About me

My ‘portfolio’ of work and career started on a farm in Scotland. The farmer had said that he would take me on as a boy but at the end of the day I was upgraded to man - a good motivational approach. Soon I was driving the tractor, pulling the trailer and sledging the stubble. At the end of the week I had my packet of pay in my pocket - £5 0s 0d a week. (Mum had 50 percent and I saved the rest!)
The Royal Air Force employed me for about 23 months and allowed me about £1 10s 0d a week to start - I never received much more - but I enjoyed the victuals. (That was a word I picked up in the Hong-Kong Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (in the year before joining the RAF). I was told that I was the only volunteer in the 'ship'.

After a career break at Kings College, London, I did two weeks as a factory hand in soft drinks manufactory - at 16 Dad had given me a book on organisation and methods - within the first week I had worked myself out of a measurable (and therefore pleasurable job) to bottle watching at the end of the production line. I joined the London County Council as a clerical officer, having taken excellent career advice from Margaret Brown at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. Within a year I was on the ladder to being an estates and valuation surveyor. But from the age of 14 I had always wanted to teach...

So... now I can draw on 30 years of experience in higher education as a teacher and writer on such subjects as property development, estate management, valuation and appraisal, leisure property, property taxation and rating.

During that time I became a member of several professional bodies. The Institute of the Revenues, Rating and Valuation is one and I have been a member of various working parties and committees of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and chairman of its Kent Branch. Working with specialised and experienced members was always of considerable interest and appreciated.

As for writing... it happened very casually in that I had one manager who vetted everything I wrote in his office. With hindsight he adopted the appropriate approach. However, within six weeks I was challenging him – my English was correct ‘according to Gowers’ - Dad had given me Ernest Gowers original booklet on plain English. “Who is this Gowers you keep talking about?” I gave him the source and within a week the vetting had virtually ceased – then I saw Gowers on my manager’s bookshelf! It was Vincent Cole’s kind invitation to join him to co-author of the second edition of Estate Duty and Property. He encouraged me and motivated me to become, hopefully, at least competent – some debts are priceless – the English lessons were much more rigorous and gruelling – but appreciated at the time and now.

I have almost always written non-fiction on property matters except for a creative writing weekend – I have enjoyed reading the piece from time to time and as far as I know it has not been published before.

As for other life... my garden takes planning and execution (or executing – the poor plants). Now I am working up a garden safari but more of that elsewhere. Holidays or short breaks in Folkestone are frequent; as are seeing friends in France or vice versa.

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