Steven Baker's new novel comes out today, so he kindly shares with us ten things he like his readers to know about the author behind the books.
Steven Baker
I was born in Melbourne, Australia, the son of two Ten Pound Poms who subsequently returned to England when I was 2 years of age.
I was raised in a terrace house by a railway line in West Ealing until my family moved first to Northolt and then Ruislip.
I was educated at Vincent Secondary School until I was 16 and left school with only 2 ' O ' Levels.
I was the son of a working class family and became a GPO Engineer upon leaving school.
At 18 I returned to Australia aboard the Britanis as a Ten Pound Pom myself in the last days of that scheme in the early 1970s. On board the boat a young lady called Victoria Rhodes invited myself and several others to her 19th birthday party. I later learned that Victoria was the daughter of Margaret Rhodes, the Queens cousin.
In Australia I worked in the set construction area of the ABC at the Gore Hill studios in Sydney before working my way up to the post of Personnel Officer, which has more or less been my profession ever since.
I returned home to look after an ailing mother and settled in Sussex, a county I love very much for its beautiful down land scenery and wildlife. When I was diagnosed with Cancer, the doctor told me as I had no immediate family to take up some sort of therapy during the long years of treatment. I chose writing and on average wrote a book a year to avoid depression over illness. It was a great therapy that I began to enjoy and the fruits of my labour were 4 books .
After the long years of cancer treatment and stem cells operation I suffered 2 heart attacks and I was back in hospital again this time for a triple bypass. Things were so bad at one time I was going to the food bank at Worthings drop-in-centre. All the time I kept up my writing and I was astonished but delighted when The Book Guild agreed to publish all 4 of them. It made me feel that something worthwhile had been achieved even at a time of great hardship and illness.
I have always been a battler and I love people who have come up the same way. I also love animals dearly and in my spare time I love to look at the wildlife that proliferates in the countryside here.
Throughout my life although I have never had the privilege of marriage or parenthood, I have travelled extensively and it is nice to know that I have a myriad of memories and events to look back on, climbing Ayers Rock, going to the Falkland Isles, looking round the house of R L Stevenson-the author of Treasure Island in his house now a museum in Western Samoa. All in all I have had an eventful and interesting life encompassing both the good and the bad, but surviving and going on to find a new career in writing.
