I have been a fan of motocross for as long as I can remember and growing up in East Anglia (the eastern part of England) helped, as in the 1960s and 70s it was a font of talent in the sport more commonly referred to at that time as ‘scrambling’. Week in week out, I would be privileged to watch the likes of Dave Bickers, Andy Lee, John Banks, Dave Nicoll, Norman Messenger and Jim Aim in meetings from Lyng in Norfolk to Hadleigh, near Southend in Essex.  My one regret was that I never got to the Shrubland Grand National event at Shrubland Park, near Ipswich, but by way of compensation I lived just 6 miles from the Wakes Colne circuit in Essex and a similar distance from Tye Farm, near Sudbury, Suffolk.

​

For my introduction to the sport I am indebted firstly to the BBC, for televising the Grandstand Trophy series in the 1960s and secondly to my father. Dad was a mechanic and so I grew up around cars and it was his career move, becoming a lecturer in the motor vehicle section of a technical college, which led to the family moving to Suffolk. He has also been a lifelong motorcycling fanatic and built me my first motorcycle, a ‘basket case’, in the early 1970s.

​

With such a fabulous introduction to the sport of motocross, the seed was planted and as I moved into my teens I spread my wings, taking in national and international meetings at venues such as Matchams Park, Hants, Farleigh Castle, Wiltshire, and, of course, Hawkstone Park, Shropshire. Though I never completed in motocross events, I was a keen trials rider, competing as a schoolboy before riding up until my early 20s. Keen I was, talented not so; the high point of my time trials riding being a second-class novice award in the Beggars Roost Trial, a national event in Somerset.

​

It was my love for off-road motorcycling and the seeming dearth of literature on the subject that led me to start writing. This was back in the late 1990s when I started researching a book on the sport that was a reflection on my experiences spectating at events from the mid-60s through to the late 70s. Whilst doing my research I was lucky enough to have a few articles published in prominent magazines such as Classic Racer, Classic and Motorcycle Mechanics and Classic Bike, and as I began to make a name for myself I approached publishers with a view to getting my book published. A couple of rejections, one from a well-known Publishing House which told me there was already one book on the bookshelves on this subject and there really was no space for a second, naturally dampened my spirits. But the flame was reignited when I answered a small ad in one of the classic motorcycling magazines appealing for authors of new, interesting titles to make contact. That led me to Rollo Turner of Panther Publishing, who, though not used to publishing books about off-road sport, decided to take a chance on me. As a result, I had two books published with ‘Panther’; Out Front! British Motocross Champions 1960-1974 and Motocross on Air! The BBC Grandstand Trophy 1963 to 1970.

​

My projects with Panther Publishing were a great success, with more than 4,000 copies now sold worldwide, and led to my being commissioned to work on exciting, new projects (see Current Projects). As a result of being a published author, I was also lucky enough to have some articles published in the premier classic off-road magazine, Classic Dirt Bike and in the autumn of 2016 I had the great honour of picking up the baton, passed to me by Jeff Smith, of writing a column, Cross Words, in the same magazine.

​

I am passionate about what I write about and I feel that there are still many books that I would still like to write on the subject. So, as they say in the publishing world, ‘Watch this space!’