MID-LIFE CRISIS OR JUST AN URGE TO WRITE?
Nigel started off his career as a police officer and fourteen years later found himself as a police detective before solving some pretty serious crime. On leaving the police service, following an injury in the line of duty, Nigel re-trained as a become a maths and science teacher, which he reluctantly got on with for five years, but described it as like “being a police officer, but without any power.”
And so he altered career again to work in the National Health Service, initially working in drugs and alcohol services, but then as a performance manager, where he tackled the plethora of stats which he felt bogged down any meaningful delivery of a service to patients. ”Death by committee,” is how he has described the decision making process in the NHS.
He describes his career movements as his period of “life-studies to become an author,” but in his words, ”there had more to life than work but, I had to do something to pay the mortgage.”
That something in the middle was his ‘mid-life crisis,’ which saw him abandoning formal careers to do what he loved most… spending time with a camera, eventually becoming a fully qualified successful professional wedding & portrait photographer. Something which he did for several years, whilst at the same time his life-long urge to write was taking place.
BLUE LINE BLUES
Nigel, initially began writing under the pseudonym of Will Esling and soon his first novel ‘Blue Line Blues – Boy to Bobby in Ten Weeks’ was published, a novel which humorously reflects his time at a police training centre in Wales in the 1970s… all fictional of course!
WELSH LEGEND
Nigel’s love of local legend and the stories of Wales passed down from one generation to another, led him to write his first fantasy novel ‘Excalibur Reborn – Sword of Armageddon’ and then his most recent publication, the epic story ‘Esmeralda’s Talisman – Resurrection of Sorcery,’ a prequel to Excalibur Reborn.
GENEALOGY BOY
For decades Nigel has also been a studying the history of his family. This is what he says about that…
”It all started when, over the years I was ribbed and called all sorts of names referring to the colour of my skin, which is pretty dark olive and Mediterranean looking… if not a little further east! And, yes, I based the main character in Blue Line Blues on me, as it was a good way to tell the story of some of the abuse I’d suffered over the years for ‘looking different.’ My dad had suffered the same too in his life and I always wanted to know just where I came from. I even thought at one stage that I must have been adopted or even found abandoned in some church tower… ”
”So I delved into my background to see where my colour might have come from and guess what… I found nothing to suggest I had any blood from any far flung corner of the world. Far from it. One lineage, if correct, suggested King ‘Alfred the Great’ (848 – 899) is my 38th Great-Grandfather! I’m told a fair proportion of the population might be able to make a similar claim if they delved into their family tree…”
”Then DNA came along and definitively I was placed as over 70% Welsh, with the remaining 25% of my heritage mainly coming from England – the North West in the main. Nothing in my blood from anywhere south of Berkshire, so, I’m indigenous through and through, despite my very olive complexion and black hair…”
”So, whilst I’m doing all of this research to find out where I hailed from, I made fascinating discoveries about an uncle on my maternal line, one Gerald Davies, a pilot killed in action in Greece during the Second World War. A story which set me off on travels across Europe to find out just exactly what had happened to him. All of this led to what I believe is my fabulous narrative non-fiction book Gerald’s War…”
”Writing the book was a labour of love for me, as Gerald was my mother’s eldest brother, although neither or them knew this fact during their lifetimes.”
Gerald’s War is more than just a story about one man’s plight in war, it is a story of family deceit, family cruelty and a family torn apart in peace and in war. Tragedy is never far behind Gerald Davies, the eponymous hero of the novel. His mother is forced into an asylum by his father who has taken up with a woman half his age. Unknown to Gerald, the person he knows as his aunt is his real mother. To escape the difficulties of home, which his new young stepmother has created, Gerald joins the RAF. He trains to be a pilot observer and is attached to 211 Blenheim Bomber Squadron and is sent to the Western Desert campaign and afterwards to the British involvement in the Greco-Italian War. He faces death more times than he can remember and on one occasion famously goes missing for several days, being shot down over Corfu. His family think he is dead, but Gerald and crew are being wined and dined by the people of Corfu and meet the famous Spiro Amerikanos, who famously befriended the Durrells on the island when they were there pre-war.
At one stage Gerald is injured and taken to hospital in Alexandria where he meets Pilot Officer Roald Dahl, who has been injured in a crash in his Gloster Gladiator.
Things get worse when Germany declares war on Greece on 6th April 1941.
On Easter Sunday, 13th April tragedy strikes when all six Blenheims sent to tackle the German pouring into Greece are shot down. Gerald is tragically killed.
The story is true and based upon the exploits of the uncle of the author.
Sir David Jason, with his huge intertest in the RAF has kindly written a foreword to the book.
GRANDCHILDREN AND BOOKS
Nigel has written four short picture-story books for his grandchildren under his other nom-de-plume Nigella Awesome. These are what he calls his ‘Grandad Stories Collection’ …
Charlie’s Dinosaur: Who’s On The Naughty Step At Number 5?
THE AUTHOR AT HOME
Nigel writes from his converted garage in the back of his North Wales home and, as he writes, he overlooks the ancient village church, which he featured in Excalibur Reborn.
He’s an animal lover and has two Bernese Mountain Dogs. Keen photographer Nigel also loves horses and has a lifelong affinity with these huge beasts – he’s often to be found amongst the horses on his daughter’s farm in France.
Then there’s his love of football and motorcycles, his current ‘baby’ (as he calls it) being an Indian Scout Classic.
