I was born at a very young age… no let's start that again. In 1968, two days after Christmas on a cold stormy winter morning a doctor struggled up the hill through the wind and the snow, hurrying to the Gothic hospital building which stood overlooking the town, his collar turned up against the inclement weather, a look of grim determination across his haggard but handsome features… no, hang on … that's a bit overly dramatic. Let's say, it was bloody cold as it is in December and in a room somewhere in All Saints' Hospital, Chatham (now sadly no longer a hospital) a screaming, bald being came into this world. He has been bald and screaming ever since.

Okay, well, I got at least a fact or two into that paragraph. The truth of the matter is that I am, in a very literal sense, a child of the Sixties. Alas, I was too young to ask for any free love or LSD (pounds, shillings and pence obviously!) as when the Sixties came to their Beatles-splitting climax I was only just over a year old. I'm delighted to say I share my natal day with Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Sydney Greenstreet, Gerard Depardieu and Heather O'Rourke (the little girl out of The Exorcist) … an appropriately eclectic bunch!

As a child I was asthmatic and thus couldn't really take part in any sports (in those days if you were asthmatic you were sat on the sidelines, or, as I was, carted off to the school office, rather than encouraged to do as much as you could but not forced to over-exert yourself as would happen today, plus the fact my school was rubbish). This lack of interaction with my peers often led me to being a bit of an outsider both accidentally and sometimes deliberately, although without this I would probably have not started writing and my outlook on life would be quite different I'm sure. Today I'm so bloody-minded that if someone said walk left I would almost certainly walk right, just to see why I am being told to go left and in order to see what it is to the right that is so good I am not being allowed to go in its direction. I consider this to be a healthy disregard for sheep-brain-syndrome - rather than just being awkward for the sake of it!

My first forays into the wonderful world of writing (or WWW as it has become commonly known) was during my time at junior school (age 4-11 for all those Americans reading this who don't know what junior school is!). It all began with a Jaws-inspired cartoon strip about slugs and a killer hedgehog known as "Spines". This was, of course, a Great Lost Work of Literature which stands alongside those other lost classics ('Not Much Ado About Anything', 'Reasonable Expectations', 'Slightly Chilly Heights' and 'For Whom The Bell Tinkles'). It was pretty much my last experience of writing a comic strip (to date at least), but it did spurn a number of sequels which kept my fellow pupils amused until that fateful day when we were dissipated across the schools of the Medway Towns.

Lucky me! I washed up at Walderslade Boys' School (latterly re-named "Greenacres" in a kind of sick-making attempt to make it sound rural). Notorious is probably not the right word to apply… it somehows gives the place a cachet that it didn't have. Let's just say it was kindergarten with knives and that I'd have learnt more in a week in a sensory-deprivation tank than I did in seven years at that school! However, there were two important events that occurred to me at Walderslade Boys' (well, three if you count the loss of my childhood asthma). One is that I met up with two lifelong friends (or at least as much of my life as I have thus far lived), Shaun and Roy - the latter of whom has sometimes been a co-writer with me. The other big event is that sometime during that period I decided I wanted to be a writer. I told this to my schools careers officer who looked at me with the deliberately blank neutral expression that she might feasibly have used if I'd said "I'd like to make hardcore porn movies with a donkey please" and she asked "So what makes you think you'd be able to do that then?" (referring I am presuming to my request that I'd like to be a writer please thank you very much). Wish I knew her name so I could send her a copy of my books!

So I began to write more and more - often when I was supposed to be doing other lessons. One early attempt at erotica (about as erotic as semolina pudding when I look back on it) was confiscated by the teachers and not returned until, I suspect, they had all read it thoroughly. Considering that one of my teachers turned out to be a child-molesting pervert I guess I was lucky that they only took my stories into the staff room (gulp!). Good school, eh?

Having left school at 16 I proceeded not to go on to college or University, but to spend a year trying to avoid the YTS "job opportunity" scheme. I failed to do this and joined just before my 18th birthday (at which point I would have been too old … too old, at 18!). This took me to my first job, which, following on from the bizarreness of life to that point, was with a "computer programmer" who never programmed a computer, who lived off marijuana and brown toast and made his tea in a big brown earthenware jug. This guy wore sandals ALL year around (sometimes - crime of crimes - with socks), had me canvassing for his political party and knocking down a partition wall in his house. This taught me all I needed to know about computers.

Odd as this first job may have been I was left to my own devices for days on end whilst my "boss" went off to teach (oh yes, this was a man in charge of bringing up the country's youth!). This allowed me ample time to flex my authorial muscle which was initially flexed with writing exceptionally bad poetry (and I do mean BAD poetry) and an early attempt at writing a Doctor Who novel with Roy (both being big fans of the programme). This also turned out pretty ropey!

After a year of this I left and went to work for a solicitor in Chatham. It has been almost impossible to avoid the law in my jobs ever since. As time passed though my writing began to improve.

Let us skip forward a few years to 1991 (Thank God, I hear you say)…

1991 was a pivotal year for me. In September myself and Roy came up with a bright idea for a book. "Let's write a book about all of England's Castles" Roy said unto me one day, "That will be easy". "Good idea", said I. We are still working on it now. It took us seven years of wandering around England looking at muddy ditches and piles of stones to visit all 1,500 or so Castles in England. We are now deep in the throes of writing about them all. Still progress is being made and when the book does come out it should be the ultimate guide of its kind ever produced.

Also in 1991 I joined a writers' group; The Medway Writers' Guild. This transformed into The Medway and Maidstone Writers' Group and through it I began to broaden the scope of my writing and, more importantly, the raw skill I had became tempered with an ability to actually write half-decent stuff! One of my earliest pieces of what I would call 'mature writing' was entitled "Postcard from Lappeenranta" (circa 1993). Although quite basic to what I write now, it is probably my oldest piece of writing which I can read now and not think "Oh God, what a pile of tripe!".

Years pass … hair gets long, gets curly, gets dyed red, gives up and falls out. Castles continue to be visited, money continues to evaporate from bank account. Jobs change, I start to work in London and become a cheery commuter. Throughout all this time my writing improves and improves. I find myself capable of writing works like "Unidentified Flying Object" (1995) and "Red" (1996). Other BeWriters join the Medway and Maidstone Writers' Group (Barry Ireland, Chris Hunt, Sarah Higgins).

In 1996 the Group decided it was time we were published… and so I found myself in print for the very first time with the very successful collection of short stories entitled "Mixed Nuts!" which I typset and edited. This had a print run of 400 of which around 350 were sold and actually had a second print run! Not bad for a group of amateurs publishing themselves! In 1998 I had another idea for a book … a collection of short stories with an international feel to be called "Around The World In Eighty Pages". My inspiration for this was a story I wrote entitled "The Bush Bus" (1998). I didn't have 80 pages myself, so I turned to fellow Group member Darren Laws who supplied 40 pages of his own. The book which emerged was, to my mind, far superior to "Mixed Nuts!" with a cohesion and style of its own. It contained several of my best works to-date "Fatal Femme" (1998) - a popular story judging by the BeWrite Top Ten! - "Doris" (1997) and "The Tribe of Bones" (1998). Despite being a much better book and me, Darren and the artist who illustrated the book, Ivan Lloyd Smith, bombarding the local press with our faces the book sold very poorly. Of the 400 or so copies we printed a maximum of 100 were sold. This disappointment ended my enthusiasm for self-publication.

1998 also saw the end of my meanderings around England with Roy looking at Castles. Conversely it saw my first visit to Europe (aside from occasional daytrips and one drink-fuelled visit to Greece with Roy). Since then I have become an obssessive traveller having now visited France, Spain, Andorra, Ireland, Greece, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Croatia, Yugoslavia, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Austria, Poland and the Vatican City.

During 1999 I had several of my short stories published in a local leisure magazine called 'In Front' which folded in 2000 and also one of my stories; "Stanislaw and the Salt Gods" (1998) was translated into Polish and published in 'Dziennik Polski'; a Polish-language newspaper in London.

Sometime during the mid-90s I started writing poetry again, but this time it was more consistent, less angst-ridden mumblings and some of this work has now been published in "Shaken and Stirred" - but I'm getting ahead of myself again!

With my travels around Europe I started to write travelogues and so the final major theme of my writing emerged… so I am a short story-writing poet who produces travelogues and history-oriented non fiction. Nice and easy to pigeon-hole!

In 1999 I left the Medway and Maidstone Writers' Group and became one of the founding members of The Write Idea - Maidstone which I left in 2002. This Group was far more concerned with improving the writing of the members and organised seminars and had a couple of writers-in-residence. It was through The Write Idea that I came into contact with BeWrite.

Neil's enthusiasm fired me up to produce more work to go on the BeWrite site, as well as putting the stories from "Around The World In Eighty Pages" on-line. Then, after an abortive attempt, six of my stories were chosen to go in the book that launched BeWrite's book range: "Chill", alongside the fantastic work of Terri Pine and Peter Lee. Not long after I sent Neil "The Bird Man of Arkansas" (1999) - a story I consider to be one of my best works. If anyone ever doubts the usefulness of BeWrite to their writing (and I'm sure none of you do) a slight change, suggested by Neil, to "Bird Man" changed it from a damned good story into an absolutely stonking story (technical term!). "Bird Man" was then picked to accompany Mike Broemmel's short stories in "The Miller Moth" and so I had my second book published in 2002.

As if this wasn't enough not long after I sent some of my poetry to Heather Grace I then learnt that a poetry anthology was about to be published. This is "Shaken and Stirred: Poetry from the Far Corners" which came out in September 2002. Three books in one year! Oh my word … is this something like success?

2002 also saw me shake off (by having an operation) a persistent internal problem (which turned out to be a gall bladder that was non-functional). 2002 had even more surprises in store … in July I met the woman who has become the love of my life, Jacqui Harris, after so many years in the wilderness of singledom this a novel and exciting experience for me!

At the very end of 2002 my poem "Ghost" appeared in a collection of poems entitled "A Passion for Poetry" published by United Press, having been shortlisted in a poetry competition. In 2004 I will be editing and contributing to "Kaleidoscope: A Spectrum of Short Stories" to be published by BeWrite Books with each story written around the theme of a colour (or colours).

2003 has seen me venture into television for the first time appearing as a contender on the BBC's Mastermind. I was the first person to sit in the new chair, although it was shown out of sequence, so this isn't immediately apparent. My chosen specialist subject … well, English Castles … what else! Alas, although I came in second in my heat, I didn't make it through to the second round.

So that's my story… what am I like? Well, I like to think I'm humourous, intelligent, and all that sort of stuff. I like music, photography, art, theatre, movies, castles (no!), history, travel. I've also been known to read a bit… some favourite books? "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier, "The Rainbow Gate" by Freda Warrington, more or less anything by Terry Pratchett. Favourite music? The Beatles, Dylan, Clapton, Bangles, Tanita Tikaram, classical music; all kinds of things really.

I often consider myself to be a kind of "cultural sponge", soaking up influences from people and places around me.

Things I dislike - bigotry, racism, intolerance, mozarella cheese, world famine, the upstairs seats in the Royal Albert Hall, Coventry Cathedral, Stoke-on-Trent (sorry people of Stoke), ignorance (by which I mean "pig ignorance" not just stupidity), people who think that anything at all that is American is immediately better than anything else, Europhobic-types, shrink wrapping on things that aren't about to go off … I mean shrink wrap on a video tape … why???.

Things I like - the City of York, Prague, Spain (apart from the bull-fighting and ETA), Pistachio nuts, pasta, basil, garlic, under-rated George Harrison albums, the diversity of culture in Europe, Doctor Who, Jacqui (of course), maps, the thrill of flying to a new place, good whiskey, a good book.

Future Projects. I have numerous irons in numerous fires. The BIG project is, of course, the continuation and eventual completion of the Castles Book. This has occupied over a decade of my life now and is not something that I am going to allow to escape! On a smaller scale I have a series of childrens' poems about a mischievous cat which I need to do one more of and then get an illustrator to do pictures for before I send it off to publishers, I have various short stories on the go, the start (and only the start!) of a Doctor Who novel (hopefully a better one than the one me and Roy wrote back in about 1989!), a germ of the beginnings of the twinkle of an idea for a comedy fantasy novel. Having had a taster of the TV life I would like to follow my Mastermind appearance with some other shows.