Look and Listen

Biography

I live on a small island called Burray in the Isles of Orkney, Scotland, United Kingdom. The weather is wild and the people are fantastic and very creative. I served in the British Army for over thirty years and went through the ranks to Major. I have visited forty two countries and served long term in a lot of them, fourteen years of which was in the Far East. On retirement from the military we bought a smallholding with 5,000 free range chickens, goats, pigs and many other livestock, my wife of forty years and I ran this for five years. The bottom fell out of the egg market so we sold up and bought the local village Public House (The New Inn). We ran the pub for nearly three years and I then got cancer. We sold up and bought a Bed and Breakfast house nearby that my wife could run by herself if necessary. After my successful treatment I trained to be a mortgage broker and worked as an independent self-employed broker. After nursing me my wife visited her sister in Orkney for a holiday. During her break she phoned me and said “why don't you retire early and move here to Orkney and do your writing.” I drove to Orkney that weekend (700 miles) and viewed a couple of properties. Within five months we had sold up down South and moved here. My next and final move will be feet first in a box, having moved 33 times in the military and three times to get here my roots are finally planted. I have been writing seriously since I got married; I didn't seem to have the time when single; although I did write some short stories. My wife has been very supportive and understanding and when I close the door to my office she never disturbers me. I have written two novels with a military theme. I sent them to numerous publishers and agents with no success, I eventually combined them into a saga and tried again and still no success, so I have set them aside I will eventually do a rewrite and try again. I have a terrorist novel half written and I got bogged down so I have set that aside. I have published a murder mystery novel called Mosquito Coast Murders; I am in the process of writing a sequel.

Inspiration

My first and lasting inspiration was my English teacher. He said to me after reading my first essay, “Your handwriting, punctuation and grammar are rubbish but your ability to tell a story is wonderful, over the next year we will put the wrong right,” and he did well more or less, the handwriting is still appalling. I felt he didn’t particularly like me as he was always fierce with his criticism and gave me extra work, but I suppose he was only doing his job. Living in Orkney is inspirational in its self. On a cold, wet and windy night (we have many) sitting in my armchair in front of a roaring coal fire it takes me a few minutes with my eyes closed and writing pad in hand to get the words flowing. I never get writers block if I do get stuck, I just start writing about what I did the previous day and within minutes I get a flash of inspiration to continue my story.