Here’s the short version.

I was born in Portsmouth in 1951.  I lived there with my family until 1958, when we moved to Bromley, Kent.  In 1965 we moved again to a village in Bedfordshire.  In 1969 I went to Trinity College, Cambridge for three years.  Then for eighteen months I worked on building sites, saving up money to go on a world tour in a Ford Transit van with two friends.  I got ill in Tehran, ran out of money, and returned to London in need of a job.  Between 1974 and 1992 I worked in English teaching, first as a classroom teacher in London comprehensive schools and then as an adviser of teachers.  I’ve published books and articles on English teaching and the role of language in learning.  Between 1992 and 2011 I worked in educational broadcasting, at Channel 4 and Teachers TV in the UK and Teaching Channel in the USA.

I met Helen Savva in 1974.  We’ve been together ever since.  We live in Camden Town, north London.  We have a house in Brittany.

Reading and writing poetry has been a part-time occupation but psychologically essential preoccupation all my life.

Photo by Loïc Sans

Or you can read the long version…