For 20 years I worked for BBC Radio 4, At various times I presented ‘Sunday’ and ‘Does he take sugar?’ I was the BBC Religious Affairs Correspondent and a regular member of the ‘World at One’ and ‘World Tonight’ reporting team.

Then, working with my daughter Caroline Gilson, I was a television producer/director. We made programmes for all the main UK channels - including the long-running series 'Redcoats' for ITV and the award-winning 'Elvis and the Presleytarians' for BBC 1. We also made the children’s animation series ‘Wise and Wonderful’ with The Unst Animation Studio for Channel FIVE.

At the same time I have been a writer, having had 25 books published to date. They cover a wide range: theology, biography, fiction, even Elvis! I also contribute regularly to The Church Times and Fortean Times and have written articles for several national publications including The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, The Spectator, The Tablet and The New Statesman.

Running in parallel with all this I am a cartoonist and caricaturist. I started out drawing unflattering pictures of teachers at school. As a university student I began to see my work in print and over the last 50 years my work has appeared in a wide range of publications including The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, The People, The Scotsman and The Sunday Express. I have drawn for BBC television programmes and I have illustrated several books, most recently Richard Coles’ two bestsellers about ‘Improbable Saints’.

Miscellaneous facts about my life include once having held the Guinness world record for the longest after dinner speech; having had a successful kidney transplant 31 years ago; being awarded a PhD in theology for my research into the intriguing phenomena of stigmata; and currently struggling to learn welsh!

I began focusing on my work as an artist fifteen years ago when I studied for an MA in Fine Art at The University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury. I was keen to find ways that explored the mysteries of life that did not rely on language. I had come to realise that when asking the big questions about the purpose of life, human language, even religious language, seemed very inadequate. I was attracted by contemporary art in that it sanctioned a new kind of artistic freedom - and permitted the artist to use the widest range of media.

Disappointingly I found current art theory to be far too focussed on recent European philosophers, who treated art as a branch of the social sciences and were also excruciatingly convoluted in their writings. However I was encouraged by finding this quote: ‘An artist needs philosophy like a bat needs spectacles.’

I became determined to plough my own furrow and explore art through the experience of creating it.