John Lynch was born in 1943 and brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne where he attended Heaton Grammar School from 1954 till 1961. He now lives in rural North Shropshire. Between those two British homes his career in international sales has taken him to every continent except Antarctica. Until a year ago he was employed full time by the American company Ennis-Flint as Sales Director for Africa and the Middle East; when he reached the age of 70 he decided to take a step back and for two years he worked 26 weeks a year covering the Middle East. That came to an end with his retirement in May 2015.
He is not, however, capable of sitting around doing nothing and now divides his time between his own creative writing, working as a freelance writer and writer for hire, and consulting and giving seminars on international sales.
He has been a writer for many years—in 1953 at the age of ten he stood on the stage in the assembly hall at Benton Park Primary School in Newcastle and read to the assembled pupils and their parents a story he had written. It still gives him pleasure to know that one of his classmates was nagged all the way home by his mother demanding, ‘Why can’t you write like John Lynch?’ You can listen to a 1983 recording of his short story, Bird, read on the BBC’s Morning Story by Heather Bell, here. He says of Bird, ‘my mother was impressed that her son’s story was on the radio, but not as impressed as she was by the fact that it was being read by Clarrie Grundy from The Archers.’ There have also been a number of published books, stories and articles; he says the one he enjoyed most was Managing the High Tech Salesforce. ‘People kept saying, “You write just like you talk” as though I had somehow cheated—they had no idea how hard it was to develop a style that give that (completely false) impression.’
John has published under other names in the past to keep separate his working and private lives, but now writes as R J Lynch and John Lynch. ‘The books I write as John Lynch are set in the present and meant to say something about Britain in the 21st century. As R J Lynch, I’m writing romance and detective stories and indulging my passion for history and the north east of England.’
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