I was born in London. My Mum’s family were all Londoners and I still feel a comfortable homeliness whenever I go back there. Being on the Tube, walking through the streets, feels like putting on a friendly overcoat.
When I was three, we moved to a boatyard in Plymouth. There was a house on the quay side and a little beach next to the quay wall. This is where I lived and played for the next few years. Growing up next to the sea and feeling the tide come in and out, feeling the excitement of the high Spring tides in my blood (and an irresistible desire to jump in!) seems to have influenced the direction of my life. Although I now live miles from the sea, my work in the Biodynamic world means I am working with the ebb and flow of the Tide every day.
I left school at 16 when I was given the choice of going back to do ‘A’ levels or to get a job. Since I had no intention of doing another exam, I went to work at an archaeological excavation on Dartmoor. This led to a series of other digs as it became apparent, I had a skill for carefully unearthing skeletons. In those days I didn’t really know any anatomy, but I loved working with bones. As I dug out the graves of bodies last seen many hundreds of years ago, I wished I could hear the stories, wished I had the skill to ‘read’ the bones. Again, like the influence of the sea, this connection to the mystery held in bones seems to have guided me, magically, to where I am now.
By early 1992 I was feeling a sense of despair. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing with my life. Everyone else seemed to have plans, goals and vocations but whilst I’d had many different jobs and learnt many different skills, none seemed to be quite right. Eventually, through a process of elimination, I knew my future dream job had to fulfil the following criteria: I wanted to work with my hands without the need for tools or machines, to be able to take my work anywhere in the world, to work without spoken language, and to not be connected to a large company or corporation. It seemed impossible until cycling through Clapham Junction there was a strike of Divine Intervention. I called in at a newly opened Adult Education Advice Centre to enquire about massage courses thinking I’d be able to help my Granny’s arthritic knee. I stepped through the door and before I’d even sat down a lady asked how she could help. I said I was interested in learning massage, she said, ‘Don’t do that, learn to be an osteopath and if, after a year you don’t like it, you’ll have learned enough massage anyway’. That was August. By September I was enrolled at the British School of Osteopathy, the four-year course began in October. My plan to never do another exam ended instantly and the Adult Education Advice Centre closed in November.