Born in 1940 to a Jewish mother and an RAF officer father killed in action in 1943 with a DFC and an OBE, my life got off to an uncertain start.

In 1947 my mother married Toby Hildyard who became a career diplomat – uruguay, Spain, UN Geneva & New Tork, Mexico, and Chile. He was a fine man to whom I owe a great deal that is now of much use at my Substack.

Educated outside the standard English “public” (=private) schooling system, I did end up at Oxford University, studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics – the intellectual bedrock of all that followed.

Early attempts at conventional employment (banker, corporate planning executive, & management consultant) showed that I am totally useless at corporate careerism of all kinds, so I struck out on my own and for the rest of my working life have been my own boss – sometimes successfully, sometimes not so.

From its earliest days, the internet has been a dominant thread in everything I have done. Global Yacht was the world’s first on-line yacht charter agency; TRACS the UK’s first on-line management system for small retail businesses.

From the age of 12 right throughout my whole life yacht sailing has been a passion that has brought me more joy than anything other than Marie Christine – the incredible, brave, companion of my last ten years.

Sailing introduced me to solar energy, and led me to design and produce that allows yacht owners to turn on their water heater when there is enough solar energy available.

More recently we built and now live on the large houseboat of which images to the left. There is no mains power where we are moored, so our solar system makes us 100% off-grid with the addition of a generator for dark winter days. 

That experience led me to design and develop in partnerhsip with Jakir Hossain a series of web sites that present everything needed for a successful solar system instllation. Inevitably we focus on own-consimption and off-grid systems.

Much more recently, outraged and scared by what Donald Trump started to do as soon as he got his feet under the table, and at the prompting of my sister Elisabeth Luard, I created a Substack accoount and started writing ” A View from France”. Its sucess is a source of pride and no little surprise.