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.
Although the current economic recession is now
serious, there is still a fair amount of commissioned work. I have found this
to be a mixed blessing and allows me to get on with my
own personal research. Nevertheless, with my last articles submitted for the
next edition of The Family and Local
History Handbook last
year, this is now to be launched in the not too distant future.
Go to the main Academic
Papers page
Go to the main Mercantile page
Go to the main Royal Naval page