Richard Hammersley

Richard Hammersley is a health psychologist who had a long university career and still practices from his family home in the Scottish Borders. He also spends time in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He is very happily married and has four amazing daughters.

He started writing poetry aged 13, inspired partly by Bob Dylan and partly because he thought writing a poem for English at school was easier than writing a whole story. Whilst studying for his PhD in Cambridge he was a member of the Cambridge Poetry Society, Secretary of the Cambridge Poetry Festival, made concrete and sound poetry, and took poetry so seriously that if he hadn’t got his first academic job, at University of California San Diego where he attended poetry seminars and sessions at the Center for Music Experiement, then he was considering becoming a poet, whatever that would have meant at the time; probably a more pedestrian day job than being a psychologist and university teacher. He has published in various places over the years, occasionally even getting paid, and he never stopped writing. He also writes songs and plays the harmonica and guitar.

His main academic interests are the social and cognitive psychology of substance use and eating behaviours.