Aged twenty-one and still shaking my head at my University's decision to award me a degree I went in search of useful employ. Uncertain, like many at that age, I wondered what best to do...

In the third year - the 'Year Abroad' -  I had been dispatched to teach in an inner city secondary school in Marseille, France. (I had actually had an eye on Nice, Paris, perhaps the Alps.)

Despite the fact that the school campus on which I was lodged had all the allure of a detention centre and that my pupils lived lives that were peppered with gunshots, prostitution, drugs and squealing tyres at midnight, I loved the experience. When we were, the children and I, all in the hot, mesh-windowed classroom huddled round my tinny cassette player singing along, with nods and smiles, to U2's 'Wizz or Wizzout You', I felt I had discovered a niche.

Later, trawling the educational adverts back in England, I found myself, surprisingly, to be  in demand. I was to spend five remarkably happy years teaching in a small town in Somerset. Employed as a teacher of French and German, I quickly widened my portfolio to become Head of Ping Pong and Master in Charge of Jujitsu (which primarily involved me being used as a punch bag by over-enthusiastic twelve year olds). I put on plays reasonably and coached hockey badly, travelled widely and made a whole new raft of friends - all in all I had a wonderful time. Then someone started muttering about a career and I set off to be 'Head of Department' in a school just over the border in Devon.

Then, another five years of teaching later which too provided me with a very great deal of enjoyment and satisfaction, all of a sudden a worm turned. I had visions of becoming old and grey and still at school but now locked behind a desk from behind which I would only occasionally come to meet parents or berate children. This, combined with a fairly catastrophic romantic life and a bizarre coincidence, pushed me onto quite a different course.

The last twelve years have seen me travelling: Living in and writing about the South Pacific where I helped to set up a chicken emporium and in India, where I taught some wonderful children in the slums of Pune and became an unlikely Bollywood hero.

In Africa I finally became a headmaster – if only briefly – and, more importantly, was coach of the Kasane Kudu’s – Botswana’s finest international Under 7’s football team.

My adventures in the Alps: ‘Another Long Day on the Piste’  I read for Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. From time to time it is impossible to ignore one's own shortcomings.

I very much hope you enjoy 'Limey Gumshoe', which is the tale of my most recent experiences as a private detective in Boston.

There may well be another new destination for us all coming up soon.

Golly, who knows?

I hope you have or will enjoy my books. Let me know!

Very many thanks to all those who contact me on a regular basis and all best wishes.

Will