What happens when at the age of 46 you’re suddenly struck down by a mysterious illness? One day you’re fit and healthy. The next day you become seriously ill. You’ve no idea what’s happening to you. Your world is turned upside down. Furthermore no one, including your doctor, believes you. Your life and all that you know and love has to change. How can you accept that your life has to change? What sort of a life can you have now?

Thankfully, I've found a new life with a sense of purpose and fulfilment through my poetry. It has been a real pleasure and has helped me to express how I feel as well as that of many others who suffer the same as me. I’ve always loved poetry but didn’t really start writing poems until after I became ill with M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) in 2002. 

It’s important for me to continue writing about M.E. while there remains so much suffering, disbelief, terrible neglect, ignorance and poor diagnosis. I write such poems in order to increase awareness and better understanding.

At the same time I hope to raise funds for the charity Invest in ME Research. 

Invest in ME Research is an independent UK charity finding, funding and facilitating a strategy of biomedical research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME or ME/CFS).The charity is run by volunteers - patients or parents of children with ME - with no paid staff. Overheads are kept to a minimum and all funds raised to go to promoting education of, and funding for biomedical research into, ME. Our efforts are focused on setting up a UK Centre of Excellence for ME which will provide proper examinations, diagnosis and in time treatment(s)/cure(s).