My name is Alf Wood.  I was born in 1948 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Now living in New Zealand, I’m a proud Kiwi.  My wife, our youngest son and I immigrated to New Zealand in November 2000.  We did not leave SA because of the politics as so many of our compatriots did but because of the high crime rate. We needed a safer environment for our youngest son and of course, ourselves.  My wife, Irene’s grandfather was a Kiwi, so we were able to obtain NZ citizenship.

I have three sons and two grandchildren. My eldest son Brad and his lovely wife, Denise, our grandson Ethan and granddaughter Juliet, live in the UK so we seldom get to see them (thank goodness for the internet). My second-born son, Darren immigrated to NZ about a year after us. He is a web developer in Auckland and has lectured on the subject at a design college in Auckland and has been a guest speaker at a number of web development conferences both here and in Australia. Darren is married to a lovely Kiwi girl, Amanda, and they are now living in  Auckland.  My youngest son, Evan, graduated in May 2010 from Auckland University with a BA majoring in linguistics and Chinese. He did a post graduate diploma in language teaching and won a scholarship to study Chinese at  the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou China, he spent a year there and returned to NZ in Feb 2012.  Irene and I have been happily married since 1972.

I have diplomas in business management, marketing management and industrial relations. I also have a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language (CerTefl) and was an ESOL and IELTS tutor for 4 years. Currently, I’m the Systems Manager for an engineering company north of Auckland.

My passion for writing started when I began writing newsletters from New Zealand to friends and family in SA and around the world.  I enjoyed writing so much that I did a creative writing course in the evenings at an adult education centre and then another more advance writing course held by Auckland University.