John L.D. Barnett

After finally leaving Secondary Modern school at the age of fifteen, I worked in a Sheffield steelworks as an apprentice Electrician, obtaining my City and Guilds certificate in Iron and Steel before leaving home. At the age of sixteen, I lived and worked in Coventry for a few months, before joining up at the end of 1964 with the British forces. I was posted first with the 24th Royal Artillery Missile Regiment, serving in Germany, and then transferred to the Royal Military Police, serving in Germany, the Middle East, and Hong Kong. After serving for nine years with the British forces, I took a job in the 1970s, working for my friend the King of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

I arrived back in England in the early 70s, sailing and working on the Grimsby fishing trawlers as a 2nd Engineer when the Cod Wars with Iceland were at their peak. I then married June, a local girl from the Grimsby area, and have now been happily married for 41 years, having raised two boys who now have children of their own. In 2002 I retired at the age of 56, after a successful 28-year career as an HGV Class 1 Petroleum Tanker Driver for Burmah Castrol, and as the Driver Foreman for Q8 Petroleum from the late 1990s to 2002. On retiring I purchased several houses and soon became a very successful property developer, buying, selling, and renting a property in the Grimsby area. During the last few years, I have taken up writing and illustrating books in my spare time and so far have completed and published 149 books.