Stuart John Mills

I was born on September 22^nd, 1942, in Abercwmboi, situated in the Cwm Valley, South Wales. I was brought up sharing a three bed-roomed miner’s house with a family of nine others. Life during this period of conflict with Germany was a continual struggle with so many mouths to feed, where we had to eat our sparse food in shifts, owing to the extreme limited space, and at night time, three or four to one bed, with myself, I well remember having at a later date, to sleep on the floor each night, covered with an old ‘horsehair’ blanket until my mother returned from her daily/evening employment as ammunition operative in a munitions factory in Rhigos, where sometimes she had to do night-shifts. When she would come home, one of the beds would be completely free, and I would cuddle up to her in a pre-warmed bed.

At six years of age, after the conflict with Germany had been finally resolved, my father, mother and I moved to Chute in Hampshire, near the birthplace of my father, who was brought up in Appleshaw, which was six miles away from Chute, but since my birth, my father had continually shown complete resentment to me.

His hatred towards me continued on a weekly basis, which resulted in my receiving unprovoked attacks and beatings, and it became impossible for me to be in the same room as him. At 18 years of age, I decided to suffer this fate no more and joined the British Army on November 8^th, 1960, where I served in Malaya, Borneo, Singapore, Canada, Northern Ireland, Taunton, Somerset and Germany, serving a further four years as Military Training Advisor with The Sultan of Oman’s Armed Forces, Oman, 1984–1988.

With my ex-military world-wide experiences, I ended up as a Close Protection Officer/Chauffeur to celebrities and high-profile businessmen.

During November 1999, I decided to sell my house in Pewsey, Wiltshire, and purchased a villa high up in the Andalucían Mountains in Fuente Armaga (Bitter Water), near Almogia, until November 2004, where after the deaths of both my mother and two aunties, I decided to return back to the UK to take my personal life into prospective and express these thoughts in writing, hopefully to share my thoughts and experiences with others, and took up writing in earnest.

I have written and published a few short articles for the local newspaper, including a full-page spread about the highs and pitfalls of living in Spain based upon my own private experiences, desiring to express my inner most thoughts onto paper.

Now at 67 years of age, life has been one continual struggle for me, and my 15 years of marriage to the most beautiful woman, in which we produced four healthy and beautiful children, whom I loved and adored so much, ended on May 4^th, 1984, when the love and very heart of my life sought a divorce, as she had ‘found’ someone else. 

I have lived alone since May 1984, having lost the ability to trust another woman, and I took up gardening and chauffeuring at a private mansion in the Hampshire countryside, where I became a member of their family, where I found peace and solitude amongst the local country folk whom I knew as a boy, providing me with peace of mind where I can further put my ever-constant imaginative mind to work.