I enjoy humour in all forms. In my life, I have had fun performing daft roles in amateur theatre and, at times, have written and presented silly poetry – I loved hearing the sound of laughter. Now, I am having great pleasure in writing fiction in the hope of gaining smiles. This, I modestly claim, to be not bad for someone who can’t tell a joke to save himself so, I’ll be delighted if you giggle out loud when reading these tales – though I’ll be just as pleased if you do it silently.
Anyone can be saddled by a nickname when young. Fine if you like it. Unfortunate if you don’t! His surname, Toozlethwaite, was not easy for his young pals to say, so a nickname was decreed – SWEATY! Derek, pretty obviously, comes into the latter category.
My DEREK stories are meant for YA and grown-ups. They are only a little bit naughty in places because I prefer using humour as a means of telling a tale. I want to make you smile as you read, but also to be curious as to what you will find as you turn a page, so, I have created a fictional character who appears in each of the books to be my hero. However this fellow is not alone when it comes to looking for misfortune – there are always others in the stories to help him find it!
Derek first came to life in my books as a young man. He is in his early thirties, a reporter on a local newspaper, but with an ambition that may be beyond his capabilities – he wants to be a real writer. I think of him as my hapless hero… Hopefully, along the way, he’ll succeed in his quest, but, having inside knowledge, I am aware that his life-changing moments will not always occur in the way he would have chosen – IF he’d had the chance to choose. As it happens his misfortunes often are of his own silly making; he is a smart cookie but a little naive at times…
More recently I’ve written a prequel called SWEATY and PALS, featuring a young Derek as he was in the mid-eighties. This is series of three books for youngsters of reading age and this time includes my own illustrations. These stories tell how it all began – annoying the neighbours, playing on the waste ground, causing trouble at school, and challenging a new supermarket chain…
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