Born and bred in Dorset, I joined a very go-ahead youth club (Wimborne Youth Group) when I was about 13. This club specialised in putting on concerts. Here I got my first taste of being on and off the "Boards" and painting scenery.

At eighteen I joined the RAF for four years where I became a navigational instrument mechanic but of more interest to me was the chance to produce the stations' concerts and plays. And make/paint the scenery too.

In 1958 I emerged from the Air Force with a smattering of electronics and an ever-increasing interest in theatre production. I joined BBC Radio in London as a Technical Operator. Here, I learnt disc cutting (news was still on 78rpm records then), tape editing, (still in its infancy), and Continuity i.e. twiddling the knobs for the Home Light and Third programmes.

Then came the big move for us to BBC Belfast in 1962. By this time I was married with two children. More disc and tape work and here too was an opportunity to indulge in my hobby of painting stage scenery. For many years I then painted with Lisnagarvey Operatic Society.

Life in the BBC too became even more interesting as I moved about the various Sound Departments, including Radio Outside Broadcasts followed by similar work on TV Outside Broadcasts and TV Studio Sound (Boom swinging etc). In my spare time, in the late sixties, using "second hand" BBC equipment I also set up and ran the Ulster Hospital Radio. In doing so gained another hobby to sit alongside the painting.

Then in May 1969 I got the post of Belfast News Film Sound Recordist. I was the person with the gun mic. permanently connected to the cameraman by the umbilical sound lead. On August 12th of that year we went to "Stroke City" to film the Apprentice Boys' march. And the rest, as they say, is history. For the next nine years I tramped around the province recording and witnessing bodies, bombs, bullets, riots, and all those other images that filled our nightly TV news bulletins. And what did I do for relaxation? Paint stage scenery and produce programmes for the Hospital Radio. However, it was during those years of travel in Northern Ireland that I realized what a fascinating country this is and started noting down the interesting people and places I came across.

But in 1979 disaster struck when it was discovered I had a tumour on the nerve between my right ear and brain. Big operation in the Royal, 'tumour removed but from now on permanently stone deaf in that ear. For convalescence I designed and managed the BBC Stand at the King's Hall Ideal Home Exhibition. I had great fun with that, including shipping a Dalek in from London which young son drove.

Once this was over I moved to Radio production and the Hospital Radio hobby became work. Followed a year later by Assistant TV Producer, working on Music programmes, from The Chieftains, to Symphony Orchestras. Then it was another move to TV Light Entertainment (including one series acting as warm-up man for talent shows) Directing came a couple of years later, then producing TV and film documentaries- including writing/producing the Belfast "gang" for the Children's TV series "Why Don't You?"

Throughout all these years I was still amassing my files on interesting characters and locations in Ulster and eventually put forward the idea of a TV series based on these observations. The idea was accepted and I produced the series, which I called "Ye Tell Me That". It ran for three years- the last two of which I presented in front of the cameras.

I retired in 1988 and we moved here to the North Coast where I set up the art business. See my web site www.causeway.arts.bt... By which time my magpie search for the unusual had become an obsession and I continued to add to the files. Today my archive includes some 2000 newspaper cuttings, over 500 guidebooks/leaflets, a huge card index, and a shelf of files and tapes all of which are devoted to characters and locations in Northern Ireland. Add to this my enthusiasm to draw and cartoon and it seems inevitable that I now end up assisting the team to create this web community that is Ulster's sense of place.

Hi Grandchildren. Feel free to download this for my obituary when the time comes.