BIOGRAPHY
(It's a big 'un so go and get a coffee ... a Malbec even better)
Writing and composing for The Arts is not Raymond's first career. Nor his second. Nor ... But it is the one that those others, Family-Creator, Architect, Writer, have all been leading towards, have been preparing for. Life does that whether you know it or not, tries to put the pieces together. It's a Zen thing. And yes, Family-Creator is totally a career. If you are very lucky you will never get to retire.
Raymond closed his Architectural Consultancy to concentrate on his twin loves of Music and Writing.
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In fact he retired from his career twice, the first time aged 29 reasoning that if you retire from something then it is no longer work, instead an interest that you then can have fun exploring and enjoying.
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And altogether that spanned over 50 years starting with a small firm in Birmingham, England, later moving in to Local Government there, afterward going on in to Private Practice until closing its doors almost 40 years later.
Alongside this Raymond wrote for popular UK housebuilding magazines for many years: design, construction and materials series, feature articles and more. Additionally he has sat on design panels, and also wrote a regular monthly column on aspects of the Housebuilding industry.
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He has travelled extensively in America through a 35 year association with the Housebuilding industry there, and has been featured in Forbes Magazine (US), The Sunday Times Lifestyle Magazine (UK), has appeared on Grand Designs (UK), has acted as Consultant to This Old House (US) on a featured UK project, and has been referenced in a UK Housing Industry research document.
And whilst all this was going on and helping to pay the mortgage and put clothes on the table and food on his Childrens' backs, he would always make time to write on an altogether different level ... for himself.
For example, with a Pilot's license and an earlier interest in vintage aircraft he has written for an aviation technical library, has reviewed airshows and fly-ins, and more beside.
Always the creative writer, for a number of years he split his time between his Architectural Consultancy and the TV studio where he was a Scriptwriter/Associate on the award-winning Childrens' Saturday and Sunday morning magazine programme "Number 73".
But it was always music that drew him the most. It was never really a question that with his love of Musical Theatre plus a constant noodling-around with one new song or another, he would have to follow a creative path in that direction.
So when Covid turned all the lights out Raymond concentrated on working-up MT projects and ideas to explore
whenever the dust might settle afterward, and feels
particularly privileged to have been a member of the cohort for China Plate Theatre's 'Optimists (2024)' course on the craft of producing.
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And after that?
Well, with Musical Theatre projects on this website's
CURRENT and PROJECTS pages moving forward with still more waiting to flow, and with his writing now further informed by a more intimate awarness of the real-life practicalities of getting Work on to the stage, "after-that" really shouldn't be a problem beyond actually finding enough hours in the sodding day!
Watch this space ...
