Carl has had a stimulating career in education where he has taught in both the state and private sectors and in secondary, further and higher education. He keeps fit with the Malvern Joggers and has trekked to Everest Base Camp, scrambled up Mont Blanc and backpacked in India, Bhutan and Thailand. His love of the outdoors has shaped and developed his passion for walking and culminated in the first Pictorial Guide in 2010. The following audio link provides a chance to listen to my talk at Malvern Priory in January 2025, where you will gain further insight into my activities. To access the talk click here
The Malvern Walks Story A combination of factors some etched in my psyche came together following praise from my tutor whilst undertaking a senior management leadership programme. She said she was looking forward to reading my next essay. Inspired by this praise concerning my writing skills resulted in a trip to my local Waterstones to check out what books had been written about the Malverns. I was staggered to find that there was just one which covered walks in the Malvern Hills and quite frankly the illustrations were pretty poor. I knew I could do better! Given my love of the outdoors, jogging, local history and hidden away in my memory the Wainwright books at my parents house all those years ago underpinned my new aspiration. My soon to be written books were going to be modelled on Alfred Wainwright’s legacy. Pocket sized, hand drawn black and white illustrations with a hand writing style font (Bradley Hand). The joyful task commenced. Walking, researching and writing. I decided to approach a number of publishers who specialised in local history and walking guides and sent off the first walk. Surprisingly they all responded, but with a ‘thanks but we are not planning to cover the Malverns’, or some other reason. Undeterred I looked at self-publishing. This was quite a journey and I learnt a lot. So much, that I have given talks on ‘A guide to Self-Publishing’. I guess now some 17 years later things have changed and its become easier?
I approached a friend who ran a local printing company and 500 book ones were printed. Two issues, I had miscalculated the cost per page and so was making just 10p on every book sold. Secondly, I had used friends to help with the proof reading and oh boy there was loads of mistakes. I learnt that proof readers have their brains wired differently to the rest of us, they spot errors we cannot begin to see. The pleasing element to this story is as mentioned there was only one other book on the market, mine sold quickly and no one complained about the mistakes! So, the second edition was proof read by Justine who has carried out this task with every one of my publications since my wobbly start. My printer alas had to be changed for one who was more competitive and finally a small return on my investment was happening. The 1000 copies printed back in 2012 have now been sold.
This is what happened and what a journey that was –more to come–