When I was twelve I had a model railway - scenery, houses, landscape, the lot. In fact, it was a miniature model world; my pride and joy. I wrote a letter to 'The Railway Modeller' - a UK magazine - asking if they'd like an article about it. They said 'go ahead' and so I sat down at the dining room table and began writing. I got paid 12, and I've been writing ever since!Flushed with the success of being commissioned by 'Railway Modeller' I did what all teenagers do and started writing long and complicated poetry. I actually had a couple of things published in small arts magazines, and went to Hull University just to breathe the same air as Philip Larkin. When he stopped breathing (he died in my third year - which had nothing to do with me, I hasten to add!) I started doing bits and pieces of journalism, and contributed to a column called 'This World of Ours' on the Yorkshire Post for a few years. In fact, when I graduated I was going to be a journalist. But then I'd also quite fancied teaching, and someone said I'd better do a PGCE before Mrs Thatcher closed down all the teacher-training colleges. Twenty-one years later, I was still in the classroom.Writing Therapy is my first novel, published through the YouWriteOn web-site, which is sponsored by Arts Council England as a way of providing support and feedback for new writers. I never even bothered with any of the 'big boys', so-to-speak. I figured they'd all be far too busy throwing money at the likes of Simon Cowell to be interested in an unknown with an article in 'Railway Modeller' in his resume. I've just written a couple of school text-books for a UK publisher called Wayland, part of a series covering countries of the world. I've also got a young adult novel almost finished. It's about a boy with a passion for prehistoric mysteries, who leaves home looking for his mother.