Hello,
I am Henry Butterfield, and I live in the ever expanding seaside port of Bideford in North Devon. It was once a pleasant place to live and held a certain quaintness. In the opening paragraph of his novel 'Westward Ho!', Charles Kingsley once called it 'the little white town.' Alas, it is this no more. As it has developed and 'improved' over the last few years it is now looking like any other town with its overcrowded, anonymous new-builds that spring up in the surrounding fields and ever eroded woodland.
I took early retirement and I am at last getting to grips with what I've wanted to do all my life - and that's write. Write properly that is. At secondary school, I had a wonderful English teacher who indulged me in my desire to write books. During the second period of double-English she let me write a chapter a week, very short chapters obviously. So, during the course of my last two years at school, I wrote three 'books.' When I left school I played about with it a little longer but then life came along (work, women and dissolute living as usual) and that was it. I tinkered with it on and off creating things like the occasional poem and aborted story.
In the summer of 2003 I had the urge to write some non-fiction. Knowing that articles need to be written at least six months in advance, I researched and ran off an article on the history of the Christmas tree and sent it to Devon Life magazine. I was surprised and delighted when it was accepted, and with payment. It was my first piece of commercial written work. Two years later, I took early retirement from my job as a Royal Mail delivery office manager and so I thought I would concentrate on gardening. I took a number of courses and ended up with the Royal Horticultural Society Level 2, as it was then. A short while later, I sent an article on hedgerows to 'The Country Gardener' magazine. Again it was accepted. Later the editor commissioned me to write monthly for him. That was until the magazine folded.
Then came 'The Bideford & District Post.' It was a local monthly newspaper and I was fortunate enough to land the job of writing the garden column, which turned into a gardening page.
Wanting to increase my knowledge and skill at writing I enrolled in the Open University and qualified with a diploma in Literature & Creative Writing. Hopefully, this will hold me in good stead for the future. Watch this space!
I took early retirement and I am at last getting to grips with what I've wanted to do all my life - and that's write. Write properly that is. At secondary school, I had a wonderful English teacher who indulged me in my desire to write books. During the second period of double-English she let me write a chapter a week, very short chapters obviously. So, during the course of my last two years at school, I wrote three 'books.' When I left school I played about with it a little longer but then life came along (work, women and dissolute living as usual) and that was it. I tinkered with it on and off creating things like the occasional poem and aborted story.
In the summer of 2003 I had the urge to write some non-fiction. Knowing that articles need to be written at least six months in advance, I researched and ran off an article on the history of the Christmas tree and sent it to Devon Life magazine. I was surprised and delighted when it was accepted, and with payment. It was my first piece of commercial written work. Two years later, I took early retirement from my job as a Royal Mail delivery office manager and so I thought I would concentrate on gardening. I took a number of courses and ended up with the Royal Horticultural Society Level 2, as it was then. A short while later, I sent an article on hedgerows to 'The Country Gardener' magazine. Again it was accepted. Later the editor commissioned me to write monthly for him. That was until the magazine folded.
Then came 'The Bideford & District Post.' It was a local monthly newspaper and I was fortunate enough to land the job of writing the garden column, which turned into a gardening page.
Wanting to increase my knowledge and skill at writing I enrolled in the Open University and qualified with a diploma in Literature & Creative Writing. Hopefully, this will hold me in good stead for the future. Watch this space!