Personal Biography

My life began in a mining village during the General Strike – not the most propitious time. I was one of five surviving children of the local barber. When I was five we moved to Newcastle, where I lived the rest of my life. I was evacuated in 1939 to Carlisle to escape the anticipated bombing. In June 1944, I went into the Royal Navy, and joined an aircraft carrier which arrived in the Pacific to see the end of the war. I was married in 1947 went working down a local colliery because my clerical job was poorly paid and my wife was pregnant. I was badly injured the following year and was invalided out of the mines. I had a twenty year career in a local engineering company. This career ended when I decided to begin my own company. This adventure ended when I had to close it down in 1981. My academic career began in that year and over the next fourteen years I acquired four degrees including a PhD. Perhaps I should have been a full-time lecturer, which I found I enjoyed, in the beginning. Since that time writing histories and fiction has been my occupation.