Writer

I started making up tales as soon as I could talk, and my earliest memories of storytelling to my peers are from the mid-50’s on the beach on Cheung Chau island in Hongkong. My family and several other missionary families spent the summer holidays on this magical island, which at one time South China Sea pirates had made their base.

English composition and literature were my favourite subjects at school, although this was never reflected in my grades as I was too busy daydreaming!

I still have my first alphabet book, printed in 1946, complete with a crudely scribbled wanted poster on the inside cover. The villain in the drawing looks amazingly like me in the year 2000!

A gazillion dollar reward for a villain who looks remarkably like me in the year 2000!

Among my first jobs in the late 1960’s were writing columns for the Hongkong Music Maker and The Star newspaper. The Star also published a monthly teenybopper magazine called FABulous Young Hongkong, and I was responsible for the bulk of the stories, putting the whole thing together over a couple of evenings with my boss, editor and mentor Graham Jenkins.

Over the years I have written columns for The China Mail, Asian Broadcasting, The TV Times, The Good Life Magazine (HK Standard), and Eve magazine. All these are Hongkong publications.

I also wrote briefly for Hollywood’s Variety magazine.