As a kid growing up in the council estates of the east side of Edinburgh, I witnessed many mental incidents, gang action, and real-time cops and robbers. The 1980s council housing Britain, threats of stray dogs, drugs, kicking's, football casuals, and getting lifted for no reason at all could be a day-to-day scenario. Poverty and alcoholism mixed with a cocktail of glue bags, needles, and tarry, give the police plenty of work. Surprised myself and got into art college in Carlisle, just as Hurst lost the Turner Prize. Got asked to leave art college due to unpaid fees, no surprise really. Picked up a few artists on the way, Miro, JM Basquiat, Howard Hodgkin, Hipgnosis studio. Early 20s menu was drinking and smoking too much while playing with knives, fish guts and burning myself. Most jobs consisted of taking abuse from all types of prima donnas and restaurant managers. Saying that I did it for the money to let me paint high as a kite in a basement under the rich flats in New Town of Edinburgh. No idea where most of those paintings are! Sold a few, given to mates! Early works lost to time! Working the grind in Aalesund, Guarapari, Sunshine Coast, and the West Coast of Ireland I sketched and took photographs along the way. The sketches and memories of such places are a catalyst for the Transcendental Abstraction Contemporary works. I then re- studied again in fine art and graphic design degree.