Meic• Show poetry

What we are is so often defined by the way we ‘earn a crust’. For forty years I was a teacher, the last twenty-seven of which I was Headmaster of a school for children with specific learning disabilities and social/emotional problems. All my energy and creativity was absorbed by my work, leaving little or no time for personal development. Now … well, I write a little, make a few pictures, potter in the garden – usually on a chair with a long cold vodkatini – watch the world go by [and consult my memories] a great deal. I am also frequently dragooned into serious ‘grampsing’. Before my first grandchild was born some years ago I did state categorically that “I don’t do babies!” The babies, however, didn’t agree. My early years were spent in the Valleys of South Wales Musicality, lyricism and a love of spoken language are all part of my Welsh heritage and I think they are all discernable in my written and graphic work. Wales was – and remains – the place I call home, though we only visited there each year until my mid-teens each summer holiday. Apart from those early years and visits, a further two years living semi-rough on the resort coast of North Wales, three years at College in Chester, and a single year working in the Fenlands of East Anglia, I have lived and worked in Manchester. The earthy and grounded tones in my work are directly attributable to my childhood and adolescence in the back streets of this soot-stained, grimy industrial city.