I was born and raised in the UK, took a degree in Photography at the London College of Printing, spent twenty years in Australia and then relocated back to Britain in 2009. People often ask why – it’s probably something to do with the fact that, despite the lousy weather, Britain does better cheese and ale.

I’ve been a freelance travel writer since 1988, and spent thirty years authoring and updating guidebooks to Australia, China, Indonesia, Iceland and Hong Kong for Rough Guides and Dorling Kindersley. My articles on Chinese history and culture have appeared in the South China Morning Post and The Diplomat.

I’m an accredited lecturer for NADFAS (The Arts Society), and have also given talks about travel, writing, history and Chinese woodblock prints to – amongst others – The Smithsonian Institution, the National Heritage Board of Singapore, the Royal Asiatic and Royal Geographical societies, and literary festivals in Beijing, Bristol and Alderney.

To date I’ve written three non-travel books, all published by Blacksmith Books in Hong Kong. The Mercenary Mandarin (2016) is a biography of William Mesny, a nineteenth-century British adventurer in China; Paper Horses (2022) explores Chinese folk gods through woodblock printing; and A Murder in Yunnan (2025) unravels the mysterious unsolved killing of a British diplomat on the China-Burma border in 1875.

Writing is an isolated profession, involving long stretches alone with a computer. Whenever possible, it’s good to get out of the house and spend time studying wildlife and Chinese martial arts. Preferably somewhere warm.