I grew up in Lincolnshire, within sight and sound of the Dambusters airfield and near a village home to several conscientious objectors and a fine amateur theatre group. Those mixed early influences stayed with me through a degree in English Language and Literature, the second year of which started with the Cuban Missile Crisis demanding more anxiety and attention than Beowulf or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Involvement with various peace groups has stayed with me through a teaching career in English, an attempt at the good life in Wales, and a second degree and teaching career in Mathematics. “Retirement” to Axbridge has drawn me into its Community Theatre group and more recently into writing and performing in substantial events around the Great War Centenary and its Armistice. The arithmetic of war and peace still bewilders me.