John worked as a scientific officer for DFID, studying diseases of banana, locust invasions and rice pest migration in Uganda, Tanzania, India, Costa Rica and Rome. He swapped microscope for walking boots and became a trek leader based initially in Morocco and then spent three years in Central and South America, mainly Peru (where he met Julie).
Settling in rural Aberdeenshire he became a journalist and blagged a job at the Edinburgh Evening News where he developed a love of unreasonable deadlines. A final, inevitable career change to teaching now sees him (and the family) based in East Lothian, employed as PT Geography at North Berwick High School and writing books, educational features and travel articles in his spare time.
Questionnaire:
1. What is your earliest memory?
My brother Mark being bitten by a cow
2. Which teacher inspired you the most at school?
Mr Cole, the English teacher who gave us bizarre, non-official texts and encouraged us to open our minds
3. What was your worst subject at school?!
French – by far
4. What inspired you to get writing?
The desire to give Geography the exposure it deserves as the most important subject in the curriculum
5. What do you do to relax?
Mountain biking, loud music and superhero movies
6. What is your favourite book?
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson
7. What is your favourite film?
Apocalypse Now
8. What is your favourite album?
Historically, Ten by Pearl Jam: Currently, Grey Britain by Gallows
9. What is the most fun you’ve had in a single day?
Chatting to the locals on market day in a Peruvian town called Tingo, following a morning at the ruins of Kuelap with my future wife
10. What have you done that no one would guess you'd done?
Starred opposite Uma Thurman in a Robin Hood film (at least, we were briefly on screen together)