Born
in Birkenhead, England, in 1965, I am the third son of Barney
and Moya. My parents were both born and raised in Ireland and
retired to Newtown Crommelin, County Antrim, in 1985.
Birkenhead was a shipbuilding town, and the home of Cammell
Lairds - a world renowned shipbuilding company. Birkenhead was
a great place to grow up and was filled with the type of characters
you would expect to find in a blue-collar Northwestern England
town. Those from Birkenhead would have another name for “characters,”
that being "scallies," short of course for "scallywags."
They could also easily explain why more than our fair share
of houses were painted battleship grey. I
worked several jobs in the UK and traveled throughout Europe
before moving to the US in 1991. My work here has had me in
most states in the Union, and I have been fortunate enough
to travel through a good chunk of Asia. I am the proud father
of three fine kids.
My father would write a birthday rhyme
for me each year and like any child would, I always looked
forward to the new rhyme. Despite this yearly rhyming gift,
I was never really compelled to try to write poems myself
until I ran into a fine fella by the name of John Hogarth.
John wrote a poem for me when I left my first job at British
Nuclear Fuels in 1988. John's funny rhyme came to me a few
years later while I was working in Texas and I put poetic
pen to paper for the first time. The poem was well received
and a new hobby was born.
Since then, I have developed a habit of conjuring poems on
the fly and have had a lot of fun doing it. As a result, the
website was born and the fun will continue.
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