I live at Rainbow Valley Community in Golden Bay, New Zealand. I was born in 1951 and have questioned ‘progress’ and industrial society since I was nine or ten. I was drawn to ‘alternative community’ in my twenties, and it was then that I first visited Rainbow Valley. I was a primary-school teacher from 1978 till 1988 before I settled here in 1989.
In 1998 I completed a diorama model of Tasman’s fatal encounter with Maori for Golden Bay Museum. I then wrote ‘Strangers in Mohua’, examining these first known Maori/Pakeha events as biculturally as I could.
Between 2006 and 2008 I completed a Bachelor of Communications Degree extramurally, majoring in media studies and expressive arts. In 2011 I wrote a post graduate paper about Rainbow Valley and Tui communities: Rainbow and Tui 19.12.2011
In 2012 I completed an MA in history with a thesis on New Zealand 1970s communities in general called Endless Connections 22.08.12
I’ve been a model-maker since I was a boy. I used to draw a lot with coloured pencils and paint mostly with watercolours. These days I paint more often with acrylics on stretched canvas, mostly from digital photos. I seldom paint a recognizable place I haven’t been to though, and usually take the pictures myself and later paint viewing the photo on a laptop screen while listening to music.
I’ve written verse since I was eight, when Mum gave me an empty book to write it in. Most of it rhymes, as I enjoy rhyming verse, which also helps me to remember it.
Lately I have been trying to write better prose as well.
My wife Anne is a gardener. I have three surviving children and five grandchildren.