I was born so I am told on one of the coldest February nights recorded in London 7 February 1969, not only that but my father who was there at my delivery remembers clearly the congratulations that I was born with a caul. What is that you may ask, he did too, mistaking the remark in all the activity, as the cord, he found it curious about the extra excitement and only inquiring later discovered that the caul is membrane or portions of the amnion which settles covering the head of the foetus at birth. Dad discovered that being born with a caul is very rare, probably less than 1 in 1000 births, these days, it usually occurs only with premature babies. Many gynaecologists and midwifes say that they have seen less than 10 babies with a caul over the life of their careers.

I have since discovered that superstitions surround such rare surprises. Sailor's particularly in bygone years would dry the skin and stitch it into their clothing as a protection from drowning. Those born with a caul are meant to have psychic qualities. According to some, the following famous people, both real and fictional, were born with a caul: Charles Dicken's David in David Copperfield, Alexander the Great, Shakespeare's Hamlet, the mother of the Dionne quintuplets, and Danny in Stephen King's The Shining. An illustration of Danny with the caul appeared on one of King's original paperback versions.

As I grew up my interests were certainly in trying to discover about people worldwide, ancient civilisations, religious beliefs,trying to reason for my own existence based on the what I was able to find out. I had a good education, spent time living in a cave in Greece, busking in Athens to earn enough for food, trying to understand life from a different side. I was fortunate enough to go to South Africa for a year and also to see many European countries including living some time in Spain, before settling down and having my two children Joshua now 11 and Holly 9 whom I adore.

I have always found time to write my thoughts on my travels, recording then in large books normally in the form of prose or poetry, and whilst my children have been growing up adding to them with meaningful poems to amuse and educate the children. Two years ago I spent four weeks on my own discovering Peru, trekking the Inca trail, visiting remote tribes of Indians and the jungle of Amazonia. My experiences have left me with a profound knowledge and still more desire to learn about people and their cultures, more especially about children and what they may expect in the world that we will hand on to them, to that end I am taking a University BA degree course in social work to help me to get closer to the problems and those families that need help and understanding.

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