I am a freelance writer, author, journalist, singer-songwriter, public speaker, poet and naturalist. I was born in Cardiff, Wales, but since 2004 I have lived in Tenerife in the Canary Islands and in Portugal. Also known as the Bard of Ely, a title I was given when I was a columnist for Big Issue magazine and was living in the suburb of Ely in Cardiff, DicMortimer’s Blog and cardiffians.co.uk both list me as a “famous Cardiffian.”
I studied at Cardiff University where I gained a BA degree in Journalism, Film and Broadcast.
I am the author of Herbs of the Northern Shaman and Herbs of the Sun, Moon and Planets, both of which were published by Moon Books.
I have written for many and varied publications, including The Huffington Post, Kindred Spirit, Prediction, Bee Culture, Welsh Coastal Life, Living Tenerife, Permaculture and the National Federation of Occupational Pensioners magazines, as well as having been a contributor to the Tenerife News newspaper and a columnist for the Tenerife Weekly, in which I wrote about gardening and nature. I am currently writing articles for Optimanova Solutions digital marketing agency and Mediterranean Gardening and Outdoor Living magazine.
Mediterranean Gardening & Outdoor Living
Specialising in articles on travel, gardening, the natural world and the environment, I have written extensively about the island of Tenerife at my HubPage Tenerife Islander, as well as blog posts about travel destinations, such as this one at Tripedia about places off the beaten track in the north of Tenerife. I also contributed articles about history and archaeology for the Ancient Origins website, and I have written a number of features about alternative health therapies and the medicinal use of herbs for the herbalismguide website.
As a singer and musician, I performed at Glastonbury and the Green Man festivals in the UK, and was an MC for Glastonbury’s Avalon Stage in 2002 and 2003. I have a new EP out on the Moloko label entitled Harvest Home. My Wikipedia page highlights my musical achievements. My music has been used in the soundtrack for many television shows and my songs have been broadcast on FM and Internet radio stations around the world. Harvest Home was included in the soundtrack of the horror film Paranormal Haunting: The Curse of the Blue Moon Inn, directed by award-winning author and filmmaker Philip Gardiner.
I also worked as a TV presenter and researcher for Aspect TV in Cardiff, and was featured in two series of the magazine programme In Full View on BBC Choice in 1998. As well as conducting interviews with interesting local people and presenting social interest stories, I was often shown out and about in Welsh countryside locations where I talked about the fauna and flora I discovered.
I have a lead role in a new documentary film entitled Savages in Foreign Lands by independent director Raphael Biss. It is about the mysterious people known as the Guanches, who lived in Tenerife before the Spanish Conquest.
I am included in books by other authors and am featured in The Last of the Hippies , Fierce Dancing (Faber & Faber) and Housing Benefit Hill (AK) by CJ Stone, in The Trials of Arthur (Element) by Christopher James Stone and Arthur Pendragon, in Peter Finch’s Real Cardiff (Seren), in The World’s Most Mysterious People (Hounslow) by Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, and in Leonard Cohen – A Remarkable Life (Omnibus) by Anthony Reynolds.