In 1956 after a lack-luster scholastic performance at Moose Jaw Central Collegiate I enlisted in the Canadian Army as a piper destined for the Black Watch of Canada. Things didn't work out that way, however, and after what one Colonel described as "an astoundingly chequered career" I emerged from Camp Borden, Ontario, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps with a B.A. in English and History from the University of Saskatchewan. Along the way I had worked as a labourer, a steamfitter's helper, a hardware clerk, an apprentice switchman, a cook, a drumming instructor, a Petroleum Engineering student at Oklahoma University, a tank gunner, and a Social Worker.

Eventually I settled upon a teaching career beginning in Calgary at the Strathcona School for Boys and ending thirty rewarding years later at A.E. Peacock High School in Moose Jaw. During these years, although I devoted much of my free time to piping, my interest in history did not wane, and I compiled a "History of Piping" to be used at the Summer Schools. This mega-project completed (but unpublished) somehow led to a history of Moose Jaw's famous "Suicide Battalion" of the First World War, and a string of books, pamphlets, and articles dealing with piping and History. Two articles published in Readers Digest were nominated for national literary awards.

In 1993 I began a new career as a retiree in Cloverdale, B.C., where I maintain my enthusiasm for history and writing.