I was born eons ago in 1954 and lived with my parents in Berala, a suburb in western Sydney. I attended Birrong Boys High School and then went on to the University of Sydney from which I escaped in 1978 with a first class honours degree in Electrical Engineering. I was recaptured a year later and sentenced to five years of postgraduate research. In 1985 I escaped again with a PhD. A year later I was back, this time as a lecturer. Four years later I escaped to Tamworth in north-western NSW where I worked for Carillon Development Ltd as the Design Engineer for the Carillon Radio Group.

In 1995 Carillon sold all of their radio interests and I moved back to the coast where I joined Innes Corporation, where I have been enslaved ever since.

In spite of my advancing years the little boy inside of me is alive and well. I get greatest pleasure from the simple things in life, like going barefoot everywhere, walking through the bush listening to the birds and taking in nature's beauty, or going camping with friends. I hate dressing up - in summer I prefer to wear just board shorts wherever this is socially acceptable, in winter I put on a tee shirt if it's cold.

Since 1995 I have lived at Umina Beach, a suburb of Gosford on the central coast of New South Wales, Australia, about 40km north of Sydney. This region between Sydney and Newcastle is renowned for its spectacular beaches, lakes and extensive eucalypt forests. My home is close to the beach and adjoins the beautiful Brisbane Water National Park. The climate is cool to mild in winter and warm to hot and humid in summer.

I am the Senior Development Engineer at Innes Corporation Pty Ltd and based in Hornsby, a northern suburb of Sydney. I design the electronics and write the software for our range of broadcasting products, including the Flashlog hard disk audio logger, the Delay Master time zone audio delay, the Auricon professional PCI audio I/O cards and the TVS audio watermarking technology. I've had lots of experience with Protel schematic capture and PCB layout tools, DSP programming, Windows device driver writing (particularly audio WDM drivers) and Windows application development.

If you ever see me, chances are I will be barefoot. I was born that way and as a child I was always happiest when my feet were free. Being barefoot is now a way of life for me - the feeling of lightness and freedom that comes from bare feet is as strong now as it was the first time I plucked up the courage to leave home unshod. I am a proud member of the Society for Barefoot Living where fellow barefooters around the world share their experiences via the Internet.

Being barefoot is healthy (most chronic foot disorders in western society are caused by shoes), it offers a much greater intimacy with the environment, it prevents static electricity from building up, and besides it's fun.

My writings...

One rainy weekend when I was living in Tamworth I got bored and thought it might be fun to try writing a short science fiction story with some habitually barefoot characters in it. The end result was Barefoot to the Stars, a story about a group of barefoot university students who uncover the key to faster-than-light space travel.

Having caught the bug, I then decided to try a longer, more complex tale. Barefoot Times begins when 14-year-old Peter Thorpe moves to a country town and meets an Aboriginal boy who shares his love for astronomy, barefooting, and a destiny that reshapes time itself. This story ultimately became the first part of a much larger tale that grew into ten parts spanning sixty years and three generations in the lives of the characters. It has now been published in trade paperback format by Zeus Publications.

With one published book under my belt, everyone kept asking me if there was a second book in the wind. My initial reaction was 'no way', but the seed was sown and in May 2005 I started writing again. Five months and 112,000 words later, Call of the Delphinidae was finished, and is now also available from Zeus Publications. It's set in the same universe as Barefoot Times and tells the story of Aaron's parents; Mary, a Delphinidae priestess from the planet Bluehaven and Bobby, a computer technician from Narrabri on Earth.

I've now written a third book in the series, The Mind of the Dolphins, set three years after the conclusion of both Barefoot Times and Call of the Delphinidae. This has also been taken up by Zeus Publications and is now available.

• Bushwalking - When I was living in Tamworth I was a member of the Tamworth Bushwalking and Canoe Club and participated in many enjoyable walks in northern inland New South Wales. Since moving to the Central Coast in 1995 I have joined the Central Coast Bushwalkers on a number of their walks. Where possible I prefer to walk barefoot.
• Body surfing - I enjoy riding the waves at the local beaches in Umina.
• Amateur radio - I obtained my full licence (VK2BYY) while still in high school and have been involved in amateur radio to some degree ever since. In the 1980s I served on the Council of the Wireless Institute of Australia (NSW Division), including one term as President, and also built the microprocessor-controlled broadcast consoles and VHF/UHF repeater systems at the Division's Dural station. These days I'm not very active but still enjoy the radio direction-finding contests at the various field days run in NSW.
• Reading - As a daily rail commuter I usually have a book with me to keep me occupied while travelling to and from work. My preferred genre is Science Fiction and Fantasy, but not exclusively so. My favourite authors are Peter Straub, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Raymond Feist and J.K.Rowling, with many others featuring on my bookshelves.

Other books by barefooters…

• The Cirillian Flame - Book 1 of the Weavers and Wyrders series by Mark Davies (www.weaverswyrders.co.za).
  Jenna and her brother Hahn, sole survivors of a genocide, take on Frethenia's corrupt establishment in this gripping supernatural fantasy.
• The Mystery of Ghost Lake by Timothy Mills (http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeukxgo/).
  A wheelchair-bound Cheyenne boy begins to discover his heritage as he and his friends try to unravel the secret behind a mysterious fog-bound lake.
• The Barefoot Hiker by Richard Frazine (http://www.bhthom.org/hikertxt.htm).
  The definitive how-to guide for barefooters.