Pete Townsend

After leaving school at a tender age Pete quickly realised that there were few occupations available where he could utilise his talent for inertia. Unfortunately, with the 'Dandy' and 'Beano' erroneously neglecting to include job vacancies in their publications, Pete had little alternative but to apply to the local Co-operative Society for the vacancy of furniture salesman, being the closest he could be to a bed without actually sleeping.

Following a motley selection of other jobs involving selling televisions, labouring on a building site for two hours and working in a textile factory, and a brief sojourn as an odd-job-man led to a reappraisal of his career direction and a couple of seconds later he applied to become a somnolent politics undergraduate.

Three years of digesting granular coffee straight from a spoon, he emerged as a fully-fledged graduate with a little knowledge that was supposed to go a long way. With no vacancies at the Co-op and the still glaring omission of job adverts in the comics, he opted to teach at the local Further Education College.

A chance encounter with three other reluctant employees of the learning monolith and a blues band evolved to educate the untutored ears of a local population nurtured on a diet of pop-pulp.

With a second career reappraisal, leading to the writing of over twenty educational books, contributing to numerous magazines on subjects he knows very little about, Pete now finds time to browse guitar magazines along with several other enlightened individuals in W H Smiths.

In between writing chapters for his novels, and sometimes pausing mid-chapter, Pete regularly plays in jazz and blues bands - apparently researching for his novels, but rumour has it that he actually enjoys playing live venues!