Born in London and raised in Hertfordshire and Suffolk, Ray was drifting through high school until he discovered punk rock. From then on, he spent his time nurturing his lack of musical ability, until realising too late that exam success might have been a better option. Despite his abysmal school exam results, he went on to forge a career as a nurse, such was the desperation of the NHS in the early 80s. 

After a second career in Social Housing and Community Development he and Alison left the rat race, swapped their house for a motorhome and took to the open road.

Life on the road re-ignited a desire to write, which despite the best efforts of his teachers had never been extinguished. His previous writing experience includes company annual reports, a punk rock fanzine and forging notes from his mother to excuse him from PE.

 

In 2018 he published his first book, Downwardly Mobile, documenting his and Alison’s escape from the rat race and spending the best part of 2016 on the road, working at festivals and discovering the UK from the vantage point of a Motorhome called Mavis. 

‘You could imagine yourself looking out of the window and seeing it with your own eyes, such was the way it was described. Be prepared to laugh out loud, I got some funny looks when reading this on the bus when I would chuckle and then cry in equal measure. Be sure to read this book.’

 

After moving to the Isle of Mull and living in their motorhome, Ray published the next instalment of his and Alison’s adventures in Still Following Rainbows. 

It documents the highs and lows of adjusting to life and work on Mull.  With snippets of history and vivid descriptions of the landscape you’ll feel like you’re along for the ride, and with Ray’s insightful observations of people, places and situations this book will produce tears and explosions of laughter in equal measure. 

“I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Ray is a gifted storyteller, and his words have the power to draw out a whole range of emotions as we journey with himself, Alison, and Mavis to a new life on a Scottish island. It's real, it's raw and it will make you want to visit Mull!”

 

At the beginning of the lockdown in 2020 Ray decided to do his bit for the Covid-19 lock-down and raid his scrap book for unpublished articles, short stories and pieces cut from his other books as an economy-priced diversion for everyone stuck at home. So, he published Even Unicorns Die - a collection of short stories, articles and assorted nonsense. 

“Wow! This is very different from Ray's autobiographical writing: be warned! It's a delight to read - but don't let that fool you into expectations of a collection of lightweight, heart-warming, feel-good fuzz. This writing has depth and darkness. There are political observations, stories with unexpected stings, thought-provoking reflections, hellish humour, and an alphabet rhyme which you wouldn't want anywhere near your children! It's good. Very good! Order a copy at once!”

 

Rays writing in 2020 went from the ridiculous to the sublime with the publication of The Mitchley Waltz.

 

As the country was finally recovering from war, Rays mother was a young woman living in North London. The family were just recovering from her parents’ divorce when she received a grim diagnosis. She recorded the events that changed her life in her diaries as she was prescribed bed rest, confined to hospital and then a long convalescence. 

Trying to make the best of her confinement Iris she had to face the fear that her blossoming career as a ballroom dancing instructor may now be over, along with any possibility of finding love with any of her potential suitors.

As the years passed, the diaries recorded her personal traumas and anxieties, her dreams and ambitions and they revealed a survivor who faced her worries with a steely determination and fought to overcome the legacy of permanent frailty. 

Ignoring medical advice and returning to the dancefloor, could she ever make her dreams a reality, and could she risk opening her heart to the shy widower who had started attending her classes?

After her death in 2018, Ray found her diaries among her possessions and set about transcribing them. Along with additional research and commentary he has brought the London that Iris knew in the 1950s back to life in vivid Technicolour.

“It's an excellent time capsule of life around that time, made all the more poignant by the true story of one woman's trials and brought to life with the author's scene setting and accompanying footnotes.”

 

In 2023 Ray had two books published that couldn’t have been more diverse. First to hit the shelves, or rather shelf, as its exclusive to Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull, was A Short History of the Life of Sir Fitzroy Maclean. 

Ray was given exclusive access to the castle records and Sir Fitzroy’s personal papers to edit his journals. They tell the fascinating story of a gentleman and solider very much of his time, who was born during the reign of King William IV in 1835 and saw action during the Crimea War, where he had first hand experience of The Charge of the Light Brigade and retired at 75 years old to restore the ancient seat of the Clan Maclean, Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull, living their until his death in 1936 at the age of 101.

 

Using a pseudonym that would fool no one, he also published The Revolution Will be Televised, a passionate and humorous look at modern society from a left-field anarchist perspective. 

“Smart, funny and easily digestible, The Revolution Will Be Televised is a voice of reason in an age of unreason…The author clearly understands that change…however narrow, is imperative, that righteous rallying cries of protest and anger will only carry us so far. Empathy is a fast-disappearing trait but it’s here in spades, the decks cleared to offer something a little more realistic. That it is done with alacrity, warmth, and a cheeky sense of humour transforms what could have been a despairing rant into a revitalising pep-talk.”