I am Kevin Smith. Am I “the” Kevin Smith – the guy who filmed Clerks and Dogma? No, not him, but I am happy to take any misdirected glory and do have prior claims to the name, since I was born before he was. Am I bitter? There have always been Kevin Smiths around. Even at work, I had to be Kevin.J.Smith on the company’s email because another one happened to be registered before me. I used to get emails intended for them, about lubricants or drilling, which I would read as being more interesting than my usual finance stuff, then politely write back to the sender pointing out the error. However, this would not stop a small flurry of “Reply All” emails flooding in. Trickling in. As for getting a domain name…

I am now a person of independent means. This sounds better than “retired” or “pensioner”, though the truth is that in 2010 my company, Shell, paid me to go away a few years before my expected retirement date and gave me a sufficient pension that I didn’t have to find more work. In 2013 Diana and I moved to Cornwall, into the house previously owned by her parents and which we had maintained as a holiday let since inheriting it.

Now I write. There is a novel sequence that I started many years ago, put down while I had a family and career, and took up again just before I retired. The first book is written, but not published, yet (he says hopefully). The second is nearly finished. What has got in the way, now that the children have grown up and moved out, is the volunteer stuff I do in Wadebridge. Rotary, WREN (the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network), Bowling Club and Creative Hub, all take time, some of which is also spent writing: press releases, social media updates and other things.

Our daughters, as alluded to, are grown up. Eleanor has a post-doc job at Oxford University researching the structure of proteins, a husband Joe and a daughter Sam. We have a granddaughter! Tris is also married, to Emily, and works in the mental health field in Oxford.

My blog is a public diary, open to family and friends. It’s open to everyone else as well, but I haven’t been overwhelmed by unrelated readers…

Updated 30th April 2020