When he retired after teaching for many years in secondary schools in England, he started to write poetry. In 2011 he won a poetry competition organised by Writers Forum and HappenStance; his prize was the publication in August 2014 of his pamphlet, ‘The Third Miss Keane’. In 2015, he won a Northern Writers’ Award as one of six New North Poets. In 2016, one of his poems, ‘Black’, was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition.