Worn around the edges, much like my country of birth, England. 40 years an Australian though. Ex educator, libary manager & more other roles than I care to remember, even if I could - my memory appears to have a capacity of inverse proportions to the information which I’ve poured into it for the last 75 years.

I’m something of a hermit, have post-polio syndrome, chronic depression, and probably some form of anthropophobia. My best friend - my only friend, in fact, is my Groenendael, Lennie. He’s very special - as all animals are, even the human ones whose actions so disturb me, We walk during the night so that we can enjoy nature without the distracting hubub of people, machines and all that goes with them.

I suppose that I’m the ultimate nowhere man, probably my favourite Beatles song other than, perhaps, Revolution. I preferred the Stones to the Beatles and still do, however I have quite eclectic tastes in music, literature and, indeed, most things in life. If I favour a genre of music it is probably folk. I read a great deal but am undisciplined. I usually have a dozen or so books on the go at any one time, nowadays mostly non-fiction, though I do still enjoy an occasional novel.

I ought to stop, I think, because this is supposed to be a profile, not an essay. You will tell from this, (even if you haven’t got this far), that I tend to go on or, to be polite, that I’m somewhat long-winded. My eldest brother says that everything I say just makes people sick. Perhaps he’s right, for certainly, I have continually found myself in trouble with authority and its minions, largely for standing against their bullying, discrimination, nepotism, incompetence or otherwise uncaring and inequitable behaviour.

Oh, I’m also a CHAV and hold great disenchantment with capitalism and neo-liberal ideology. I stand convinced that the increasing distress, inequality, domestic violence, populism and rates of depression and suicide are the results of a society that conditions us to materialism, winning, status & power as defining success, when in reality they tend to represent lives that, in a true sense, are very much the opposite.

On that note, I will shut up.