About me
I was born in Australia, 1927, my parents having emigrated in 1923 from Greenock in Scotland. Following the death of their son, John, ten months old, in a house fire, and two years of unemployment in the Slump, my parents, my elder brother Alex and I came to Scotland. You can read more of my life story in Pigswill and Caviare.
I spent twenty years in the Royal Army Medical Corps in general and psychiatric nursing and personnel management. Then I specialised in psychiatric social work. When I retired in 1974, I worked in the Southampton University Hospitals Combined School of Nursing until 1987. From 1987-91 I was Student Counsellor/Lecturer at St George’s and Roehampton College of Nursing and Midwifery.
Although no longer involved in counselling or supervision, since 1992 I have been a tutor for the Institute of Counselling, a distance learning college in Glasgow. I tutor counselling in all its forms, coaching, mentoring, therapeutic communication, spiritual care and psychological theory. In addition, I have published many counselling, self-help, devotional books, and biographical dictionaries.
I married Margaret in 1948 and we had five children; Jean, born with Down’s syndrome, died in October 2009. Read the tribute to Jean, The Sunflower of Our Lives. Of the other four, my eldest son who lived in the USA died in June 2019; one son also lives in the States; our other daughter lives in Scotland and one son lives near us in Hampshire. Margaret died of heart failure on August 27, 2012. She is now at rest with her Lord and with all those who have gone on before. Read the funeral service booklet for Margaret.