ello, my name is Steve Turnbull, and here is a little bit about myself:

     I was born in the heart of London and, technically, I'm a cockney -- that's someone who's born within the sound of Bow Bells -- but I really don't have the accent for it. I spent my early years in London and then in the suburbs to the East of the city.

     In those years I developed the beginnings of what I was slated to become, a nerd without a life. I hardly went out, had few friends and was fairly unhappy most of the time -- I just stayed in and read books. Not that reading is a bad thing but I used the books to avoid the Real World.

     When I was 15 I discovered Scientology which really turned my life completely upside-down, but since that's my Success in Scientology you'll just have to read about it on the other page...

     Shortly after starting in Scientology I found that all my interests had expanded: I took up painting and even sold one. I haven't picked up a brush for 20 years now though I may go back to it. I also started a drama class, that was amazing. I discovered that I loved acting, we did one major production "Noah" by Andre Obey (I think that was the spelling) with me in the title role. Brilliant stuff.

     I went to University in Manchester and studied Computer Science, a very thorough course it was too, covering everything from how to build the damn things up to handling large scale computer departments. But at the same time I did a course in the History of Music, I had a deep interest in writing music at the time and this seemed the best way to get into the Music Dept. I spent many hours playing with their (primitive) synthesizers and started composing music too. Thankfully computers have now reached the stage where composition is much easier and you can actually hear the results of your work much faster.

     Over the years I had started to learn to play many instruments though my impatience always got the better of me -- so I can get a tune out of a piano, clarinet, trumpet and guitar but don't ask for more than one tune, except from the guitar.

     At University I started writing poetry and attended an event where I wrote to order on behalf of the customers, that was an amazing experience and seemed to go down very well. And I had a band, we had a lot of fun rehearsing and only ever did one gig, but it was great stuff.

     I also tried presenting an evening of poetry and song in the Students Union bar -- that was not a success. But it was certainly an experience.

     After University I worked on a project bringing computers within the reach of blind people using speech output. In fact, due to my work, at least one physiotherapist got a promotion he wouldn't otherwise have received. This was my first introduction to Acorn Computers, which did for UK education what Apple did in the USA.

     By accident I fell into magazine publishing -- I had finished the Blind Project, and was between work when I was rung up by a magazine editor who said "Want to work for us?" How often do you get that?

     So I did. And I was working on a magazine dedicated to Acorn computers.

     Over the last 11 years I've been making my way up from Editorial Assistant to Magazine Editor which I reached after about 4 years, then the magazine title was closed and I was brought in as editor of another magazine for the same computer.

     A couple of years ago I began working on a fantasy novel, which has been well received by those who have read it -- and not just friends either, I've been part of an online worldwide critiquing group and even they liked it (well, most of them). I've also had some poetry published in anthologies -- not "pay us some money and you get in the book" but actually on quality of work.

     In 1984 Pam and I were married and now have two children: a girl, Deanna, aged 7 and a boy, Ben, aged 8 months (as of May 1998).

     That brings us up-to-date on me, but I have big plans for the future...