stuartaken.co.uk

About The Author

Stuart Aken's books on Goodreads

Breaking Faith
reviews: 2
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Avril Field Taylor’s interview of Stuart Aken as displayed on the Max Boyce page of a comedy movie site, Arthemia.

Stuart Aken is a pen name; I prefer my words to make an impression.

The following might explain what made me the sort of writer I am.

Born in Hull, England, in 1948, three weeks after the death of my father, Ken. My mother, May, was evicted from her home as it was tied to Ken’s job as a motor mechanic, so I was born in a neighbour’s house. The midwife expected May’s grief and shock to cause me to be stillborn, so she abandoned her early in labour to attend another mother. In a bizarre co-incidence, my future stepfather, Bert, and his then wife helped deliver me. Days after the birth, May took me and my sister to live with her parents in a council house already crowded with her younger siblings.

May married Bert when I was five and, shortly afterwards, the family moved to Hornsea, where we lived in various homes, including a caravan and a converted railway wagon, perched on its wheels, on the cliff top.

I enjoyed a blissful childhood and always felt loved. But I didn’t enjoy my education at Hessle High School, where I disliked their insistence on cramming facts rather than opening young minds to possibilities. The exception was my English teacher, Stella Kelsall, who encouraged my love of reading and self-expression. It was here that I had my first success as a writer, winning the Redfearn Cup for an essay when I was 14.

May’s death in a car accident, two days after my sixteenth birthday and just before I took ‘O’ levels, meant I left school with few qualifications.

Grieving, I left home to join the Royal Air Force as a photographer. The discipline of the first year served me well; certainly, the physical activity, boxing and rugby training, and abundant food turned a seven stone weakling into a strong and fit young man. Recognising I had made a mistake in joining the forces, I left a few years later.

I returned to East Yorkshire, and worked as a colour printer at an aircraft factory and then a graphics technician at the local art college. I married Val, my childhood sweetheart, and moved to Colchester as a press photographer. Val found work as a teacher in the town. Disenchanted by sensationalism of local news stories, I left the paper to work as a freelance. The flat we occupied was on a farm and I enhanced my income by labouring on the land. During this spell, I started to write fiction as well as the factual photographic articles I’d had published in magazines such as Amatuer Photographer and Photography.

I entered a playwriting contest run by the Radio Times, took 3rd place and had my play, Hitch Hiker, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. They commissioned a second play but the producer left for pastures new and the project was abandoned. A literary agent thought I had talent and encouraged me to write plays for radio and television but, after a number of near misses, I eventually abandoned this activity. The short freelance spell ended when security of tenure was lost at the farm and I needed employment to get a mortgage.

I managed a shop until the company decided to sell shotguns and crossbows; a trade I couldn’t support. I took a job selling photographic goods and printing services to shops in East Anglia and East London. Although relatively successful, lying to gain orders was a problem and, after a year, I joined the civil service, working for the Employment Service in many roles.

Domestic life and various other factors, including a lengthy spell of serious illness, had curtailed my writing for a few years. I grew apart from Val and, after eighteen years of marriage, left the marital home to her.

I met my second wife, Valerie, (yes, really) on a training course, Managing Change, and we fell in love on sight. Happy with my new love, I resumed my writing around this time, penning some short stories and winning a few competition prizes.

I worked in the holiday cottage industry after we moved to Settle in the the Yorkshire Dales. Just prior to the Millennium celebrations, I was made redundant along with several of my coworkers. I found a job, in a Comet call centre in Hull, and moved back to East Yorkshire.

Valerie and I have a daughter, Kate, of whom we are prodigiously proud. I currently live as a happily married man in a small market town, working part time for the local authority.

A spell of ME/CFS , which caused the need for part time employment, seemed to stabilise after four years, towards the end of 2006. Of course, this complaint never really goes away and I still have relapses; a lengthy one started in February 2009 and is slowly declining.

Several of my short stories have been published and you can read some free on this site. My re-worked novel, Breaking Faith, is published under the auspices of the Arts Council sponsored website, www.YouWriteOn.com. Please buy and read it.

I am currently writing short stories and working on a fantasy novel for which I am now seeking publishers.

Please use the email link below to contact me:

stuart@stuartaken.co.uk