Patrick Gale
He has never had a grown-up job. For three years he lived at a succession of addresses, from a Notting Hill bedsit to a crumbling French chateau. While working on his first novels he eked out his slender income with odd jobs; as a typist, a singing waiter, a designer’s secretary, a ghost-writer for an encyclopedia of the musical and, increasingly, as a book reviewer. His first two novels, The Aerodynamics of Pork and Ease were published by Abacus on the same day in June 1986. The following year he moved to Camelford near the north coast of Cornwall and began a love affair with the county that has fed his work ever since. He now lives in the far west, on a farm near Land’s End, with his husband, the sculptor-farmer Aidan Hicks. There they raise beef cattle and grow barley. Patrick is obsessed with the garden they have created in what must be one of England’s windiest sites and which includes England’s westernmost walled rose garden, and he deeply resents the time his writing makes him spend away from working in it. You can book to visit it with a small group most summers. Just search for Trevilley on the NGS website or simply click here for the essential details if the NGS website is not yet live for the coming season.. As well as gardening, he plays both the modern and baroque cello. He is artistic director of the North Cornwall Book Festival, patron of Penzance LitFest and the Charles Causley Trust and a founder director of the arts charity Endelienta. His chief extravagance in life is opera tickets.
