About Me
My Background
I was born and raised in York, the youngest of five brothers. There were only five years between us, which meant life moved fast. Clothes travelled down the line before they ever reached me. Hand-me-downs were not optional. Camping holidays were our luxury. A tent, a gas stove, and weather that never quite kept its promise.
And yet it was a brilliant childhood. Loud, competitive, affectionate and full of mischief. Friendship came wrapped in sarcasm. A sharp tongue was a sign of affection. If you were not being taken apart for sport, you were probably in trouble. Family mattered. Friends mattered. Loyalty mattered. That will never change.
My Journey
By my teens, I had discovered Northern Soul. So had most of my friends. We danced everywhere. Youth clubs, halls, anywhere with a wooden floor. That turned into all-nighters around the UK. Home at sunrise. Very little sleep. A lot of movement. Those friendships, forged in noise and sweat and shared jokes, remain some of the strongest in my life. School and I did not get along. I was more focused on girls than grades. I later went back for resits and what would now be called a BTEC in maths and physics. Not exactly the straight line into marketing, or writing for that matter.
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A local job in an electrical store changed everything. One day, a journalist from Which? walked in. For reasons I still cannot fully explain, I ended up with a glowing review and was named the best salesman in Britain. My only theory is that, for once, I did not have a hangover. Perhaps I was in a particularly good mood. Maybe I had just had a lucky night. Who knows.
That review opened a door into retail management. I joined as a trainee department store manager. Three years later, I had my first store. From there, it became store design, development, marketing and expansion. I left to join a motorcycle retailer because I believed I could help reshape not just a company but an industry.
When I arrived, turnover was £9 million. When I left, turnover was over £200 million, and it had become the largest motorcycle retail business in the world. We became a PLC. I was one of eight directors. At its height, we employed around 9,000 people and turned over £1.5 billion. I stayed six years. At forty, I had had enough of corporate life. I stepped away to build something of my own.
There have been successes. There have been failures. Sales, closures, risks that paid off and risks that did not. Today, I focus on leading the brand, vision, and strategy of our agency. The operational engine is driven day to day by my son, Lewis. Together, and with a fantastic team around us, we have built one of the UK's most recognised marketing agencies, shaped by experience rather than theory.
Through all of it, the constant has been people. Family first. Old friends who still take the mickey without mercy. New friends who become part of the fold. Success means very little without someone to laugh about it with afterwards, somewhere in the middle of all that, writing surfaced. Whether it earns your time is for you to decide. In the last four years, I have written more than 150 poems. Most arrive quickly and instinctively. A line appears, and the rest follows. They tend to be raw, socially observant and unfiltered, shaped by the same values I grew up with. Loyalty. Humour. A willingness to say what others might leave unsaid.
They will begin appearing on this website over the coming months. I am taking my time with them. Each piece will sit alongside connected visuals and short reflections that explore the layers often hidden beneath the surface. The poems may arrive quickly, but the meaning behind them deserves a little more space.
Marcella: Sicilian Nostra is the first novel I felt ready to share. It explores family, power, loyalty and legacy, themes I have seen in boardrooms and in ordinary life. It moves between the calm of the Lake District and the shadows of Sicily, asking what we inherit and what we choose. Many of the character names have crossed my path one way or another. Time spent working in Italy and America helped shape some of the culture and atmosphere that runs through the story. I did not grow up planning to be a business person or a writer. But looking back, the signs were always there. Youngest of five. Watching. Listening. Taking the mick. Still laughing.
