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Biography

I am many more years totally blind than seeing, but as I could still find my way around my hometown of Marple (Cheshire) and my solitary and glorious walks to and from Lyme Park and the many years and weathers spent in its wild and lonely regions therein, then it doesn’t really matter, as I can remember them all as if it were yesterday or even as I write this. But what does matter is the inability to replicate those wonderful days in colour – or as near as possible – that’s what keeps driving me on......not as though I’ll ever give up the want or need to paint, otherwise it would make a mockery of what went before. After graduating in Fine Arts and Design from Manchester University, I enjoyed a career in commercial art - nowadays known as graphic design. But always hovering over me was the Damoclesian threat of total blindness, as I had suffered the horror of losing sight in my left eye at sixteen years, due to a detached retina. The continual work in artistic design, especially fine and intricate line work, possibly weakened the muscles of the eye and therefore exascerbated the massive retinal detachment in my right eye in the late 70s. Several operations followed to try and reattach the retina, but to no avail and eventually, Optic Atrophy “set in” and there seemed no chance whatsoever of me seeing again. In 1982, Mr Christopher Dodd of Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and Mr John Scott of Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, combined in my last operation at Addenbrookes, but the retinal damage was so massive, that there was no possibility of saving my sight......though Mr John Scott said that there may come a day when implants may succeed. But that was then and now it hardly matters. What work of merit I produced before is in private collections in the UK, Canada and Australia. Whatever was worth saving in my pre-blind days had been either stolen, destroyed or given away by a soulless parent. When sight was proved to be no more, I had to move “down South” to undergo specific rehabilitation training (Torquay and London) in aspects of sight loss and thence to employment within the increasingly technical world. But, in spite of this huge shift in my personal life, I never gave up the search for ways to continue my art, as can be seen within this website......whether or not I have succeeded, it may be for others to say! When I’m not painting, writing, playing my guitar or listening to audio books or music, I can often be found doing battle with a cryptic crossword or two, aided by my partner Pam, and most likely with a tumbler of Famous Grouse or Bell’s at my side – according to the time of day, of course!