I was born at the beginning of the sixties in the then not so swinging London to Welsh parents. A short time later they moved back to South Wales, just about remembering to take me with them. A few years later we were off to Crewe, then a few years later to Central Scotland, then back to England where I lived at various places in the North Midlands.

Marriage, kids etc saw me living in Sheffield for far too many years before we saw sense and in 2000 we upped sticks and headed off to Devon. Sadly Devon didn’t really float the boat as they say, so in 2003 it was off to West Wales to a couple of house renovation projects, but at least we now have a huge sandy beach a few miles away as compensation. I live in a small village with a real pub and am able to converse with my fellow drinkers in a curious mixture of North Midlands English and picked-up Pembrokeshire Welsh.

AIMS: To keep head above water, make enough money to retire happy, and campaign for love, peace, and a bit of how’s your father!

CAREER:
I did the usual school thing until I was 17, and then worked in the newspaper industry for seven years, mainly in the advertising and circulation fields. However, I became bored by this work and in 1987 I joined the Voice of Peace radio station, which broadcast to Israel and much of the Middle East, as a presenter, and where my show was selected as a regular ‘highlight of the day’ by an Israeli daily newspaper (That cost more than a few beers to fix I can tell you!).

I also worked on Radio Caroline when it was broadcasting from the North Sea, and survived many a storm and frightening supply tender trips from Ramsgate and Dunkerque! I’ve also appeared in a couple of BBC and French TV programmes which featured the station! If you want to read a little bit more Radio Caroline itself, then check out the following official Radio Caroline web site. I finally came ashore for good in 1990,and had a brief career in the civil service.

I then moved on to a variety of jobs, and eventually ended up doing a professional DTP course at Sheffield College. Since completion of this course I have worked freelance for various firms and agencies, as well as being a director of Renegade Publishing Ltd who published a fabbo magazine for Atari computer users for three years. I kept my hand in with radio by presenting occasional programmes on various stations, and by producing a magazine for the UK radio industry for a few years.

Nowadays my interest in radio involves running three internet radio stations. Amazing what modern technology has been able to replace really. In my pirate radio days we needed a big expensive to run ex-trawler with a huge mast, loads of diesel generators to produce the power for the transmitters, and all to reach an audience of a few thousand. Now I can get a similar audience for a few dollars a day in internet costs!

INTERESTS:
I have loads of them, but I particulary enjoy listening to Northern Soul music, a taste I picked up whilst involved in the Scootering scene. I’m also interested in Narrow Gauge Railways, both the real size variety and the model type!

COMPUTERS:
I’ve owned various Atari ST’s and an Atari Falcon over the years and still rate them very highly. Reluctantly I eventually went to the dark side and got myself a Windows PC set-up. However, I think that Microsoft Windows is a very poor operating system and has only got where it is today by marketing brute force. The Atari OS was much better, and Atari machines in particular are ultra reliable and make fantastic use of meagre hardware resources.

I’m a bit of a supporter of Linux and although I don’t use it on a daily basis, all my children all have a Linux running desktop or netbook. Hopefully a few programs I have to use for work stuff will either be ported to Linux or a suitable replacement will be developed so I can finally ditch Windows and go Linux myself!

As for Apple Macs, excuse me whilst I have a giggle at the iSheep that fork out for over-hyped and over-priced bits of hardware. It’s not cool, it’s just silly!