As Liverpool emerged from the dust of World War 11, so did I. The birth certificate states born in Penny Lane! The years after the war and into the new decade, 1950s, were harsh. Kids with no shoes, mums with ration books, meat was sausages, butter a luxury.
My dad, an ex-Royal Marine, used to take me down to the Mersey to see the trans-Atlantic liners of the day. The buzz of the riverfront with the Liver Buildings behind and the hustle and bustle of freighters, big and small. The Overhead Railway, or the 'Docker's Umbrella', as it was known, provided a view of the entire 7 miles of docks. You could see an entire city of docks with ships coming and going to all four corners of the world—a magnificent sight.
That was the backdrop to my childhood, that and Liverpool FC. My granny lived in Lothar Road, so I used to sneak in for the last 15 mins of each game and then as I got older the Boys Pen. After School I had various jobs, then in 1965, I followed my dream of travelling the world. I started in Canada and worked there for two years, then travelled to Japan and worked there for a year. I met my Japanese girlfriend, and we travelled around SE Asia dodging the Vietnam War. After that it the heat, poverty and colour of India, and then the arid land mass of Afghanistan and Iran. Finally, Turkey and Europe. All done on a shoe-string budget.
After England I worked for 6 years in Japan, teaching English, working as a copywriter and journalist. I then moved to Spain and followed my hobby and opened a squash club which I ran for 12 years. Then marriage brought me back to the UK, where I taught and coached Squash and had two children.
Those experiences are behind the stories that I have written, with characters an amalgam of people I knew, and characters created to match the times.
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