Steve D Pearson

Fairfield Grammar School - messed about most of the time but in the end without the 4 "O" levels life would have been different. Was sent off playing cricket whilst there. And playing rugby too. Royal Mail - in the good years, and escaped retiring 8 years early with the pension and lump sum. That kind of thing all gone now, but brilliant for me. Music - played in pop bands in my teens, and later on for 12 years in a rock band in Southampton. Below the belt, it was called, but I have never understood why. It's still going. They have a website - below the belt rock music I think.

Now just started a 14 piece ukulele band. Thats going to be great fun.

55,000 words of a novel completed so far. Suffering a bit because of the uke band pressures though, I must get on.

And currently editing the script of the second musical written with my ex fairfield mate Kev. He's also in the Uke band. The first was a touch rude, written from the point of view of a fifteen year old boy. The mysteries of sex play a large part.

The shorts in the book are either competition entries or homework from the OCN Creative Writing courses - Joy Kenward as tutor was great. Things I would never have written otherwise came out of that, and really expanded my horizon as a writer. I did win the North Somerset Short Story award a couple of years ago with "Sin" and got a hghly commended the year before. Since then nothing, so clearly going downhill.

Right - back to preparing for the uke rehearsal tonight. I'm the MD, and it's proving fascinating to see the different ability levels begin to merge. They are a great bunch too - one is the national President of the Great Britain Ukulele Society. How cool is that?