I was born and raised near Tamworth in Staffordshire, and led a charmed feral childhood roaming and playing in the surrounding countryside. I climbed trees, built camps beneath them, made bows and arrows and warmed myself and cooked on campfires fueled by fallen wood and learned much about them simply by being with them. My ambition was to join the Nature Conservancy or the Forestry Commission however academic shortcomings
prevented that and I ended up at art college and a path was taken that I have never regretted. I studied design but always wanted to paint which I took up on leaving collage and have continued to make my living from for over fifty years.
And now I find myself in the studio surrounded by paintings of trees. The love affair never went away. Be they wild and growing tall or bent, broken and old. Unkempt and unruly or pampered and pruned. Growing free in the wild or proudly and stubbornly growing in our urban spaces, they remain and always will my primary subject.