I’m Jo, a retired former art teacher and school manager. I live with my wife Norma, in Fife, near St Andrews on the East coast.
Originally from Greenock in the West of Scotland.
Eldest of a family of five (four boys and a girl).
An evangelical Christian
A would be Fine Artist!
When not engaged in Bible study or church activities, I paint, write, walk and every now and then visit family in England. Our youngest son Joel died on 13 February 2023. He was 29. We are all still coming to terms with his absence from us.
I don’t remember when my love of writing began, but from early years I was an avid reader. The two things are closely linked. Reading took me to the world of imagination, re-creating in my mind the word pictures painted by the authors I read as a boy. Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’, ‘Secret Seven’, W.E. John’s ‘Biggles’, ‘Saki’, John Buchan’s ‘Thirty-Nine Steps,’ Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ and many more. Reading those great stories developed an instinctive feel for how words work together to weave a narrative that holds the attention and brings the characters and places to life in the mind’s eye.
I was brought up in a happy, evangelical Christian home. This has informed my view of life and like everyone else on earth, my life has been shaped by the choices I have made for good or ill, and various life events have left their mark on me. Not least has been the recent response of governments, especially in the western world, to the so-called coronavirus ‘pandemic’. My mother died during this dreadful time and endured things in the last months of her life, which ought never to have been inflicted on her. I wrote about this in my autobiography. As the hymn says:
“We go from strength to strength,
Through this dark vale of tears,
Till each arrives at length,
And safe in heaven appears…”
When my brothers and I were small, my father used to sit us on his knee and tell us dramatic stories from the Old Testament. I’m sure that laid the foundation for my love of reading. All good writing tells a story. It takes many forms but the best writing entertains and also informs. I hope my writing will do both. I think the worst accusation anyone can level at a writer is that it is ‘boring’. I want to avoid that at all costs, so I’ll stop right there!
Happy reading!
Jo
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