Born and raised in Australia, I arrived in the UK in late 1985 for a one-year holiday. Obviously time works differently in England because I’m still here today.
I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing, starting my as-yet-untitled magnum opus at the age of eight. It’s about a boy who turns into a rabbit and it ran to 13-pages in my primary school exercise book. Apparently that was a record at the time. Sadly, the manuscript was lost to the ravages of time which is probably a good thing; I’m sure the story would have a Watership Down vibe now I’m old and cynical.
Despite frequent dalliances with English language, I decided to believe the lie and study something I enjoyed, rather than what I was good at. This led to poor grades in Chemistry and Biology and a wasted year studying ‘Applied Science and Forensic Measurement’.
With the realisation that I was never going to be a pathologist, a career change was in order. And so I moved into IT. To be fair, I wasn’t bad at it, but there are only so many years you can waste trying to help people who don’t want to learn how to use computers properly (16 to be exact). During that time I worked for a nuclear power station (The Simpsons is actually a documentary), an original dot com startup, a couple of software houses and a few schools.
I also moved from Surrey to Essex, married the most amazing woman and took on the biggest challenge of my life – a family.
Eventually I discovered that by the 2010s people were actually prepared to pay for words. And so began the next phase of my career, as a digital copywriter. I finally found my niche.
I jacked in IT and went full time, writing marketing and advertising for… IT companies. However, this is the best job in the world, allowing me to write for some of the world’s biggest brands. You’ve probably never heard of Tech Write, but that’s the nature of ghostwriting. There’s no fame attached to technical copywriting, but it doesn’t matter if the client pays their bill. And there’s always a new project just in case I get bored.
My wife and I also developed a passion for travel, visiting 35 different countries since 2004. We developed the Journey into Darkness website to share our discoveries and experiences with other travellers.
Now four decades later, I am finally writing down some of the story ideas I have. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve even finished and published a few, starting with The Warsaw Gambit.
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