Geoff Warr was born in 1951. After spending an idyllic childhood in West Yorkshire, at the age of nine he moved with his family to Surrey. There, his experience of grammar school was fraught and academically unproductive. It was followed by a four-year gap during which he worked intermittently on building sites, in factories and as a refuse collector in order to finance extensive trips to Europe, the Middle East and the overland hippy trail from Turkey to India. At the age of 22, Geoff, who was by then married, enrolled as a mature student at the University of Leeds, where he graduated with a B.Ed. in 1977. His first job as a teacher was at a residential children's centre in County Durham. For the following 35 years he worked as a teacher, manager, principal, staff trainer and consultant at a variety of social work and special educational needs establishments. At the heart of this work with troubled teenagers was the challenge of trying to understand the fragmented stories of what had been going on in their lives and, if possible, nudge their narratives in a more positive direction. From the beginning of his career, Geoff was inspired by the idea that someone should write a book about this subject matter, and about the fact that there are times when the kids and staff can be not only touched but transformed by their mutual encounters. 'Alright Now' is Geoff's debut novel, and the first of the Jack Warren stories which tell these tales.
