Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. I've written Life Without... dozens of times, always during bouts of deep depression, in some way it turns my life back to myself turns it someone else's story. The first time I was still at School, but back then I called it 'A Fathers Love'. As a homework assignment we were to write a ten page story which I dreaded. My spelling was atrocious and the scribble I call handwriting is even worse but, when I started, I found I couldn't stop. A week or so later I handed the teacher over a hundred pages and got an A+ rather than my normal detention. Next it was 'Clare's Tale' soon after I joined the Army, that one was just for me and was destroyed soon after it was finished, then in '92 the title Life Without... came. That one was sent to one of the tabloid newspapers, just reading it in the agony aunts section was enough for me. Then, a few years later I was at it again having reached wits end. More by mistake than intention that was aired on forces radio. They read it out over four days, just as every British squaddie started their coffee break. Then for weeks after that it didn't matter where I went, someone had heard at least part of it and would be talking about me. From then I've had the ambition to be published one day and it gave me the drive to give the story a happy ending.