Stuart Martin

I was born in Carlisle, Cumbria in December 1952 and was educated at Stanwix Primary School, Carlisle Grammar School (later Trinity Comprehensive), Norwich City College, and Liverpool Polytechnic School of Architecture.

I married in 1973 and my wife, Alison, and I had three beautiful children together, Karl, Stephanie, and Andrea, (although Andrea died at the age of three and a half months). I have three wonderful grandchildren, Gemma, Ryan and Kaitlin.

Living in Peterborough I have served on my local parish council, including one year as Chairperson, and as a Peterborough City Councillor from 1988 to 1992 and then from 2011 to 2019, when I was made an honorary alderman of the city.

My first novel, ‘A Northern Lad’s Tale’, was written in 1990 and is a story about growing up in Carlisle during the late sixties, early seventies and of first sexual encounters. I did not seriously seek publication, treating the labour more as a learning exercise to improve my writing technique.

On the advice of a published author, at our writers’ circle, I was encouraged to take James Brookbank, (a character who appears in ‘A Northern Lad’s Tale’), and make him the main character of my next novel, ‘Brookbank’s Foreign Office’, which follows Brookbank’s misadventures in that department. When I was half way through writing that book I had the idea for ‘Brookbank’s Future’ and could not get the concept out of my head. I had to put ‘Foreign Office’ on the back shelf and concentrate on ‘Brookbank’s Future’.

‘Brookbank’s Future’ follows the character when he travels far into the future to a time after the world has suffered devastation through pollution and global warming. Brookbank encounters people who now live in a totally computerised society within domes and others who live a simple existence on the outside in total harmony with nature and shunning technology. He learns from both groups that attitudes to sex and relationships have changed drastically during the intervening years. I believe that this story is worthy of publication as a book and that it could also be adapted to make a film.

Having completed ‘Brookbank’s Future’ I have returned to work on completing ‘Brookbank’s Foreign Office’. I am also re-writing ‘A Northern Lad’s Tale’ and plan two sequels to that, as well as a further Brookbank adventure.

I am a gregarious and easy going individual with a good sense of humour. My ambition is to earn enough from my writing to buy a place in Corfu and write full-time!