Geoff Jones grew up in a mining village in South Wales, but his teaching profession placed him on the outskirts of London & Birmingham, England. It was during the latter years of his career he began to write; poetry at first & then prose in the form of a childhood memoir: 'The Next Valley Over'. Much of his poetry reflects his nostalgia for Wales but also, with the advent of mine, steelworks & factory closures, a sadness at the way his valley has declined in prosperity over the past 50 years. He now lives in Tamworth, Staffordshire, coincidentally above an old coal mine. The town is the old capital of Mercia whose king Offa, built a dyke of some 170 miles down the whole eastern border of Wales to keep the Welsh from invading England; a dismal failure considering the number of Welsh people who now inhabit Tamworth! An early retirement gave him the opportunity to take an M.A. in Creative Writing. The skills & experience gained, enables him to teach Life Story Writing and Writing Popular Fiction classes to adult education students at Keele & Warwick Universities. At present he is engaged in writing a historical novel based on the social injustices of his home village in the 19th Century. On completion he intends to carry on with his memoir mapping out his social & career experiences in the London Borough of Barking, Essex during the Sixties. The autobiography will move up to the English West Midlands where a tremendous personal shock awaited him.