Author

This is not your typical bio – it’s not going to try to impress by listing a string of achievements. You can read that on LinkedIn. Rather, this is how and why I came to write The Joy of Moaning.

In 1949 I was born into a working class family living in Walthamstow an East London borough. My schooling was typical of those times, failing the 11+and going to a secondary modern. I will come back to that.

School days were a happy time. Lots of football and not too much academic stuff.

Then came the awful prospect of getting a job! I rapidly jumped onto the exam escalator and got off ten years later with all the necessary qualifications, a degree and an MBA.

In the 1970s the computer industry was the place to be. I had a wonderful time working for some of the biggest companies, travelling the world and being paid for it.

Then I decided to make my fortune and start my own company. Forty years later it was still going. I hadn’t amassed the fortune but had done well enough and had lots of fun.

Along the way I discovered writing books was a good way to promote and expand my business.

In 1990s was the era of the internet. To help me become a ‘guru’ I wrote a book explaining how it was going to change the world. That opened the door to academia. I lectured at London Business School and Southampton University. Companies wanted to know how to exploit the web and I was there to tell them.

As the excitement of the dot.com world subsided I looked for the next challenge. Everybody knew the population was ageing but the government and businesses were doing nothing about it. I wrote three books on this subject and travelled the globe, consulting and lecturing. My personal website contains details of this period.

Just as I was getting into my stride along came retirement!
Where did the time go?

My job and lifestyle had enabled me to do lots of the things on my bucket list. Very briefly I considered adding skydiving, bungee jumping and running a marathon then thought better of it. Travelling the world seem like a better idea, but then came Covid.

Instead, I decided to keep writing, not about business, but things that interested me.

My teachers and headmaster were great. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

The media’s portrayal of secondary moderns was uniformly negative and nothing like my experiences at George Gascoigne.This caused a low-grade irritation that got worse with age. I knew that many of my school mates had done very well–one had become an MP. These people were not the failures I kept reading about. I resolved that when I had the time,I would put the record straight.

That’s exactly what I did when in 2021 I published The Secondary Mod which gives an unbiased account of the history and achievement of these schools. You can read all about the book here and maybe buy a copy.

This brings us to the Joy of Moaning.

A couple of decades ago I was ‘middle-aged’ (just) and read that the BBC had discovered men are at their most grumpy age 35-54 years. I had been happily moaning since my 30s and didn’t feel in the least grumpy.

This event triggered an interest in the subject of moaning. I started a digital folder that kept growing with each new piece of research. Come 2022 I had the time to get my thoughts in order and write the book.

The original title was Moaning for men–survival tactics for women.That was before I discovered women are equal if not better moaners. Moaning made me happy and relaxed. It was joy to moan. And so the book’s title became The Joy of Moaning.

I am ticking off the points on the bucket list but there are a couple of writing projects left to be done. The next one has started and will be published in 2023.