About Me

I have had a lifelong interest in stories ever since reading the tales of the Trojan war when I was very young. As a child I lived all over Britain and have a particular interest in tales from these islands along with myths and legends from the Greeks, Romans and the Vikings.  During a varied career in which I have gazed deeply into the mysteries of the universe and cyberspace I have travelled all over the world and have an eclectic collection of stories from the places I've visited.

Storytelling wasn't my first choice of career.  I remember watching Star Wars and Star Trek as a child and deciding that I wanted to build a starship.  This shaped my life.  I studied physics and mathematics (as well as history, Gaelic, Ancient Greek and Latin) at school and went on to do a degree in theoretical physics.  I temporarily moved away from the path to the stars when I became a software engineer modelling gas flow down North Sea pipelines, however I returned to the path when I did a masters in Computational Fluid Dynamics, and then went to work at the Albert-Einstein-Institut (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics) in Potsdam, Germany.  I then strayed again, moving into Computer Science, travelling the world giving talks and workshops on the software I developed, and even taking part in putting together international standards.  Throughout this career I was involved in the folk world - dancing, playing music, and telling stories - and when eventually I realised I'd strayed too far from my original path I decided it was time to make a change, so I gave everything up, moved to the Wirral, and became a professional storyteller.

Since then I have told stories in a wide variety of contexts,  from schools to museums to weddings, to children (I have an enhanced CRB disclosure) and to adults.  As well as telling stories I run workshops in storytelling and creativity skills and on public speaking, drawing upon both my many years of travelling and giving presentations and on my storytelling experience.

In April 2011 I became a director of the Society for Storytelling in the hope that my years of taking part in large organisations and my technical and storytelling skills would enable me to help guide the society through the coming years.  Since becoming a director I have co-organised the SfS Annual Gathering, and redeveloped the website.  My hope is that the website will become a central resource for people wishing to find out about storytellers and storytelling in the UK.