Ken Peter Kirk

I was born in Leeds, UK, and currently live in Golcar near Huddersfield.

After high school and college, I worked for Royal Mail, Lloyds Banking Group, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, the N.H.S. & Saint Gobain & before joining Burberry, the fashion brand.

My grandmother once told me that my mother, as a young girl, had earnestly declared that she had once lived the life of a queen. Asked if this meant that she had lived in a grand castle and worn a jewelled crown, she replied: “No, I lived in a tent, just like everybody else, I wore a copper crown with no jewels, but I was treated differently because I was the queen. People would bow to me.” Asked where she had been a queen, she said in Scotland but, gesturing with a sweep of her arm to indicate upwards and left, she explained: “I was Queen of the West”.

I studied and researched and I found that she was referring to the Picts who battled against the Vikings during their invasion of Scotland in the year 973. On a visit to Scotland, in a moment of sudden inspiration, I began to write ‘The Fire Tree’.

Since the age of fourteen, I had aspired to be a writer. Despite at least a dozen attempts, my ambition always ended in dismal failure. My ideas would run out and my inspiration would fade. Writing ‘The Fire Tree’, however, was completely different. Page after page flowed onto the paper. It was like breaching a dam. Gradually, one book became two, then three, then four and, eventually, a total of twelve books! It was only with monumental effort that I compelled myself to stop, there!

The author and professor Toni Morrison once said: "If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." I took her at her word.