John Thompson

I was born in the district of Eton in 1942, and spent a happy and carefree childhood in the rural setting of Old Windsor. After attending Windsor Grammar School, I went to the University of Aberdeen, graduating in 1965 with an Honours Degree in History. I followed this by reading for an M.A. in American History at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and happened to be in the United States when both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated – tempestuous times!

I taught at a private school in London on my return to the U.K., and eventually became side-tracked into Law, reading for an external degree from the University of London and then taking the Bar examinations in 1976. I spent the next two decades as a practising barrister.

I have always been a voracious reader, devouring many of the classics while still at junior school, and I can remember writing stories in my teenage years and reading them to my grandmother, who pretended to be suitably impressed. I have an abiding interest in the human psyche, having studied Psychology as a minor subject in my first degree, while twenty years of practice in divorce and criminal law exposed me to every aspect of the human mind!

I am a keen member of my local writing group, Llanelli Writers’ Circle, which provides excellent support and critical analysis. Over the last decade or so I have specialised mainly in short stories, and have won awards from the ‘National Association of Writers’ Groups’ and been short-listed several times in other competitions, notably those contained in ‘Writing Magazine’, which I would recommend to any aspiring writer.

From my early twenties I developed a keen interest in Hindu religion, (which no doubt led me to marry my Indian wife) and I would regard myself as a practising Hindu, while recognising that all the major religions teach in essence the same values. History shows, however, that religion can be perverted by mankind to justify various objectives, often resulting in acts of barbarity and genocide. On the smaller scale, charlatans may use religion in order to impose their will upon others, whether for sexual gratification, pecuniary reward, or simply the exercise of personal power – and in some cases all three!

This is the thrust of ‘The Brindavan Chronicle’, in which a charismatic man uses his charm to bend the will of others to his own purpose. The real interest in such a situation is not that the gullible and guileless can be taken in by such a man, but how they respond when they manage to see through the veil of delusion.