I've worked outdoors most of my life, training young ski racers, instructors, and recreational skiers in the UK and around Europe.

I've read, watched, listened to and loved science fiction since I first clapped eyes on Gerry Anderson's "Space 1999" in the 1970s

I started writing at the age of 12; at the time wanting to create comic strips like those I waited for every week in the ground-breaking UK sci-fi weekly, 2000ad.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, but I soon realised I could write a thousand words in a lot less time than it would take me to draw a comic panel anybody would want to look at, so I soon began to write just to be read, leaving the images to the mind's eye.