Patrick has been a writer since childhood, working on school and college magazines, and creating publications where they did not exist already, before moving on to professional publications. He has also been obsessed with snow since a very young age.
One of his earliest paid jobs was writing for the fanzine of rock band The Strangers, for whom he also worked selling T shirts on a tour in 1982.
After his first book was published, Patrick attended Alsager College of Higher Education, now part of Manchester Metropolitan University and studied English and Writing (BA Hons).
On the second year of this course he organised a college ski trip to Aviemore in February 1986 where he met Sally, whom he married three years later.
They took a year out between their second and third years at college and lived in London where Patrick worked for The Skier magazine and an early personal computing title (see timeline). They then spent three months living on the remote Shetland island of Foula, located 20 miles west of the main island group.
After graduating in 1988 Patrick and Sally moved to the Scottish Highlands with no particular plans, but 30 years later having raised three sons and slowly got to grips with an eight acre plot of land (croft) they own, they’re still there, along with three ponies, hens, a cat, a dog and several hundred Christmas trees.
In the early 1990s Patrick and Sally also spend nine months in the NE of England taking higher degrees with Patrick gaining an MSc in Computer Based information Systems using his fledgling ski resort database as his main course project.
Patrick travels regularly and has now visited more than 250 ski areas around the world. He’d like to visit more warm destinations.
For full details of Patrick’s career history, please see the timeline.