William Peskett
I'm always looking for new forms for my writing. Over the years I've published fiction long and short, essays, poems and light verse and enjoyed working with every medium. If there's one thing that I hope these books have in common, it's humour. I hope you have as good a time reading my books as I had when writing them.
Best sellers
This collection of my short stories about Thailand was chosen by my old friend and noted literary editor Robert Johnstone. The eighteen tales are drawn from all four of my story collections. In his introduction, Johnstone writes: "these stories examine many different aspects (not just that of intermarriage) of the various forms of love affair that spring up between Thailand, its people, its culture and its environment, and those who have come to know it."
Short stories
There was once an arch over the road into Pattaya that welcomed you to 'The Extreme City'. Some visitors find this a bit of an under-statement. Everything in Pattaya is taken to the limit - the spicy food, the dangerous driving, the mysteries of Thai logic and, of course, the fun. This lively book of essays looks at life in Thailand's laid-back city through the eyes of an innocent foreigner lost in wonderment - Kuhn Pobaan, whose name translates as something like 'Mr Househusband'.
Essays
Human Bloom is a new selection of sonnets that compare the rapid success of human development with an algal bloom - that sudden expansion of algae in response to an unusual availability of nutrients. Most of the sonnets are taken from previous collections, some amended, but with the addition of much new material.
Poems
Of all my books, this is a personal favourite. It's the story told by Alex Duvall, an ordinary schoolgirl, and her struggle to be noticeable. With an older brother who is set for Olympic glory as a swimmer and a younger brother who is emerging as a Latin genius, Alex is the middle child and apt to be ignored. With parents who just don't get it, often, it seems she's the only one in her family who feels a responsibility to hold it together.
Novels
My academic interests were strongly scientific, so I went up to Christ's College, Cambridge to read zoology. Not very sure what I was going to do next, I tried my hand at teaching, which I did in a wonderful school in Suffolk. I taught biology. It was good being young because I could still remember the biology I'd been taught at school and university. Now I'm old, I think I'd make a better teacher than I was in those days – better organised and more systematic. However, I've forgotten most of the biology, so the kids would continually catch me out.
Very little of this is recorded in photographs. People rarely take pictures of me except on holiday, as you can see, and even then I have to ask. After journalism, I went into business – actually in the City of London – first as a marketer for the accounting firm KPMG (some of my best friends are accountants) and then by starting up a design, editorial and communications company.
Running your own company is the best fun you can have in business when times are good. The prospect of all that money being stuffed through the letterbox makes you leap out of bed with glee in anticipation of another day at the entrepreneurial coal-face. But when times are bad, none of this is true. We had our ups and downs with the company, roughly in line with the boom-and-bust economy of which we discovered we were a part. However, we always managed to find some fun in it.
The very day after I retired, my wife and I were on a plane to Thailand. Seriously; it was the next day. Here, we have a modest bungalow on a slight slope above the sea in Pattaya, on the east coast. I wish I could say the photo was of our household pet, perhaps scaled down a little. If elephants didn't exist it would be essential, but not credible, to invent them. You should observe closely what they can do with their noses.
Wandering around in a state of advanced bemusement, not quite knowing what anyone's saying or what's going on, is what foreigners generally do here. Sometimes they 'go native' and dress up in what they convince themselves is traditional Thai garb to have their photos taken. It's a mystery why anyone would do this. That necklace, I recall, was made of plastic, but traditions have to start somewhere. If you thrive on mystery, you'd thrive here.
This is more or less what I look like now, though this isn't how I usually dress. When I look significantly older, I'll post a new picture. And by 'significantly' I mean what I consider to mean 'significantly'.
A BRIEF AUTOBiography
William Peskett
I was born in Cambridge, England but moved at an early age to Belfast in Northern Ireland where I went to school and did as much growing up as I was to achieve in most of my lifetime.
Belfast was a great place to be a writer – or, indeed, any kind of artist – in those days. The circle of like-minded people was small and enthusiastic and there were local institutions, such as the BBC, that encouraged young authors. A young writer seemed a good thing to be, so I began writing poems.
I couldn't really see myself being a teacher forever, so after a decent number of years I moved to London and became a researcher, writer and editor on Which? magazine, a unique institution which, in those days at least, was run by a smart and stimulating set of people. I spent my days testing things like electric drills. Once I wrote an article about wood, the first line of which I stole from the magazine's previous article about wood. I thought it couldn't be improved, so I copied it across word for word. The sentence was: 'Wood comes from trees.' My future as a communicator was assured.
Thinking I might have just one more job in me before I could decently retire, I joined Diageo, the huge drinks company, just to see what it would be like to do real work for a living. I met some wonderful people there – skilled, professional and up for a laugh, which has to be all you need. Working for Diageo was the most fun you can have without a drink in your hand. Occasionally, I did both simultaneously. The company is – to borrow a word commonly used the public relations department – global, which means that practically everyone in the world who drinks, drinks its products. Consenting adults, anyway. This provided me with copious opportunities for travel, particularly to Africa and Asia, which is one of the aspects of the job for which I am most grateful. I was of course sorry to go, but my retirement dream beckoned. This is a rare non-holiday photo.
That's the seaside resort of Pattaya you can just see in the background. This extraordinary town, and other bits of Thailand, now form the backdrop, and sometimes the foreground, of the essays, novels, short stories and verse I have been writing since coming here. Thailand has a fascinating culture that I do not begin to understand, but I'm hoping that that can be a good thing.
