“I was born in Derby in 1941 and went to the Joseph Wright Art School in 1954 for 2 years. I then took an engineering apprenticeship with International Combustion and moved through various departments finishing in Sales and Marketing and moving to Leeds in  1968  with my wife Val where two of our children, Richard and Alison were born.

We moved back to Derby in 1976 and bought a house in Shardlow, our youngest daughter Rachael was born in 1979. Over the years the power industry of the UK had consolidated and we were now part of Northern Engineering Industries (NEI). They had a worldwide network of sales and marketing offices and in 1981 was offered a place in their Bahrain office. I became ME regional manager in 1986 and in 1987 Rolls-Royce plc took over NEI and we had to merge our respective offices in Bahrain.

The first Gulf war started in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. After the war R-R withdrew from Bahrain and I relocated our to offices to Dubai. We reopened January 1992. We had been in Bahrain ten and a half years. About this time I was awarded an MBE for services to British Industry.

We were in Dubai another 10years, lived through another Gulf war, and relocated offices four times as we expanded. In 1996 I became R-R plc regional executive and added the Caspian countries to my area.

After over 20 years overseas I retired and reflected that it had been over 40 years since I had held a pencil for the pleasure of drawing. I eventually join the Derby Sketching Club, went on tuition courses to St Ives, and in 2009 joined the Committee responsible for the Life drawing sessions, booking models, setting poses, and most importantly making sure our members had someone to draw.”