Phil Tittensor - Bio.

Hi to friends both new and old. Welcome to my 'creative' website.


Although I have been the author of numerous non-fiction articles, I have, for many years, wanted to write a work of fiction. This website is largely devoted to my first project, 'The Nubian Quest'. The book was inspired by a backpacking adventure in Egypt, married to an idea that had been in my subconscious for many years. The Nubian Quest page tells a little of the book's story, from conception to finished work. I hope it may provide some inspiration for those of us who are sure we have a book in us, but never seem to be able to commit the idea to paper (or a hard drive). My blog is intended to chart a contemporaneous voyage to what I hope will be my first fictional publication. I'm just at the start of that particular journey, which I'm sure will be laden with set backs before the book arrives in print or on your kindle! Self publishing or via a literary agent? Hmm, I wonder. Still, I digress, this is supposed to be the page that tells you about me, so here goes.

I'd like to think I'm still a thirty-something, but sadly the calendar disagrees! I'm married to Sarah, a beautiful, intelligent and supportive girl (is that a pc term at forty?) who is my absolute rock. I have a son, James, who like most eleven year olds is interested in almost everything except what Dad is doing on the computer. He did 'borrow' a few sentences of an early chapter for school homework once, so I guess that's a start. Despite the advancing years, I still try to play squash twice a week with a great bunch of lads, most of whom I've known for many years. I also live for travel - never happier than with a backpack and a vague idea of the eventual destination. 

It's fair to say that James has been much more interested in my teens and twenties hobby of music. I played guitar & wrote in a couple of local bands; great fun, but we were never going to embark on a world tour in support of Deep Purple! Still, my exploits have piqued enough interest to start him on drums, and he's pretty good, though I accept an obvious charge of bias.

My career, from the age of eighteen, has been exclusively in nursing. I trained in one of the United Kingdom's last surviving, NHS run, learning disability hospitals, and qualified as a nurse for people with learning disabilities in 1990. There were many stories from that time, and a day in the hospital archives researching a case study for an assignment, brought life in the old institution from fifty years previously, back into vivid focus. Material for a book even... I spent the next ten years working in the resettlement programme for people who had, in many cases, spent most of their lives at the hospital. 

In 2000, I left learning disability nursing to become an epilepsy specialist nurse. I hold a masters degree in epileptology and am currently the Lead Epilepsy Nurse for the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. I took on the role of chair of the Epilepsy Nurses Association (ESNA) in March 2015, and for the last seven years have been co-editor of the journal 'Epilepsy Care'. I also run a company with Sarah specialising in healthcare related, and particularly epilepsy, training for carers (www.traininginepilepsy.co.uk).

So why, with all that going on, try to start a second career in something as demanding as writing? I could say because playing with words is fun, and it's true. It's also therapeutic, after the stresses of the day job, to sit and do something very different. Then there's the old adage, 'if you want something doing, give it to a busy man'!