Derek Eccleston

I was born and grew up in Coventry and feel fortunate to have gone to a good school, King Henry V111. After working in local government for a few years I went back to full time study at Leicester and qualified in Personnel Management. Throughout my HR career I became more interested in employment law. I then joined a law firm and started delivering employment law training courses for managers. Eventually I decided to do this under my own business; and also completed a Masters in Employment Law at Leicester University. I wrote a number of employment law books in this time too.

After some 20 successful years of delivering training, Covid brought an end to face to face training and I had time to develop the original stories I used to share with my granddaughter, Poppy, who also calls me "Silly Grandad". Out of this came "The Adventures of Lionel the Leaf", my first attempt at story telling. I hope it inspires an interest in trees and nature in younger children as they follow the comings and goings of life in a horse chestnut tree!!