I learned from books that I picked up. That was something that just came out of nowhere but continued to be an attraction. So there was a continuum of my interest in the arts and involvement in creating that was strong enough that it later blossomed into much more.

Going back to the elementary school days, I was always drawing. I entered a Victory poster competition and won the top award that recognized my artistic instincts.

I was there [in school] the full time with one teacher, and the student body was never more than 10 or 12 students of all ages.

One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn].

I've always been a keen cyclist, I'm very close to the world of cycling. Not just cycling really - also walking, adventures, being a curious person, traveling to new countries.

In a social studies class I did a paper on the history of Attica, which ended up being a little book that I created.

Many people look but they do not see.