I have worked in the restaurant business as a chef for most of my working life. After training I worked in small restaurants and eventually opened my own. In the year 2000 circumstances conspired to lead me down the route of becoming a freelance chef, offering my services to anyone requiring my skills. This led to some interesting and unusual jobs. Best of all was teaching which I took to like a duck to sauce a l’orange.

Covid proved a hiccup in all the things I was doing and as I had reached the age of receiving a modest stipend from the government I thought it was time to hang up the apron – well not quite. Like actors, artists and writers I doubt whether chefs ever properly retire. After all, you have to cook your own supper.

However this still didn’t take up much of the time I still had on my hands. I expanded a few of my other interests . I had always dabbled in photography and painting was something I now had time for – not that this meant I was any good.

I had always secretly harboured a desire to write a novel. Secretly, because I could just hear in my imagination a chorus of ‘What is a chef doing writing a novel?’ Also, it is not a bad idea, before you open your mouth, to prove, if just to yourself, you can stay the course to string 100,000 words together regardless of whether they make any sense.

I am an early riser and I find the peace of being about at six in the morning perfect for sitting down with a cup tea and a brain fresh from sleeping to give your imagination a bit of freedom. I think it was Terry Pratchett who said that writing was the most fun you could have on your own. I know what he means; there are many positives about the act of writing and I am not talking about commercial success because when you start writing, that is about as likely as winning the lottery.
First is the fun of being able to create characters, plots and situations and be in control of them. Secondly is using any experience you have picked up over the years to weave into your narrative – some of them might have come from the things you remember, others are dragged up from your subconscious that make you think, in retrospect – where the hell did that come from? The third thing is research and that is not just looking things up on the Internet but sometimes doing something one of your characters has to do to know what it feels like – although I draw the line at sky-diving.