I am married to the remarkable and beautiful Kathy and we have two children — our daughter Hannah is a producer in London and our son Josh is an adventurer, film maker, Tik-Toker and writer, currently exploring the Philippines on an electric motorbike. For over 15 years we shared our home with a handsome chocolate Labrador called Bryn.

Having grown up in a suburb of Manchester, where the evening sky was burnt orange and there was no horizon apart from the silhouetted roofs of neighbouring houses I am very happy to have ended up in a small village at the other end of Cheshire. It is a unique and beautiful place, with great sunsets over the River Mersey estuary.

My Dad was from the Lake District, Mum from Belfast and I was fortunate to grow up surrounded by storytellers and laughter. Influences and passions include John Cooper Clark (naturally), Pam Ayres, Betjeman, Yeats, Heaney, Wilfred Owen, the Romantic poets, Spike Milligan, George Best, James Joyce, Clive James and Billy Connolly. Of contemporary poets I am enjoying discovering Carol Ann Duffy, Hannah Lowe and Liz Berry. Professionally I have made films for 30+ years and learned a lot about moving pictures, words & music along the way. One thing I did which will, I hope, last is Sea Wall, a short film about love, grief and family developed from a play written by my nephew, Simon Stephens. Superficially it is the simplest of films, illuminated by an incredible performance from the remarkable Andrew Scott.

I love walking and running, especially in the mountains or alongside the ocean and fulfilled a lifetime's ambition last year by joining our local ukulele band, playing monthly gigs in the local pub to a lively and vocally enthusiastic audience. Gardening is another passion, especially if it involves a wheelbarrow, a spade and sitting down in the sun with a coffee outside my shed.

I've always written, generally humorous and satirical poetry and prose, but there has been a much more consistent flow since February 2020, hopefully an enduring, rather than temporary state!