After a life of over 40 years of shoeing horses in Leicestershire, I swapped it for horseshoeing and trimming donkey feet in the rolling countryside of Cyprus.

After retiring to Cyprus and looking forward to a life of leisure, a neighbour told me the donkey sanctuary was losing their farrier and was I interested! This was the beginning of my second career as a farrier in Cyprus that led me to some way out places, and to meeting some really interesting people. Also I was asked if I could shoe a horse which snowballed into horseshoeing the length and breadth of Cyprus and over the border into the Turkish area too. My work all came from recommendations. I did try to control my work to two or three days a week as i wanted to follow other leisure activities. Some weeks though, that plan went out of the window.

One leisure activity I did get involved with was a writers group. For years I had always wanted to write a book about my life as a farrier, but it was always going to be tomorrow when I would start it. I had told God knows how many folk over the years that one day I would write a book but it certainly wasn't going to be today as I had no idea how to go about it. That changed when I met the chairman of Paphos writers group and told him about my plans to write about my farrier life, one day he said; ''Well it is no good talking about it. I hope to see you at our groups meeting at 10 o'clock tomorrow. That morning was the ''tomorrow'' that had finally come to start writing my first book; All clenched up and nearly finished.'' Now I write regularly and my second book ''All clenched up and finally finished'' is published.