An inveterate organiser and eternal optimist, I have always been passionate about nature for as long as I can remember. Fresh from finishing grammar school with separate A-levels in Botany and Zoology, the main subjects I was interested in, a year as a lab technician in the plant pathology laboratory of an agricultural research station was my introduction to the world of work.
The following 6 years, of what some called my misspent youth, there were lots of adventures working my way around the world, involving over 60 jobs in 25 countries. Those halcyon days, however, came to an abrupt and premature end in 1970 after I and a friend needed hospitalisation in Java after contracting an exotic illness while sailing a small yacht from Darwin to Durban.
After repatriation and a year of convalescence, my first ‘proper’ job in 1971 was as a haematology technician in the medical research institute of an international pharmaceutical company where I stayed for 17 years, moving from laboratory to sales to training and finally to marketing of its prescription drugs division. After being enticed out of the corporate world to become a director of a medical communications agency, after several years I started up my own medical education & marketing consultancy working for clients in the UK and the Middle East.
In 2021, a complete switch away from the medical sector, I qualified as a professional photographer and formed an aerial photography company undertaking industrial and commercial commissions throughout Britain. Retiring from all paid activity in 2015 and working now as a full-time volunteer, my continuing education is centred around environmental and ecological studies. I am particularly pleased that GGEO has been formed to contribute to the protection of our natural environment and help reverse the worrying decline in biodiversity of so many species and their habitats.
