“Tell me about yourself.”

“I was born at a very young age.”

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious.”

“OK, how about being serious and helpful.”

He laughs; looks a little like a schoolboy as he enjoys his own humour. His eyes have done a lot of laughing. He pauses for a while, sits still on the couch while he regroups his thoughts.

This isn’t the easiest interview I’ve ever done.

It’s not the hardest either – that was when I was a guest on a show on BBC Radio Bristol.

“You see, I’m not sure this is going to work.”

“Why not?”

“You want to know things about me and I want to help, but the questions you want to ask aren’t the ones I want to answer.”

Infuriating. I sipped my cold hot drink and decided to play it his way.

“Why don’t you answer a couple of the questions you want and we’ll see where they lead us?”

He grins again.

“I like your style.” He pauses and gazes out of the window for a moment before continuing.

“I was expelled from two schools – well, one and a half really.”

“Tell me about the half.”

“They wrote to my mother at the end of my first year and suggested that it would be better for everyone if I didn’t return at the start of the next term.”

“Very diplomatic of them. What’s the next answer you want to give?”

“I joined the forces at sixteen because my mother threw me out of the house.”

I nodded, mentally willing him to give me some more information about this.

“I’ve been shot at, mortared and shelled on two continents.”

I scribbled away, praying that my notes would be legible later.

“When my daughter died I slipped in to a period of depression that lasted off and on for over twenty years.”

What do you say to that?

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, continued gazing out of the window for another handful of seconds then turned his eyes on me.

“I have never been so driven to write as I am now.”

"So it's easy for you, writing?"

"No, it's easy getting started though. The hard part is standing back and declaring a piece of work is finished. I don't think anything is ever truly finished. And finding good quality time to write... that's even more difficult.

"Can I ask another question?"

"No. I'm still answering the ones I want."

I sat still and quiet while he leaned back and shut his eyes. After a few moments he spoke again.

"I want to do some spoken work, narrate a couple of my short stories - or maybe even my novel."

"Why?"

"When I worked in Manchester there was a guy with a seeing-eye dog who caught the Metro most mornings. As soon as he sat down the guy would get out a Braille book and begin reading.

"Have you seen the size and bulk of a Braille novel?"

I shook my head.

"It would be so cool to put something on audio tape, CD or even an MP3-player that meant people didn't have to lug around Braille books the size of a briefcase."