Derrick Perkins

The author failed the 11-plus! He completed a sheet metal five-year apprenticeship at City and Guilds and acquired intermediate and final certificates. Born in Coventry, he spent his formative years in the city. He got married there, had three children and then got divorced after 16 years. His children and wife walked away. He was then employed as a successful salesman with a well-known large food company. He remarried in 1973, took voluntary redundancy in 1981 and moved south to the County of Devon from the Midlands, where he was born. He bought the village post office and stayed until 1986. After his second wife's passing in 1992, he became a self-employed gardener. Then he met his third wife and they have been together ever since.