Ian Paterson Oliver

I have been a writer all my life, it would seem, and became a professional writer when I joined the oil company, Aramco, in Saudi Arabia in 1980. Prior to that, I studied mechanical engineering at technical college, did a 5-year engineering apprenticeship and worked as a mechanical engineering trainer before going abroad. Overseas, I was given the opportunity to develop my technical writing skills and have been developing them ever since in one form or another. Since then I have held down technical writing, editing, designing and other publications-related jobs, all within the energy industries including as far afield as S.E. Asia, throughout the Middle East, Canada, North and West Africa, Azerbaijan and, of course, the UK. I also edit and write CVs. At publishing level, I had my first book, Buddhism in Britain, published in 1979. It can still be bought on Amazon, eBay, etc. Since then I have written many stories, maintained an expat blog (up until 2017), written a book about my working life in Indonesia in the 80s, and other stuff. My Delayed Reaction, a book of short stories with stings in the tale, was published in 2015 and last year, my non-definitive book Me, Myself and Everything Else was published. This book is about all things and everything, mostly my thoughts and reflections on life: home, abroad, politics, economics, some fictional stories, a crossword puzzle and much else.