I grew up and went to school in a coal-mining town in South Wales. My mother's family came from rural Radnorshire in Mid-Wales, and my father's family was a branch of one from Swansea in South Wales. His great-grandfather (a mineral surveyor) moved East to Monmouthshire in the early nineteenth century and I, my father, and his father were all born in Monmouthshire. I hated school and did not get on with my parents so I left home as soon as I was able to support myself. That was not easy in 1957/8, because employment opportunities were limited. I decided the best escape route was through an open competition for entry to the Civil Service, and I took it. I remained in the UK Civil Service for the greater part of my life.

In the course of my career I did many things, including personal casework, policy formulation, union and employer relations, indirect taxation, operational management, financial management, general management, consultancy, and negotiation - in half a dozen different Government Departments. Towards the end of my career in the UK because of the breadth of my experience the British Council asked me to organise residential courses for foreign senior civil servants and politicians, and I undertook some short-term advisory assignments in Namibia, South Africa and Colombia. At the end of 1994 the Government of Namibia invited me to become Chairman of a special Commission set up to review the pay and structure of the public service there, from the President downwards. I took early retirement from the UK Civil Service to do this, and spent three years in Namibia. At the end of that time I moved to the South of Spain and after a further two years returned to my home in Westminster which I had kept throughout my time abroad. I am now living back in the heart of London just by Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Towards the end of my UK Civil Service career I was invested as a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath and became an armiger.

Now that I am fully retired my time can be spent mainly on things that really interest me. I am a Justice of the Peace for Inner London, and usually sit in Court once or twice a week. In the United Kingdom these courts deal with 97% of all criminal cases. For the rest of the time I am mainly engaged in some activity to do with heraldry. I am Honorary Secretary of The Heraldry Society and Chairman of the White Lion Society,and a member of the Harleian Society, the Friends of St George's Chapel Windsor, the Royal Society of St. George, the Society of Genealogists, Guild of One-Name Studies, and various local Family History Societies. I am an FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts) and an Associate member of the Society of Heraldic Arts. I am also a Freeman of the City of London and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners. Also in connection with the City of London, I am a Trustee and the Hon.Secretary of the Friends of the City Churches.

I have been greatly honoured by appointment in early 2004 as a Pursuivant Extraordinary of the Heraldische Gemeinschaft Westfalen. The full arms which go with that appointment are reproduced on the right, a version prepared by Alex Kurov who also produced the version of my English arms shown on this page.