Dave was motivated for many years to write a novel, and "For Nil Consideration" was his "enthralling and profound" debut. An avid reader of many genres, Dave's influences are wide-ranging; from Bill Bryson to Robert Rankin. Dave has had great success as a railway engineer, with several award winning papers to his name - it is this talent for writing that Dave has now turned to the world of fiction. Dave prodominately uses his childhood as a background to his work; the Sheraton Moss series of books are based around his real childhood upbringing in Stockton-on-Tees. His latest fictional book is a collection of short supernatural stories, one of which is based in the Sheraton Moss estate, called "Dr Iain Ropner's Casebook of Strange Events and Unusual Phenomena". The next Sheraton Moss book will be entitled Every 7th Wave and should be due out in 2015. Dave has also had published six railway engineering papers; his latest engineering paper, concerning the evaluation of utitlising High Output machinery and was published by the Permanent Way Institution (PWI) in late 2012. Dave was made a Fellow of the PWI in 2014.   NEWS FLASH Dave has just completed a textbook for the PWI on 'Geotechnics for Track Engineers', which is due to be published in January 2015.

Dave has won 4 awards for his engineering papers:

2009 PWI Gold Award;

2006 PWI Silver Award;

2005 Mott MacDonald Ltd Group Best Paper; and

2004 Presidents First Award (PWI) for the advancement in knowledge and professionalism in the rail industry;