This page is one of the original pages first created twenty years ago. The whole site is currently undergoing a major overhaul and update, so my apologies if links sometimes don't!

Updated 21st April, 2012 for minor editorial changes.

HOME  |  BIOGRAPHY  |  CREATIVITY  |  HAZEL TREE PRESS | BURNT-OUT ENDS

Introduction
'And one man in his time plays many parts' As You Like It Act 2 Scene 7

Business
Printing, publishing, web site design and company management 
I am a printer by training. An editor, designer, publicist and publisher by experience. I provide editorial, technical and marketing services to authors, printers and publishers, both conventionally and digitally on paper; in electronic form; and also on the web.

Having worked my apprenticeship in production management through jobbing, periodical and book houses into international publishing, publicity and promotion. I have spent the latter years as a freelance consultant and project management specialist. Finally, I have managed to cultivate projects around my desire to catch-back on my earlier years of lost opportunities, to refocus on artistic creativity.

For commercial creativity The Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, The Town Hall Trust, Berkhamsted Town Council and Drifters News Reports, a consortium of some of the leading, award-winning UK canal boat hiring companies, are just some of the web sites I have created.

I have also been a university lecturer in Publishing Design and Information Presentation.

Original and Creative
While the day job was never given up, writing projects have been diverse but have been halted by a sequence of family and personal ill health. Past work of substance remains  Gone Fishing!, a first collection of poetry, ignoring contributions to general freelance journalism to a variety of trade and professional magazines and 'letters to the press' on diverse subjects. 

PPE—Politics, Philosophy and Economics
It was my philosophy on life, as expressed by Donne ('no man is an island...'), that led me to stand for election to the town council as an Independent (1995–1999). I served two years as Town Mayor (1996–1998) and was also on the executive committee of the Hertfordshire Association of Local Councils. The same desire to be more involved in life caused me to stand in the 1997 General Election as a Referendum Party candidate.

More detail was found in my 'Weekly Comment', which has been relegated to the archives due to other activities. I use Facebook and Twitter but they, especially Twitter, are for instantaneous comments 'on the hoof', not for musing aloud 'in the saddle'. Whether or not any of my creativity deserves the wider world, everything nowadays starts digitally, or has to go through that stage, so I may as well open myself up here and discover what is worth showing.

'Burnt Out Ends', derived from that lovely line of Eliot's '... the burnt out ends of smoky days...'  is a page of whimsy, that meets somewhere across philosophy, social observation and hopefully a little spirituality.

From this introduction you may well draw the conclusion that I do not like compartments in my life: there is but one compartment—life itself. For which reason I am the one 'passer-by-in-the-street' the bearers of marketing questionnaires wish they hadn't stopped!

Recreational and Social
A common title in any CV, yet an odd and defeatist one! It implies that the rest of our life is not fun. That we are not happy in our work. That we are not sociable in our everyday living. Certainly, I am reclusive when engaged in a major project. In such circumstances I neither know nor care the hour of the day, nor the day of the week. I rudely rebuff interruption until a natural break calls a halt, for a breather or re-appraisal.

At other times, I have been an actor and producer and worked behind the scenes in amateur theatre: Watford College of Technology (now a campus of Hertfordshire University), The Company of Ten (Abbey Theatre, St Albans) and the Open-Air Shakespeare Festival at Pendley Manor, Tring. I also give poetry readings and speak on a wide range of subjects.

Then there is travel, extensive and diverse reading and simply 'being'. In conclusion, the words of W H Davies, in his poem 'Leisure' would sum up this section well.

'What is this life if, full of care,
We have not time to stand and stare.'

© Peter Such 2002—2012, except quotations cited, which are assumed to be the copyright of the authors stated, or their estates, and which are quoted in the belief that such quotation meets the requirements of fair presentation, critique or discussion.