I am a Kenya-born, Glasgow-schooled veterinarian, who now lives in Canada’s province of Saskatchewan. Three days after I graduated in Scotland I returned to Africa where I spent the first ten years of my professional life. It was there that I met my doctor wife Jo.
In 1975 I moved to Saskatoon and a post at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine. I think that the highlight of my career was the so-called “Uganda Rotation” which involved annual trips to Uganda with ten final year vet students. There we were joined by local graduate students and linked up the faculty at the Department of Wildlife and Animal Resource Management at Makerere University . We spent a month in the field studying the complex wildlife x livestock x human interface. Many of the Canadian students called this a life-changing experience.
I retired in 2009 but continue to have an interest in conservation and am actively engaged as an author and storyteller.
Most of my storytelling activities are about animal work which range from having soldier ants up my shorts and pregnancy checking a lion to giving an enema to a rhino. I weave these accounts with folktales.
I also have stories about various deer species from many countries. Related to those I was treated for a damaged wrist by Suviyan, a one-hundred-and-three year-old shaman member of the nomadic Tsaatan reindeer herding community who live in the mountains of Mongolia.
You can see some of my collection of photos of wildlife and learn more about my books by visiting me at any one of the link buttons.