Author of new series of historically based children's books The Heroic Foxes of Foxwood.
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![Andrew Lauder](/image-library/square/1000/a/andrew-lauder-profile-picture.jpg)
Andrew Lauder
Book 1 'General Falconius Fox and the Roman Invasion of Britain' is available to buy via Amazon.
It took a life threatening accident to turn my love of languages and life long passion for writing into a reality. Just under a year ago, whilst in my garden I fell 6 metres into a concrete storm drain and remained there unconscious for 2 hours, undetected. No, I was not drunk, but was certainly in the gutter! I had broken my neck in two places and was unable to lift my right arm at all and had to have 23 stitches in my head..
To cut a long (and unpleasant) story short, I was given another chance at life. I'm now back playing golf, swimming every day and aware of how very lucky I was.
Those sorts of unfortunate events often trigger something in people, and for me, it was a desire to give something back and leave a permanent record of something I had achieved, that would make people happy.
My favourite books have always been The Wind in the Willows and the Jungle Book, I love history and animals and reading to my children and grandchildren, so it was only a short step before Sir Foxley-Fox was born, narrating stories of great moments in British history at which generations of his ancestors have played key roles, in a series of books for ages 8-108 called "The Heroic Foxes of Foxwood."
Through these books, I hope to give children and adults pleasure whilst at the same time learning the beauty of the English language and having fun learning history. Above all I want to give more parents the pleasure of reading books to their children.
I travelled to over 60 countries before I was 32. After three wonderful years studying French and German at Cambridge University, I spent the next 10 years of my life in export and had the privilege of going round the world many times.
Imagine traveling in seaplanes in Vancouver, flying over the mighty Victoria Falls and sitting in the copilot's seat of a VERY ancient DC3 in Central America and flying in that most beautiful of all aircraft, Concorde!
I often think that the subsequent lack of supersonic aircraft development was one of the great lost opportunities of my age. During my years in export, I had the privilege of going round the world several times and flying in a Concorde. On one occasion we left Heathrow at 11 a.m. and (due to the 5 hour time change) arrived in New York after 3 hours of flying at twice the speed of sound, 2 hours before we left the UK! A day's work, then back that same evening.
At just 32 years old I was head hunted to become Managing Director of the famous Waddington's Playing Card Co. and from then on my path was set on turning some of the worlds most famous companies around.
In just 18 months I had turned Waddington Playing Cards around from loss to profit. It was my happiest time at work as it was such a fun and vibrant industry. I was lucky to have this as my first company as they had a superb Production Director, a long standing tradition and a fantastic shop floor - they also had no marketing - an opportunity which I grasped eagerly with both hands!
As a result of this success I was then appointed MD of Waddington Games and then MD of Tom Smith's Crackers - the oldest cracker company in the world, which, at that time was losing a lot of money. Next was Robinson's Healthcare, which had a turnover of £36million, employed 1,000 and was losing a vast amount of money - luckily I was able, with help from great Directors and a shop floor to turn these round successfully
I am against Fox Hunting and I'm working towards supporting some of the campaigns through my Sir Foxley-Fox series of books.
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The illustrator of the Heroic Foxes of Foxwood series is a 2015 V & A Student Illustrator award prize winner
It was by pure luck that I came across the very talented Dan Ungureanu - who's also a recent Camridge School of Art graduate. The first sketch Dan sent me was of Sir Foxley-Fox and Lady Foxley-Fox asleep on their bed and I was completely blown away. He'd got it first time! He is going to do great things.
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I most admire Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Richard Branson.
My favourite place on earth is Cape Town, closely followed by Cyprus and the West Coast of Florida.
I am retired and live happily in Cyprus with my wife and Thumper our beautiful feral cat who is soft with us but distrusts anyone else apart from our neighbour! .
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General Falconius Fox and the Roman Invasion of Britain is available to buy via Amazon for £4.99 Twitter: @Sirfoxleyfox FB: The Heroic Foxes of Foxwood http://www.sirfoxley-fox.com