Dick Dixon

Hello Readers,

My name is Dick Dixon; I am one of those baby boomers everyone talks about in hushed tones. I was born in Sawbridgeworth, a small country town in Hertfordshire, England. Though I had a fairly unremarkable upbringing, I was very interested as a child in astronomy and chemistry. I knew that it would not be possible to convert lead into gold, but I thought it might be worth a try as I was always rather hard up! The experiment sadly failed as I was unable to get hold of the necessary lead. I am sure that someone has found a way to do it now, as I see so many Rolls Royces cruising about with abandon.

Anyway, after primary school, I got a place at Hertford Grammar School, where I was able to go to town on chemistry, though never did get to make the greatly needed gold. Instead I did manage to win the Ilott Prize for poetry - in the lower school, much to my surprise, as it was really supposed to be a sixth-form prize! The prize was the textbook on chemistry that I craved. I never expected the recipe for gold to be within, and it wasn't!

After secondary school, I managed to get a place at the University College Cardiff to study chemistry, among other things. I had of course heard that there was gold in the Welsh hills, and thought this might solve my problems. Unfortunately I was so busy with other things that I never did manage to find the gold.

I did however manage to graduate in mathematics in the end (it's a long story), and set about working for Legal and General (near St. Paul's) as an actuarial clerk, with the promise of much gold to come. The problem was that boredom took over and I moved on to working with British Rail. At least there would be a way of transporting the gold, when it arrived. It never did, so I thought it was about time to begin my teaching career. There was certainly not much gold there, but at least I did eventually succeed in meeting Reine Mazoyer, the well known French artist -another long story involving a lost Metro ticket, a huge bunch of bananas and a drunken blacksmith - best not to ask!

We started writing books of humorous poetry together; Reine illustrated in glorious technicolour, while I wrote the text. We began with 'Rhymes for no Reason', then 'Rhymes of the Newfangled Mariner', followed by ' The Curse of the Square Crow'. The fourth book, as yet unpublished, will be 'In Bed with the Cats' Pyjamas' - which involves several cats. We are working at present on our fifth book, which I am hoping to call 'How The Gold was Finally Found', but may have to settle for something less ambitious.

I am hoping that one day, possibly in the far distant future on another planet, somebody will read these books without having to stare down the barrel of a Walther PPK. It may have worked for James Bond, but it is just not my way. Ironically though, if James Bond had written these books, he would not have needed that PPK - nor even a Beretta most likely.