John W Griffiths

John W Griffiths grew up in Ipswich, Queensland and had a wonderful childhood enjoying most outdoor activities.

He loved playing rugby League and swimming. Even got to play as a member of the Queensland State Rugby League schoolboy side that played against New South Wales. His working life began as an apprentice electrician, and he later study mechanical engineering and was admitted to the Institution of Engineers Australia. (MIEAust)

Looking to work on bigger and challenging projects with his wife Judy and their young family he left Australia for South Africa in 1969. There he worked as the construction engineer for the mechanical services on the Trust Bank Building project in Johannesburg before joining a Cape Town based multi-disciplined consulting engineering group as chief mechanical engineer.

He returned to Australia and settled in Sydney and became a Director of a national consulting engineering firm and then moved on to establish their office in Singapore before establishing his own consulting engineering practice in 1993 in Brisbane.

However, it was while in South Africa that he first read a Wilber Smith story and Jock of the Bush Veldt by Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick. These types of books made a big impression on him. but it was The Washing of the Spears by Donald R Morris that got him hooked on history.

With the memory of his long ago primary school head teacher’s comments still locked in his head ---'you write a good composition son ; it's a pity that you cannot spell ‘---and the discovery of spell check he decided to give writing a go'.

This small book ‘’Bedtime Reading for Grey Nomads’’ is his first attempt at put it together a collection of his short storeys.