The son of a sex therapist and a sometime Dominican friar, Tom spent his early manhood in a desultory study of Fine Art and Philosophy at a cloistered university. He began his professional career with a number of false starts as a teacher, set designer, doublebass player, speechwriter, printer, toyshop manager, lyricist, wine waiter, City consultant, puppet maker, typographer, magazine editor, bandleader, portrait painter, radio reporter, cartoonist, and ghost writer for Cardinal Hume, before leaving the rat-race to spend more time with his slippers. Tom has written two acclaimed song books for children and his original ditty 'Pigs on Holiday' has been performed live, with actions, by Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein. He is a practising magician and member of the Magic Circle and in his spare time enjoys murdering Bach on the guitar.