 About MeMy family have always lived in Finsbury where I was born and raised and I spent my first few years growing up in a little house in King Square right under where Turnpike House now stands. Over the next 25 years I lived on the King Square Estate, attending Moreland St Primary School, then Dame Alice Owens School (when it was still at the Angel), before getting married in 1979.
After leaving school, I joined BT as a telephone engineer based mainly in Bunhill Row and working in the City & Islington for 18 years. I concurrently served for 16 years in the Territorial Army in an Airborne squadron of a Royals Signals regiment based in the City, where I also qualified as a driving instructor for heavy goods vehicles. After leaving BT I worked for a short spell with Cable & Wireless, then started my own telecoms and iT company which is still based in Clerkenwell in the Finsbury Business Centre.
I have lived on the St Lukes Estate in Old Street with my wife and four children for the past 29 years and was elected Chair of the Tenants Association a few years after moving here in 1982. Then after a long gap and subsequent to the estate being split in half, I became Chair of the Redbrick Estate TMO (Tenant Management Organisation) around 4 years ago.
In this role I have become increasingly concerned with a number of issues affecting local residents, especially those relating to crime, public drunkeness and Anti-Social Behaviour but feel I could do much more to help tackle these problems as a ward councillor.
As an ex trade union member, I am often told I ought to support Labour; and as a small businessman, I have been told I ought to be a Tory – but in all good conscience, I have never been able to bring myself to support either party as I have no faith in either of them, nor in their ability to get us out of the mess they have caused.
Frankly, I am so sick and tired of this Labour government and its broken promises and failures, and am so reluctant to see the Tories back in power for another round of greed and selfishness, that this is the main reason why I have finally decided to stand as a ward councillor. |