Ray
was born in Cambridge and after leaving school at fifteen,
joined the Royal Air Force as a boy entrant. He served for
just over eleven years, being posted or attached to many
RAF camps in the Middle East and this country. After
leaving the RAF he joined a large security firm, here in
Cambridge and trained as a radio controller. After working
there for nine years he took voluntary redundancy. In this
time he married and later divorced his first wife.
After an assortment of odd jobs Ray went to Girton College
for three years..... (Not to get an education, he worked in
the kitchen). After that, he joined Royal Mail and became a
postman! Fed up with getting cold, wet and working outside
on delivery Ray went to work in the large mail centre and
is still there.
Oh yes, he got married again and had four sons and an
adopted daughter. Yet again he got divorced and that's when
the writing kicked in. Alone in his studio apartment he
took up something that had always interested him, writing.
From children’s short stories, adult short stories, a
series all about Royal Mail and strange happenings that
have happened to some of the staff that work there. This
series, called 'Tales from the Smoke room', really started
out as an accident when a member of staff asked him to
write a short story about him. This story was put on my
previous web site and read by a young lady in Australia,
she immediately recognised the 'hero' of the piece which is
called 'Always There For You', and contacted him to see if
he could send on the hero’s address. He did and as far as
we know they are still in touch with one another.
Next came the challenge of writing a young adult’s fantasy
fiction book. Ray was challenged to write a better book
than the 'Goosebumps' book his son Jamie had been reading.
He took up the challenge and wrote 'Terror of the Devil's
Chests'. The first story in a series about the Renton's and
their rather strange friend and protector, Sir Hugh de Quy
(Quy is pronounced KWAI as in the bridge over the river
Kwai) Sir Hugh was born in 1147 and served on the third
crusade with King Richard the lion heart. Somehow he became
immortal. It might be because he was under orders from his
king to find two chests stolen from a religious building in
the holy lands, or it could be that Heaven has intervened
and wants the chests found before it is too late.
Well that's all about Ray, apart from he now has two of his
sons living with him and never gets a quiet moment. That's
where the long drawn out 'aaaaa-nd came from. He also
supports Norwich City and Cambridge City football teams.
Oh yes, nearly forgot. There are, at the moment, three more
books in the series. 'Mary's Land', 'Mary's Island', and
'Return to Mary's Island'. There is talk of writing a
fourth book all about Sir Hugh de Quy and the eight hundred
year search for the Devil's Chests.