Some info on the author
In
1974, as a sixteen year old I joined the Royal Navy, as a Junior Radio Operator
2nd Class. This was a life far removed from my previous spare-time days dinghy sailing on the Clyde and Forth. After training
and two years on a cruiser (though inaccurately termed ‘destroyer’ for
political reasons by the R.N.) I was drafted into submarines. Apart from a
short spell in Hong Kong on an ex-minesweeper involved in anti-immigration
patrols; for the most part I spent the rest of my service onboard a Polaris
submarine; or ashore involved in various aspects of naval communications.
Having attained the rate of Leading Radio Operator (Submarines) in my early
twenties, for numerous reasons I decided to
leave armed service. I was in the process of doing so in the spring of 1982,
when I was recalled for ‘Operation Corporate’: otherwise known as the Falklands
War. Working ashore on submarine related communications and operations, I was
finally released in November of that year.
Long before I had left the R.N. I had decided to
change the path of my life inherently and do something ‘creative’ (although I
also made some serious enquiries into joining the Merchant Navy as a Radio
Officer). As a keen photographer it was only natural to take this further.
Settling in London, while initially working for a short time in the City and
then for three years at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a Cypher Officer, I honed my skills and made business
contacts.
Between
1986 and 1994 I traded as a freelance special-effects still-life photographer.
By the early 1990s new electronic technology was making my hard-learned skills
redundant and I had no wish to become a glorified computer operator. I
experimented with fashion (having learned much from my ex-business partner) but
detested and despised ‘fashion people’ even more than I did ‘advertising
people’. It was time to do something else.
Already
having ‘temped’ in the City previously, I earned my living for a while once
again in the ‘Square Mile’. As a specialist in communications operations this
was for banks, brokers, shipping companies, insurance groups and corporate
lawyers.
Through
links with an area of rural Wales I had already begun some purely private
research into the lives of some merchant mariners (having photographed their
memorials in graveyards on trips there). In time this has taken over my life
and I am part way through writing a five-volume history on how the British
Merchant Service was affected by the First World War. My freelance genealogical
business has come directly from this, as a welcome replacement for the ‘temping’:
although I still value the knowledge gained in some of these fields, being
helpful in my writing. As a something of a marketing tool, I have gained a
Master of Arts degree in ‘War Studies’, from King’s College, University of
London. I am, however, not by any means a typical product of this course
In
the past I have not exerted any particular effort to get noticed as an author,
although I have been commissioned to write commercial articles variously. These
have included pieces in Your Family
Tree; The Family and Local History Handbook; The Indiaman; and the (Society of) Genealogists’ Magazine. Relating to a spin
off from my mercantile research I had an academic paper published in the
prestigious Society of Nautical Research’s The Mariner’s Mirror in 2002, on the Germans’ first minelaying raid of the First World War. Also, the United
States Navy’s War College, at Newport, Rhode Island has used one of my papers
in Strategic Studies Group Conferences to my knowledge twice. Dealing with
Britain’s response to German unrestricted U-boat warfare from 1917 to 1918,
this is now on my website. I also have a lengthy paper on the less than
coherent dispersal of the British mercantile crew agreements during the 1960s
and 1970s almost at completion. Unfortunately, one ‘academic’ institution has been
proving less than cooperative and due to this, it may not see the light of day
in the near future.
In
spite of the current economic recession, so far 2009 has been surprisingly busy
in terms of commissioned work. As per normal, there have also been my semi-annual
articles for The Family and Local
History Handbook:
the next edition now planned for launching this autumn. (I was also offered the
authorship of a book in the summer, but turned it down due to the less than
realistic terms and conditions.) Work on my second volume on the Great War is
progressing, slowly but surely. Recently, in briefly describing Herbert Hoover’s
Committee for the Relief of Belgium I found myself delving into the murky background
of his Belgian associates, particularly those involved in the Belgian Free
State.
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