Welcome to my crazy-mad world of creative writing for both children and adults.
My website isa portfolio of my work, featuring stories (both long and short), fairytales,
poems, nurseryrhymes, songs - and much, much more. I hope that you will find them
both interesting
and enjoyable…
I have always loved travelling, exploring exotic far-flung destinations,
and over the years I have been fortunate enough to have visited so many
places, locations far removed from the monotonous tourist trails of europe...
In the 1970’s I worked in Africa, in Liberia and Nigeria to be exact,
as a telephone exchange installation technician. During
my time there, I 'discovered' pagan temples hidden deep within the jungle,
I climbed to the top of huge, mystifying 'ju-ju' rocks outside Lagos,
and I crossed Lake Oguta, a crocodile infested expanse of water, in a
dug-out canoe. I loved my time in Africa and I long to go there
again.
I
spent five years living and working in Australia. While I was there, I
travelled across large areas of it, including the 'red interior', where
I climbed to the top of Ayers Roch (I actually almost fell off it). I
fed pigs heads to wild crocodiles in Darwain and I also visited the mysterios
Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland. I try to return to Australia as often
as time and money permits.
One
of my favourite countries is The Philippines – the wonderfully decorated
jeepneys of Manilla are a must-see.
Another
country that I love is Thailand; the hustle and bustle of Bangkok is almost
a crazy as my writing. The beach resorts, however, are the opposite –
so very, very relaxing.
In
1999 I went back to school, as a mature student, studying Art and Design.
It was a wonderful experience. I passed with flying colours, gaining six
merits, three distinctions and a student of the year award, to boot. I
thoroughly recommend it.
In
December 2004 I began writing during my spare time, and although I found
it to be quite time consuming and quite tiring (I also had a full-time
job), I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the words came. My only regret
being that I did not begin years earlier.
At
the same time as I began writing, I was in the process of selling my house
and organising my marriage in far-away Australia. As you can well imagine
it was an extremely busy period for me, with so many other things vying
for my attention other than writing, but I persisted and have never regretted
it..
When our house was finally sold, Breda and I moved into a mobile home
while we were waiting for the builders to finish our new house. To call
it a mobile home is, perhaps, using artistic licence to the absolute extreme
– it was TINY (see photo). We parked it at the bottom of the garden,
settled in and were as happy a Larry…
We were as happy as Larry, until one sunny morning when I fell through
the caravan door, landing on my back with a heavy BANG.
It hurt! It hurt so very much, but being the fool that I was I went to
work, where I struggled on regardless. I did this for six whole weeks,
despite the pain stubbornly remaining.
After struggling through six full week of pain, I finally went my doctor,
to see what he could do about it. After examining me, he simply said,
“Take the pain killers, don’t exert yourself, but other than
that carry on as per usual.” I went home and took the pills, determined
to put it all behind me. However, next morning, while opening the fridge
door, the worst pain that I have ever experienced in my entire life, shot
up my left leg with a vengeance!!! It felt like a chainsaw was cutting
my leg off. I collapsed to the floor in writhing agony...
To cut a long story short, I was suffering from an acute attack of sciatica,
which laid me up for seven weeks. Even now, three years on, I have still
not totally recovered from it, and my doctor tells me that my back/leg
will probably never return to its full pre-sciatic condition.
Despite this terrible, terrible pain that I experienced, we had a lot
of good times in that old caravan, and I during that time I wrote a good
part of the first instalment of the ‘Wot and Nott’ Trilogy’.
Presently, my writing desk is located in our garage, but don’t feel
too concerned for my well being. You see, the garage is an integrated
part of the house structure – It’s even centrally heated.
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can email your comments
Well,
that’s enough about me and my crazy life. Now on to the reading,
with you... Click on the menu bar to the left - and enjoy...
