What inspired me to write?
It was like the arrival of the mission in life I did not realise I was looking for! Especially at the ripe old age of 45!
In 1989, standing on a dilapidated, pot holed bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I looked down on a city that had been decimated by the departure of the steel industry. The place looked a dump! It reminded me of my home city of Birmingham in the UK where the auto industry had left. In both cities, changing industrial circumstances left vast swathes of land lying derelict.
Derelict land attracts squalor, depredation and social problems.
By some chance I cannot remember, I had a copy of the Sunday Times which I stopped on the bridge to look at. The newspaper opened at a double page spread about the appalling tragedy of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, once the world’s fourth largest inland sea, now more or less a toxic sump of chemicals and waste.
It was there I thought “what on earth are we doing to ourselves?” I came to the conclusion we could not rely on politicians to improve matters. To me, the business community – those who actually do things, make things happen – were essential to any movement to improve things. But research showed business saw environmental issues as no more than a threat – legislation; restrictions; costs.
Biography
In recognition of his 25 years of green economy and sustainable development work now largely concentrated on writing adventure novels, David has become a Fellow of the Royal Society For The Encouragement Of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Exhibitions and Conferences
I spent a number of years working for or running businesses connected to the exhibition and conference producing and staging industry. Notable in that period were involvement with the City of Birmingham bid to stage the Olympics with the staging of the presentation to the IOC in Lausanne. I devised and helped deliver a show called “Birmingham Invites You” which, over two years with a team of five technicians and involving UK Embassies, we took around the world to 33 cities from Japan and Hong Kong to New York and Washington and all the major cities in Europe.
Public Relations
Working in industrial and commercial public relations.
Motorsport journalism
Writing and photographing motorsport, running a business called Motor Sport Press Service and publishing a monthly newspaper called Midland Motorscope.
Journalism
I cut my teeth in journalism on the Walsall Observer, and ran the newsroom and read the news at the week ends on Radio BRMB.
Educated in Birmingham
Married with two children and four grandchildren.
Against medical advice because I had chronic asthma and was 100% covered in eczema, my mom and dad adopted me. I shall be grateful for ever. The books are dedicated to my long suffering mom.
Born in Birmingham in 1944.
It was like the arrival of the mission in life I did not realise I was looking for! Especially at the ripe old age of 45!