Retired middle-grade UK Scientific Civil Servant. Aviation meteorologist 1967-77, Scottish rainfall data and network 1978-90 then mostly forensic meteorologist 1991-2015.

b. June 1945. Dundee, Scotland of working-class parents.

Paternal grandmother (Dundee) worked from age 14 in Victorian jute mill. Her husband was a shipyard worker. Her father had been a whaler. My maternal grandfather was WW1 soldier then plasterer by trade.

My father got a job transfer from "Fairbairns" in Dundee to their Leeds branch in 1947. Unfortunately, he died at home one morning in 1954, aged 39 when getting ready for work. I was 9. I remember it.

Mother and I returned to Dundee in 1955 to live in tenement in deprived scheme. Scottish state secondary school education at Morgan Academy and my friendships almost certainly saved me from the worst slings and arrows, at least for several years. I married my wife in 1969, having met her after starting work down in Berkshire.

Mobile because of my occupation, we initially lived in Ayrshire, whilst working, mainly, at Prestwick and Glasgow Airports.

Final work relocations in 1978-2001 in Edinburgh & Glasgow, saw us move to West Lothian, where we still reside.

I miss the estuary of the River Tay and the lands north of it. We have three grown-up children and three grandchildren.

My main passions included, or include, my work, the natural world and music.