I have been climbing and exploring the world for over forty years. Covid lockdowns led to a flurry of writing about what I’ve done and what I’ve seen. My first book – Schooled by Rock – will be out in 2023. A second book, tentatively titled Soundtracking will be out some time later.

This website is going to be mostly about rock, climbing rocks, thinking about rocks and thinking about climbing rocks. It’s an obsession. As is the natural world and trying to capture elements of it in words and pictures.

Climbing was the best thing I learned at school. Schooled by Rock explains my life of following the lessons that rock offered me under the chapter headings of school subjects we are all familiar with.

I tried hard not to settle down and have explored Europe, The Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and the USA. For several years I worked in overseas development. This line of work took me to a village in Cameroon, a refugee camp on the Kenya/Somalia border, the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and two years working in community development across Cambodia.

This work was exhausting and harrowing so I returned to the UK and began working supporting adults with learning disabilities in their homes and day centres. This has led to a specialism in Intensive Interaction, a communication approach that aims to connect with people who are at risk of social isolation due to their communication difficulties and cognitive impairments.

I never wanted to do one thing in life and it is a blast to follow several passions. Ultimately, I am most interested in what it means to be human, our need for meaning and connection, our desires and dreams and the lessons and questions that remain. This is what my writing is aiming at. 

I’ve had articles published in The Journal of Dementia Care, PMLD Link, The British Journal of Learning Disabilities, Climber magazine and on ukclimbing.com. There is plenty more to come…