I’ve loved reading since I was young and collected Biggles books, Enid Blytons ‘Famous Five’ series, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The 3 Investigators’ and then started Stephen King when I was 16. I think the sense of adventure appealed to me; travelling the world vicariously or living an adventure or mystery through the pages of a book. I learnt a lot about the world and history and geography. And putting words together. Later on I developed an interest in ancient civilisations and their mysteries, lost knowledge and the links between early cultures in Egypt, the Mediterranean and the Americas.
My other passion is travel. I’ve been to 47 countries and lived and worked in five. I picked up some French, German and Spanish along the way and was pleased to be able to at least say ‘thank you’ in each country in their own language.
I began travelling in the eighties and got to see some of the famous places I had read about like Paris, the Berlin Wall (I’ve got a piece), the Grand Canyon, Louisiana and the bayous, Macchu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, Tiawanaku, the Nazca lines, the Amazon, Tikal and the ruins in Mexico. I took photos and documented my travels. I wrote up my travel stories along the way, and years later tried to capture the adventures from each country into one book.
When I settled back in Australia in the mid-nineties I began to write short stories. Much of it was about the future and different visions of what might occur in the years to come.
One of my short stories evolved into a larger story, the Age of Aquarius. It’s a post-apocalyptic novel set on the Gold coast in Queensland, Australia. It draws together my readings and ideas on ancient cultures and lost knowledge, and it’s not giving the punchline away that women rule the new world and have all the sacred knowledge. It is still being written but there’s teasers on the website under ‘Book Chapters’.
A spin off from that novel is “Two years in the Army” – a fictional diary written by a young Australian conscripted into the army and sent to fight in Vietnam. Whilst it is a work of fiction, it is based on fact and actual events, albeit with the names changed. It is finished and I am very proud of the research that I did to embed realism not the story to honour our Vietnam veterans. It motivated me to write more diaries, set in WW2, and has become a series with 3 more books printed. See the “Books” page.
I live with my wife and 2 children on the Gold Coast, Australia, one of the most beautiful and liveable places I have seen on the planet.