I was born in the Miners’ Hospital, Caerphilly in 1951 and spent my first fifteen years in the tiny mining village of Senghenydd. After studying at Caerphilly Grammar Technical School, I took up a student apprenticeship with the National Coal Board working at several coal mines in the Rhymney Valley. I studied mining engineering part-time at the Treforest School of Mines (now the University of Glamorgan). In 1982, I obtained a B Sc (Hons) at University College Cardiff leading to 40 years of international mining. I still work occasionally as a consultant mining engineer for the Papua New Guinea Chamber of Mines and Petroleum.

I have three adult children and three grandchildren and live on the Capricorn Coast of Queensland, Australia.