didn't win a prize, just a certificate, but winning that competition gave me the encouragement to continue with my writing.

In December of that year, I was the runner-up in a short story competition organised by a local charity on the Isle of Wight called Sight for Wight. The remit was to produce a short story based on the topic: The Sounds of Christmas, and the competition rules limited the number of words to just five hundred. My story was entitled 'The Sounds of Grandads Christmas, read it here on my website. 

At the awards ceremony, I was presented with a runner-up certificate and a twenty-five-pound voucher to spend at M&S. Receiving financial reward for my writing was a milestone. It was my second award certificate; but my very first payday. I was very proud of that moment and despite only being runner-up, I knew that the competition always attracted a large number of local writers, everyone of which expected their story to be the winning one, so I was over the moon. 

In 2022, I won my second award at the Sight for Wight annual short story competition. On that occasion, I came third with my story called The Mystery of Luccombe Bay (Available to read here on my website)

It introduced my private eye, Harry Sharp for the very first time.

So I now had a third certificate to hang on my wall and, as a bonus, a twenty-five-pound restaurant voucher to spend at a local venue.

In that same year, I joined a creative writing group in East Cowes, which was where I was first introduced to the world of writing verse (Thank you, Graham Brown, for the inspiration you gave me). 

In 2023, I began writing a children's book. I called it The Search for Donkey Paradise, and I was amazed when a local publisher offered me a contract to complete it. The book is scheduled to come out in 2024. It's being published by Ginger Fyre Press and I hope you find it enjoyable to read.