RP Monk

RP Monk is Robert Patrick Monk. He was born on 17 March 1952 in Wednesfield, Wolverhampton, the second son of George, who worked at the Boulton & Paul aircraft factory, and Margaret, "Maggie Monk" to his schoolfriends. Arriving on St Patrick's Day earned him his middle name, which suited a boy whose favourite colour was always green.

He grew up on a new council estate on the northern edge of the town, with a playing field, a canal and a little grass-runway airport at the bottom of the street. At eleven he heard The Beatles on a classmate's transistor radio, and for his twelfth birthday his mother bought him the guitar his father had refused. Like most of his generation he learned by ear, working out Hank Marvin, George Harrison and later Rory Gallagher from the records.

After A-levels that didn't go to plan and a year at Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, he became a research technician in the biochemistry department at the University of Birmingham, earning an HNC in Applied Biology with merit on day release. In 1977 he moved into technical sales, first with Sterilin and then with the MSE centrifuge company, where his biggest deal covered more than a hundred centrifuges for Nottingham's medical school and hospital.

At night, he played. Between 1972 and 1980 he was the guitarist, and often a singer, in six Birmingham bands, gigging at The Railway, Barbarella's and student unions up and down the country. His band Video signed to Logo Records in 1979. In 1985 he and his friend Steve passed an audition for Club Méditerranée as a duo, and spent two seasons as entertainers, at Gregolimano in Greece and on Farukolufushi in the Maldives.

That is where Book One ends. Book Two follows him through seventeen years living outside the UK: a national sales and marketing manager in Australia, then an English school owner and teacher in Japan. Back in Britain he taught English to speakers of other languages, and today he is a full-time musician in Spain, still playing guitar, singing, and writing and recording his own songs.