I was born in Lusaka Zambia in 1962, to an English mother and an Afrikaans father. Later I went to school in Southern Africa - my father is a civil engineer so we moved a lot. I eventually ended up in high school in Westville, a suburb of Durban, South Africa. I went to University in Pietermarizburg (a small city 90 km inland from Durban) where I met my wife - Ingrid Stuckenberg. I made my way through the sciences, mainly Zoology and Entomology. I didn’t particularly distinguish myself here, but I did enjoy it. Eventually graduated with B.Sc. (Hons.) and later an M.Sc. (Zoology). Never regretted all that time spent there. Then having deferred it for 9 years as a student, I finally got the compulsory draft into the South African Army for 18 months and ended up living in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Early in 1997 my wife and I, and our Black Cat moved to the USA, mostly to avoid the crime and violence in Johannesburg, but also because of the new opportunities that living here in the USA represents to us. Financially it was probably a disaster (don’t want to think about this now) and we miss friends and family, but its done and we won’t wonder - "What if?". We currently live near Rochester in the town of Ontario, New York, more importantly on the edge of Lake Ontario.