1986 – 1988
On leaving school I studied a 2 year Social Care at Tuson College, Preston aiming for a career in community psychiatric nursing. This continued on leaving and working at Chorley Hospital as Auxillery Psychiatric Nurse.
1989-90
Simultaneously in Berlin a revolution was happening that appealed to my political persuasion and I wanted to explore. I was disheartened with the heavy reliance on pharmaceutical sedations in psychiatric nursing, rather than exploring issues and finding resolve and I instead took a guitar to Berlin.
1990 – 1994
This took me on a four year trek of beatnick Taoism traveling Europe and living rough with a guitar more tucked in at night than me. I studied literature and music from Aldous Huxley to Tim Buckley, worked in squat cafes and night busking and lived on whits, chance, luck and free food from the Christians or Krishnas.
1994 -1995
I needed a break, streetlife was frying my nerves and so I rented a cottage in Connemara four miles from the nearest road, taking the dog on long walks and reading / writing. After a year I wanted to get back to the environmental movement that was at the time being resisted by mainstream, media and council.
1995- 1998
I travelled Britain working Green festivals based in a working environmental community on the Yorkshire moors. There were thirty of us at it’s peak and a bit of fighting and so when my partner discovered she was pregnant we left for the city and an attempt at creating a more peaceful community elsewhere.
1999 – 2010
Faeries Wear Boots was born, an environmental concern aiming at becoming an established environmental centre for natural healing and living.
We had no money or bank account and so we had to start somewhere. We moved to Lancaster and opened a record shop. This was supposed to be a five year thing only to go on business plan for the loan but life happens.
We split and I had a breakdown lasting years and ending in remarkable therapy.
This got me interested in Transactional Analysis and felt to be the full circle back to the psychiatric care beginnings. This time though, I’d found something that I can believe in.
2010 – 2015
In 2010 I was introduced to tai chi on a friends’ insistence after another inappropriate outburst of anger, an unspoken and severe symptom of depression in some and especially men. I was coerced and in a corner and I didn’t expect to return but on leaving class I had a profound connection to myself. Eager for more.
I was back at work full time now running a re-housing for vulnerable from my home and running the record shop via fairs and mail order only now. I found a way to pay for training in Transactional Analysis (TA) at Manchester Institute of Psychotherapy and engaged in many day courses and weekend sessions of other therapies and styles.
2015 -2020
I gained foundational TA skills and after two years study took a break, deciding on tai chi as the healer and to borrow skills and understandings of Person Centred Counselling and Transactional Analysis to enhance the healing.
I was an active member of the Health section of the Ethical Small Traders Association and worked many health fairs in Lancaster, taking tai chi into the schools, nursing homes and hospitals of Lancashire and Cumbria.
I focussed on community and care centres and simultaneously held small classes of more advanced tai chi.
2020 – 2024
I enjoyed lockdown though of course I was suspicious and did my research. It was a tumultuous time and post lockdown I experienced changes in society and in myself and a close to break down re occurrence.
I have always enjoyed alcohol but post lockdown I found myself drinking beyond reasonable and incapable of stopping for even a day.
I took it as a challenge to my soul and booked for rehab with the aim to quit until my 80th. I’ve things to do and alcohol was in the way.
2025 onwards
Which brings us to now and where I am at.
Lancaster school of Tai Chi Chuan now has five teachers who all operate independently from each other. We each have our own students and costing system.
This has allowed me to create free and donations classes for those in need and also to create drop-in classes for those who would struggle with commitment.
I’m now, after a decade of sincere and almost daily study with a true master, and after a decade of other studies with teachers and one master, considered a beginner in t’ai chi ch’uan.
I am on a lifelong journey with this art and I teach no longer for any other reason than because I teach.
I can’t even say that I teach any more. I guide and I host in a space of mutual benefit and support.
My classes are open spaces for all from the vulnerable, disabled, disadvantaged, to the wealthy hobbiest and good time retired folk, to teachers of other schools and styles, to the healthy aware of how to remain healthy.
I like to collaborate with and promote other schools and teachers. I am actively engaged in the Tai Chi Internal Arts Union, it’s discussions and its politics. I’m a host for the International Taoist meetings based in Philadelphia USA, and I am included in discussions with CIMSPA* that Union rebels have sparked in efforts to establish tai chi as a necessary medicine rather than a middle class passtime. I was amongst the first of teachers in Great Britain to receive certificate of approval from CIMSPA after a years study of safety in classroom.
You’re in good hands with me…whatever your background, whatever your needs…from the underclass vulnerable and unpredictable to the upper middle class passtime and feelgood student, to the advanced instructor keen for that critical eye and a contadictory or complimentary approach, and especially for those that are reluctantly becoming aware that we must take effort, action and that we must start to budget for our own repair and healthcare.
Do feel free to explore any of these concepts with me at no cost or lo cost and no risk but the traffic in getting here.