Alan Lawton was born in 1938 in the Pennine village of Micklehurst. He was educated in a small secondary modern school and left without qualifications of any sort. As a youth he worked in the farming and textile industries before serving in the RAF Regiment. Alan moved to the Isle of Man in 1962 and was largely engaged in agriculture until the early 1970's when he entered the construction industry as a common labourer and began a long programme of self improvement. He subsequently qualified as a bricklayer and graduated from the Open University with a good honours degree. He later undertook research for a Liverpool University history project and also compiled family histories. He became interested in creative writing at an early age and won the Olive Lamming short story competition for 1979. He now lives in quiet retirement with Hilary his long time partner and occupies himself with writing, light gardening and doing the cooking.
