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, whilst 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 go into this field. 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.
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 replacement for ‘temping’ in the City (working on communications for banks, brokers, shipping companies, insurance groups and corporate lawyers). 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 a 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.So far 2007 has been busy, both in terms of commissioned work and also in producing my two guides on the British in India. As per normal, there have also been my annual articles for The Family and Local History Handbook, the next edition now planned for launching in Spring 2008. When I have the time, I shall be returning to researching and writing the second volume of my series on the British Merchant Service in the First World War, specifically a section on the claimed ethics of both sides in relation to submarine-launched ‘trade war’...
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