Site maintained by Oaksys Tech Ltd A life of constant flying may seem glamorous, but my tip is just take a good book to read so you can ignore the frustrations of travel. Dust on my feet I was an Army Brat in a large family. There were seven children in total in my childhood family. We were used to the rigours of moving house frequently as my father would move on to the next posting. The whole routine process of losing old friends and making new ones at the next school. All of my siblings at some point joined the Armed Forces, though I was the black sheep and never followed that route. I moved into commerce and tech, almost by accident, and travelled quite a lot around the world to practice my skill. What drives me? A lot of the time I take in writing the book is taken up by research. For example the body armour used by Adam Cranford in Dangerous Donkey is based around aramid fibre and synthetic spider silk. I spent at least four days researching the background to these new fibres. There is a process based on using the milk from goats which were genetically modified to develop the base protein for spider silk in their milk. I even contacted the original founders of the research company who developed the technique. In my main career which relies on understanding technology and applying it to business problems I have to use the same research techniques. In fact life is a process of constant development of knowledge. It requires quite a lot of effort to track down interesting leads in technology and modern inventions. I hope that some of the techniques hinted at in the Cranford books spark enough interest in young people to get out there on the Internet and research the background of the technology. One area of great growth with some amazing results is Nanotechnology, let’s hope our budding scientists pick up on this. Activities improve life   Active sports relax you When I get the chance I take part in in active recreation like hill walking and climbing. I used to go sea canoeing when I lived and worked in a  coastal city in the west of the UK. However the demands of my career have reduced the opportunities for that type of thing. Not the least finding somewhere to store a canoe when living in a terraced house. Teaching youngsters how to take part in adventurous activities was always great fun. I found that I always gained much more than I put into such training. It is a pity now that society seems so against volunteer adult leaders.