If I was you, I wouldn't be startin' from here

About the Book

“If I Was You I Wouldn’t Be Startin From Here”

This is the story of a working class boy born before the last war and tells the story of his life. His early life living in Ireland and the tumultuous times in Ireland before and after the war. The astonishing events of his Mother’s death and the turmoil that ensued. The quaint and different attitude of the culture of youth at that time. His struggle to understand himself and the world. He tell of his experience in the RAF and his emergence into the Trade Union movement after University and he tries to show that in some way he had enjoyed an immensity of good luck which as his story unfolds has a certain rhythm which he is sure has order and cohesion. He demonstrates this with humour and irony.This is his story.

About the Author

I was born in Birmingham England on December 28^th 1936.

My Mother was Irish and my Father English. I lived in Ireland till 1942 when my Mother took me and my sister to live in Manchester.

My Father served in the Merchant Navy during the last war. I felt  that I always felt “different” As  a small boy  I found I was able to intuitively understand complex situations.  When my Mother was killed on the local Main Road leaving my father with four children under the age of fourteen. I was astonished to hear my mother speak to me a couple of days before she was buried.

This started me on a road on which I am still travelling and the book is about that journey. I went on to work in Shops and factories and became very active in the Trade Union movement after I had served three years in the RAF. I developed a keen interest in psychic matters which seemed to smooth and complement my life. I went to the London School of Economics on a TUC Scholarship and then became a Trade Union Official during the most explosive period of Trade Union activity and growth ever been seen in this country. I was very active politically as an English radical and concluded my career with the National Union of Journalists which I served as a National Officer  responsible for Book Publishing and Public Relations. I retired early because I was so frustrated at the mayhem and misery of the Wapping Dispute with Rupert Murdoch’s News International in the mid eighties and to use one of my own quotes “I knew a lot about a lot of things but I did not know myself”

I believe that I have learned about myself and I am a Trained Alternative Therapist in many Disciplines and I have tried to bring to these therapies the knowledge that I have learned in my career.