About the Author
Born in 1925 Tony was educated at Bristol Grammar and Chard. He preferred sport to learning and dodged his final exams by going to sea in April 1942 as a saloon-boy.
Originally destined for the Royal Naval Officers' Training College at Dartmouth, poor eyesight diverted him instead to a Merchant Navy radio college in 1943 where the charms of the local young ladies took their toll at exam time. Volunteering for the Royal Navy as an Enlisted Man he finished the war keeping temperamental Radar sets working.
After demob he took up civil flying as a radio/navigating officer finding himself in Kenya in 1948. There followed a period during which he repaired radios, wired farm houses for electricity and sold motor cars. In 1950 he returned to sea on obtaining a coastal mate's ticket and spent a couple of years in experimental fishing before joining the Kenya Police at the start of the Mau Mau terrorist activity, eventually rising to senior commissioned rank. During this service he undertook a brief clandestine rescue operation in the former Belgium Congo when that country obtained its independence.
Later that year, 1961, unable to afford the sea passage - his children now numbering five - he took the family and their dog on the round trip to Britain by road through the jungles and the Sahara desert. A journey which was repeated in 1963 as the family finally left Kenya when that country gained its independence.
On returning to England he spent a successful period in the hotel and restaurant trade. He returned to sea in 1972 and obtained a master's ticket in 1976 before joining the Fremantle Port Authority from which he retired at the age of sixty five.
He and his wife built their own house 'out in the sticks' where they now live. When Tony is not writing he and Betty enjoy driving their Caspian horses in scurry events or just meandering through the forest. His incredibly full and varied life has equipped him well to write with conviction and great feeling.
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