Profile

"I work as a Primary school teacher in the North East, where I live with my wife and two children; a funny experience was teaching my own daughter in her class once or twice last year.

Although I’m quite a settled person now, I still enjoy travel but prefer comfortable venues to some of the hitch hiking experiences I had with friends around France and Italy when I was young. These days I enjoy cycling and I like to go for walks around North Yorkshire, the Lake District or Scotland.

I love films and some TV and listening to all kinds of music and, of course, reading. I’d put Dostoevsky, H.G.Wells and Ray Bradbury among my favourite writers, but I like all kinds of fiction and mostly History for non-fiction. I’m not really very well read as far as poetry is concerned but I like Wilfred Owen and Sassoon as well as some Wordsworth, Dante, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ted Hughes and Carol Anne Duffy.

I did some creative writing at university and went to a writing group at a local bookshop for about a year until it closed. I’ve really enjoyed writing these poems and stories."