I became an author at the age of fourteen after listening to my English teacher recite Chaucer to us in a simulation of a 14th century accent. He sounded so delightfully like Bluebottle in the UK Goon Show that I resolved at once that I wanted to be a 20th century Chaucer. In that, I failed. But I spent 40 years producing fiction equally colourful as the founder of a major PR company. Upon my retirement,  in shame, I took a PhD and became respectable.