Blog - Personal Interests
Personal Interests
I have a number of outside work interests. Life needs a balance.
I have written often about family law matters, and enjoyed doing so. The words seemed to come quite freely – and extensively! I have also enjoyed reading and a good story. So when an opportunity arose in Australia , I wrote my first book. It is called “The Innocent Martyr” and is a dramatised fiction based on the story of one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I was able to carry out original research whilst in Sydney and set a number of the events and scenes in areas I knew. I am told by those who have read it that it is a good read and a good story. It is presently being given to agents. In the meantime, I have startedam about to start my next book and will update my site as the book develops. Some of my fiction writings can be found on my Fiction Writings pages.
My passion is scuba diving. I have dived in many parts of the world as a PADI diver, open water and advanced. To see the world of the coral reef is to enter another universe, of incredible colours, shapes, life and life forms. It is mesmerising and totally other worldly! Perhaps the greatest adrenalin rush was diving with sharks, and lots of them, off Long Island in the Outer Bahamas. None of the gross dives of some locations but an opportunity to see, at very close quarters, these incredible creatures. But equally impressive was diving with sea lions and seals in the Galapagos and diving with dolphins off Western Australia. Wow!! Life’s a beach – and then one dives.
Back on dry land, I have been a life long supporter of the Saints, Southampton Football Club, and a season ticket holder at St Marys. Just occasionally the greatest football team in the world – occasionally! I remember, gulp, the days of Terry Paine and Ron Davies, through Mike Channon and Kevin Keegan and the greatest day of my life, 1 May 1976. Apart from a small point of learning very early in the day I had passed my Law Society exams, we beat Man U in the Cup Final, Bobby Stokes in the 83rd minute. I can still see the ball going into the goal, past Stepney, in slow motion. Great. Sadly after thirty years in the top division, we were relegated in 2005. Hope springs annually in a return to the Premiership bu it does make getting tickets easier!
I love travel and holidays – hard work seems easier with a holiday coming up. I have been so fortunate to visit some incredible places in the world.
I love my Lotus Elan, and am grateful for the absence of speed cameras on many roads in Surrey! In Sydney I had a lime green MG, a super car to drive especially with the hood down in the hot weather, but speed limits are much lower and enforced (it is said!) with a view to revenue raising, so the lower speeds were a real bore! Equally I love long distance walking, and have done the North Downs and the Dorset Coastal Path. Climbing Jbel Toubkal (13,672 feet), the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains, for charity was also a highlight, as well as being a hippy again in visiting nearby Marrakech.
I have been so grateful to Gillian, with whom I was able to do most of these things in my life, personal and professional, and without whom I doubt I could achieved what I have accomplished.
There are so many delights in life; good friends, wine, the garden and countryside, the four cats, diving, swimming, walking and much more and one realises that one is so fortunate.
Finally, but not last, I attend a local church and a local bible study group. My Christian faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ has always been the most important thing to me in my life.
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