About the Author
During the day, I design gargantuan diesel engines for ships and trains. Stimulating and creative though this is, it leaves me with a smidgeon of right-brain oomph at nightfall. Hence, writing.
Time constrains me largely to poetry but I also have a growing fistful of short stories and two novels, albeit one is just for youngsters, so probably doesn't count
Influences
Perversely, I've spent long tracts reading only non-fiction like outdoor curmudgeons Jim Perrin & A. Wainwright, or craftsmen of the taut, political paragraph from Bernard Levin to Jonathan Freedland.
As a nipper, I was steeped in the peculiarly English wit and erudition of Flanders and Swann with a good glug of Douglas Adams. I frequently doff hats to my Bob-Dylan-Thomas-Hardy triptych, with forelock tugs for Richard Thompson and Norman MacCaig.