Our personalities are formed when we are children and go on to develop in puberty. The experiences we have as a child form the core of our personality, which we carry on into adulthood. Instinct, emotions and intellect are the tools we use to shape our view of reality.

I always knew from an early age that my view of the world wasn't conventional, well I'd had it pointed out to me enough times, so I was pretty sure. I was a little disruptive in class, mostly bored with the subject matter and only excelled on the practical side. I suppressed my intellect as a defense, some called it my argumentative side. I became withdrawn inwardly, whilst outwardly maintaining my natural happy go lucky persona.

Getting out from under my parents feet, dealing with the turmoil of school wasn't easy, so I went fishing. It became my special place where I could process things, take a breath and move on. When you find that kind of solace you can spend an awful lot of that time thinking, but you never necessarily work everything out.
I moved into adulthood, work, three wonderful children, life, building as I went, but as I went I carried with me the unresolved trauma of my formative years. My happy go lucky disposition carried me through but I always knew I was repressing key factors that I needed to deal with and process.

The years passed, I’d become a single parent, studied at university for my BSc in computer science, left behind manual work and became a software engineer. I’d built my life back up again. But still the feelings that had caused me issues in the past remained. I’d always liked myself enough because of the initial reaction most people gave, and the strong friendships I had formed. However I also knew that I was not everyone's, cup of tea all of the time. This led me to navigate life more carefully, however I was always critical of myself, "I was a fraud and I couldn't pull it off". If I could have seen and heard myself then perhaps I would have disagreed.

When I started to film in 2007 I had no idea what I was doing. What I mean to say is that I had not thought it through, I had no plan, no rules, no agenda, so it was just me. As I became more accustomed to pointing the camera at myself, realising I had an audience and talking to them, I became more relaxed and my true inner self came out. It had always been there, many others had seen it but now, I could see it also.

Over the next year or so TheCarpCatcher community grew and I felt a belonging that I had looked for ever since I could remember. How amazing to be regarded so much for just being you and to have people enjoying what you do, and the style you do it in. To be able to engage so much and with so many people. I guess this was the affirmation that I needed about myself. The good thing about fishing and life though is that it’s unpredictable, which grounds you.

Over the next fifteen years I received a number of emails from people telling me about their lives and their tragedies. Some heart-rending stuff, but always ending with how my films gave them solace and hope, got them back into fishing and how that helped them heal. Some would just put my films on in the background, my voice a simple comfort to them.

I suddenly realised that my life experiences, my feelings, affected everything in my films. Somehow I was connecting and helping others to heal like I was. From just the quick fishing fix needed at the end of a long day to something much deeper.
Those fifteen years I spent making over 500 films, writing magazine articles, answering hundreds of emails and thousands of comments saved me, I found myself, it gave me purpose, it let me look from outside myself, find my center and reconcile long repressed feelings.

Fishing gave me my life, the one I wanted and helped me through the one I wasn't so keen on, it sustained me, it still does. Filming opened me up and revealed the inside of me, made me honest and whole.

As Alan Watts the philosopher once said “What do you desire, what makes you itch”, “How would you really enjoy spending the rest of your life”, “Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way”, “and so therefore it’s so important to consider the question, what do I desire”.