ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John O'Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic of Ireland, of Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split partly due to his mother's Aldershot origins (her father, a Presbyterian from Donegal, had served in the British Army), he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who, with the death of her Aldershot-based husband, had initially returned to Ireland with her daughter after a lengthy marital absence from Athenry) in the mid-50s and, having had the benefit of private tuition from a Catholic priest, subsequently attended St. Joseph's and St. George's RC schools in Aldershot, Hants, and, with an enforced change of denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into care by his mother upon the death and repatriation of his ethnically-protective grandmother, he went on to attend first Barrow Hedges Primary School in Carshalton Beeches, Surrey, and then Carshalton High School for Boys in Sutton, where he ultimately became a sixth-form prefect. Upon leaving high school in pre-GCSE era 1970 with an assortment of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved up to London and went on, via two short-lived jobs, one of which was at Ivor Mairants Music Centre on Rathbone Place, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, where, with some prior experience himself of having sat and passed (with merit) an ABRSM Gd.4 piano exam, he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues throughout the British Isles. After a brief flirtation with English and History A' Levels at Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he was then living, he returned to his former job in the West End but, due to a combination of personal factors, not the least of which had to do with the depressing consequences of an enforced return to north London, left the Associated Board in 1976 and began to pursue a literary vocation which, despite a brief spell as a computer-cum-office-skills tutor at Hornsey YMCA in the late '80s and early '90s, during which time he added some computer-related NVQs to his other qualifications, he has steadfastly continued with ever since. John O'Loughlin is a life-long bachelor who has lived at various addresses in the London borough of Haringey since 1974.

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