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I was born in Umbogantwini, South Africa half a century ago, but didn't get the chance to know much of the place as, when I was still a baby, my parents decided to return to South West England, where we stayed till I was ten.

My father always liked new places and he decided that it was time to move to

Spain

. We ended up in, which at the time, was a quaint little village called Javea; in those days there were plenty of little white houses with balconies full of red, white and yellow flowers overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. In those days, there were no skyscrapers or other eyesores!

Not too long after having lived there and moving inland, to a hamlet close to Alcoy, also in Spain; we went to live in Madrid, the capital.
There, I had the privilege of studying art, spending time drawing and oil painting where Salvador Dali had once been.

This wonderful experience was only to last a little over a year as, yes, once again we packed our bags; this time our destination was Barcelona city.

At that time, in the early seventies, Barcelona was still under the firm hand of the Fascist Regime and to speak Catalan was taboo.

This city is where I spent most of my youth and I was able to see the recovery of its culture and political system, among other things.After over thirty years of living there and having taught English as a foreign language at several schools and universities, I decided to make a radical change.

I decided to focus on what I loved most, and that was writing. My wife and I moved to Casablanca, Morocco where I wrote two books, the second being '18 Shorts'. I also wrote four children's books of which three are in brail and the drawings that I did myself, I had converted, so the blind could identify the different shapes.

In the stories of '18 Shorts', there's a bit of me or someone I know, but it is all fiction.
If you decide to read the book, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

And yes, after two years in that wonderful country, I'm in Paris...