I was born in 1962 into a household that lived and breathed sports, my dad being a seasoned senior amateur and lower league professional footballer.  He then went on to manage his own businesses in cahoots with my mum, who was no slouch either – she was a skilled and award-winning dancer.

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After snagging a degree in History from Leeds University, I  took a rather serendipitous stroll into the burgeoning world of information technology in the late '80s.

 

Alongside a flourishing tech career, I dabbled in various writing and acting pursuits, from freelancing as a journalist and book reviewer (with a coveted by-line in The Sunday People) to gracing stages in village halls and even professional theatres all across the south of the UK for a good decade.

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In a nod to the family's sporting legacy, I delved into the world of live TV broadcasts for a while. Armed with a wealth of rugby knowledge, I became one of the go-to 'statos' for the BBC, ITV, TVNZ, and EuroSport, covering everything from Heineken Cups to Six Nations, World Sevens, and World Cups in the late '90s.

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All the while I continued to write as well as setting up my own business and investing in one or two small ventures along the way.

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Over recent years I have worked as a senior leader with a number of well-known UK companies, finishing up as Global Head of Delivery for a specialist machine learning and analytics software business.

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Since 2009 I have focused a lot of my energy on the writing, though, with my first novel, Songs of Bliss, being published in 2011. Having worked with a couple of now defunct small publishers (without my work being a direct cause of their demise, I hope), I took the decision in 2017 to both commence the Fireside Tales project and to set up my own small publishing business. 

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Rolling on over the last 7 years, I've published another novel, collections of my own short stories, as well as a biography of my father and more than 30 titles in the Fireside Tales project.

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As of 2024 I now spilt my time between a little consulting work and part-time project work with emerging technology businesses, while devoting a large portion of each week to writing and publishing projects.

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Spare time tends to revolve around the dogs. We've been taking in rescue greyhounds for a few years now (that's me and darling Mel in Scotland in the pic, sometime around 2016-17)