The one question I get more than any other question is, “Why did you leave horticulture to become a writer?”

For those who have no idea about my life before writing, I spent 35 years working with plants, and it is true to say, I am a huge fan of green life. I walked away from horticulture in 2008 which came as a huge surprise to a lot of people, as most people saw me as a very dedicated supporter of the growing and nurturing of all forms of plant life, and it may come as some surprise to know that I still am.

The reason for my sudden change back then was simple, horticulture for me as a profession had run its course, I had worked for nurseries, garden centres, ran a dedicated group of enthusiasts, and set up and run my own business, and each of those aspects of my life had provided me with passion, drive and ambition, but in truth, there was so much more to who I am as a person, and ultimately horticulture was holding me back from living a free and open life.

Through writing I discovered I had a voice, and I had thoughts, dreams and ideas that filled my head with endless possibilities. The life of a horticulturalist involves long days of work, and even though I will never regret a minute of that life, there simply was not enough time for me to explore the many facets of the person I had grown into, and writing gave the space and time to explore all of those aspects of my evolving persona and mind set.

I live a very private life, my circle is small and my mind is vast, and over the span of time I have lived on this earth, I have encountered many ups and downs along the journey of this life. I know devastation, I know heart break, I know inner turmoil, I know pain, and I know betrayal. I have seen the worst in people there is no doubt, but I also know joy, contentment, inner peace, companionship and deep love.

In life we share our time with many different people, and we are challenged by different beliefs and by other cultures, and it is from these kind of associations, which in many ways contradict each other, I have through life developed a wonderful curiosity about the human condition, and yet even though through watching plant life grow and develop, which in itself shows you natures interactions, I had no real way to apply my understanding of the things I learned about human interactions.

In 2006 I began to add my thoughts to a story that had preoccupied a large chunk of my life, and very soon I realised this was the perfect vehicle for me to explore what I had learned. In many ways it is ironic, because by bringing together a fantasy fiction, I could express what was my real life observations and my own experiences. Daft as it may sound, it was a powerful experience to know I could recreate situations I had seen or lived through, and have other characters act out those scenarios with different outcomes. For the first time in my life, I could unleash my mind and allow my thoughts that were so mixed up and jumbled in my head, onto paper in a cohesive form, and I cannot deny it felt at first like an exorcism, and it was very powerful.

Since that time, what has become a series of books titled ‘Heirs to the Kingdom’ I have found a place where for the first time in my life, I have felt a sense of belonging that matched my love of the green world, and it has changed everything about how I see myself, and who I wanted to become. It is within the pages I have written, this somewhat awkward, introverted outcast discovered some way of making sense of a life that was confused, mixed up and at times lost, flapping in the winds of the wilderness. It was truly life changing for me to put pen to paper and finally make sense of everything, I can only describe it as some form of awakening, and it felt so positive it dwarfed everything, including my life working with people and showing them the ways of nature and raising plant life.

My life still has many ups and downs, but I find I understand them and deal with them better now, and no I have no intentions of writing a self-help book. Today I understand that to be a writer it is important to look at the world and record your observations. It worries me that in this current time (2020) there is division and divisiveness all around the globe, it feels very much like the voices of many are being suppressed, and only those of certain creeds and cultures have the right to talk, and as a thinker and writer, I can see how destructive that is, and understand that without realising it, I have been writing about it for over ten years, for that really is what Heirs to the Kingdom is about.

I had no voice, I was not given the platform to talk openly and freely, and it has been that way since I was a child. That is the purpose of a writer, and yet it took me 44 years of life to truly understand that even though I was being guided by the voices of every writer I have ever read, I was in fact silent.

My story will shortly come to its conclusion, and I feel there is a stronger voice within the pages than ever before, and my attention will turn to other stories and other experiences, it has indeed been a very fulfilling journey. I still have hurdles to climb, none more so that the frustrations of multinational book sellers who have made life during the lockdown caused by the coronavirus harder than it should be, and I have to comply to the frustrations of staff shortages that cause delay after delay within the book production industry, but shortly, I will finally get to where I want to be, and I feel great optimism for the future writing about my loves and my hates and the flow of mine and others I have observed lives.

Heirs to the Kingdom is something I am very proud of, it is not a best seller, but it is known to a dedicated few and I appreciate their support. I often get asked what the book is about, and I always say the very same thing. It is about life; it is the story of families, and friends, the pain and the joy, and the hopes and dreams we all hold along the way. Yes it’s a fantasy, but the core of it is as real as your life or mine, and if I never write anything else, I am happy to have finished it, for it was a mammoth task, and a labour of love.