A bit about me

It feels strange but pleasing to call this page 'Peter Lihou, Author'. I've spent most of my working life in business and all the people who've got to know me as the man in a suit, may be wondering if I was a closet author all those years.

I'm the ripe old age of 59 now so we are talking about a lot of years - 43 to be exact, since I left my secondary school in Guernsey with pretty average grade CSEs (that's right, no GCSEs in those days and I wasn't really bright enough for 'O' Levels) and started my first full time job at Tektronix Ltd. There wasn't a pay grade for an unskilled chap like me so I was officially classed as a 'female unit wirer' in the electronics factory. Still I got over £6 a week so not all bad.

It was actually a great place to work but I didn't really appreciate it. Must have been something to do with the fact I was 16 years old and it was 1966.

Sorry about the cliche but I really don't remember much about the sixties other than the fact I was part of it, so I won't try to reminisce.

When I look back now at old photos of my childhood, I feel like I'm in a history lesson. All black and white with faded edges and 'Just William' clothing. The days before colour TV, computers and the internet. So as it all started to happen, I was fascinated with technology (except we just called it science at my school and I always liked science because the science teacher also ran the sailing club) and if I had been a bit - no a lot - more mature I would have made that my career. Instead I was one of those people who blagged his way through different jobs with spells doing bizarre things like going down wells to fix pumps, up ladders to fix chimneys, selling Hi Fi in Tottenham Court Road, driving a removals lorry, pretending to be an electrician (well, unit wirer in electronics factory seemed close enough) and so on.

In amongst all these distractions I managed to find myself a wife and together we have raised 4 smashing young people who for some reason are still willing to speak to me. We've worked and lived around the bottom bit of the UK before making tracks back to the old ancestral home here in Guernsey.

Then there was The Open University, what an absolutely fantastic organisation. I was a bit of a male equivalent to Rita in education terms at least and when I began studying 'Science and Belief from Copernicus to Darwin' ...wow! I was too late to enrol for the Science Foundation Course when I decided to have a go so my Honours Degree in Science took a somewhat convoluted path including Psychology and Complexity Management. That's what I call a university!

The career (I sometimes like to call it that, you know as if it was all part of a master plan) took off a bit when a company I started and was running - pretty badly - gave up the ghost. It seems you are expected to learn much more from failure than success so I was immediately snapped up for a consulting role and yes like most consultants ended up in sales and sales management. That did pay remarkably well and I suppose I must have been reasonably good at it so I stayed with just 2 companies for nearly 15 years.

So here I am now still doing my sales management bit but somewhere along the road a book popped out. I'm rather hoping it's the first of many and my ticket to a comfortable retirement.

There is a link to 'Rachel's Shoe' above. You can purchase a copy from that site for delivery anywhere in the world and there is also a list of local bookshops.