Born in 1973 on the Isle of Wight, I spent my childhood playing in the Island’s fields and forests. Despite my idyllic upbringing, I started devising a means of escape from the lush beauty of my surroundings. At nineteen, and, after failing every exam life could throw at me, I fashioned a plan to escape.

Utilising a clever disguise involving a moustache, I purchased a ticket for a ferry bound for Portsmouth. Setting foot on the mainland to start my new life, I vowed never to look back; except for when I went home to visit my parents; or friends, or for a weekend break, or when I needed some washing done. But you get the point – I never looked back.

With my lucky penny, found at the bottom of a toilet, a dirt-covered feather, and lucky foot still attached to a rabbit called Charlie; I managed to squeeze a four-year degree programme into seven years.

But boredom is a tricky bedfellow, and undertaking non-linear math at Rolls Royce was a hard sell at parties. So, the wife and I put our home up for sale and headed South for some indoor plumbing; oddly, going South did feel like going downhill. Here, we swapped our detached house for a six-month stay a single room; because really, who doesn’t like to ditch everything and say, ‘Let’s start again, it’s bound to work.’ Anyway, after four years in that single room, things started to go downhill – only kidding, but this is becoming a war and peace rendition, so allow me to shorten the tale.

New house, three children and three jobs later, what do I have to show for it? The answer, everything: I have the best kind of wealth; the love of my wife and children and a roof over my head, honestly, what more is there. Life has been a blast, all of it has been a gift, I just haven’t always been wise enough to recognise it as such.

So here we are: three children and five jobs later … it’s been a blast and through it all I have been truly blessed to experience all that I have.